![]() ![]() I started learning piano at age five and continued off an on until fourteen. Music has always played a big role in my life. I had to pick between improving on my photography, coding a simple game, learning German at a grade school level, learning sewing enough to fix things, etc… but I decided on learning to play ukulele. So picking which one to focus on was a somewhat difficult task. When I was first introduced to the ten hour project I immediately thought of half a dozen things that I would love to learn or improve upon. I will continue practicing and becoming more proficient on the ukulele. ![]() The project even pushed me to finish learning the song I started on piano four years ago. It brought back some of my passion for music and reminded me the thrill of learning a new instrument. I set out to become competent on the ukulele and to push me to learn more instruments. Overall I would say that this project is a success. This is something I actually want to perfect, as a personal project and a continuation of this project. The main theme is hauntingly beautiful and I found a ukulele rendition of it on YouTube. I then decided to learn a more complicated fingerpicking song, Gustavo Santaolalla’s “The Last of Us”. That worked well and I got carried away so I started adding some percussion. I was just trying to figure out what chord works well after the last. I decided that I would not count time strictly focused on writing the song as apart of the project, because I was not practicing a number chords or fingerpicking. I even got carried away and started making a melody. All frets were open, it’s slow, and I added a simple chord progression in between. ![]() The song I initially picked out was above my level so I decided to write my own song. I found the thumb the hardest, and the most painful. I decided to try my hand at fingerpicking. I had to add something new to this project. I had reached a beginner’s level of competence with the ukulele and I still had a few hours left on the Ten Hour Project. Or the other chords that required one chord to press down on multiple frets. The most annoying to play being Bb, Bm, and B. I wouldn’t say that I had mastered the chords, because really the difficulty is mostly in switching from chord-to-chord, but I soon had all of the chords down with reasonable comfort. So I kept at it working my way through each chord. It was rather easy to continue my project at home. This technique worked wonderfully, then spring break and quarantine happened. My goal was not to perfect my playing of these songs but to simply use them to better learn the chords. So I picked out “Sea of Love” specifically the acoustic cover by Cat Power, not the brass-based original version by Phil Phillips. I started with a slower song, something that would make changing chords easy. The next daunting assignment was to find songs with chords I was trying to learn and with easy enough chord progressions. It made learning an instrument fun again and it was good to know that I was on the right path. She suggested I learn the chord progressions to easy(ish) songs as a means in learning all the chords I set out to learn. She helped me with strumming techniques and fret placement. Alex is skilled with the guitar and ukulele. I then asked my friend, Alex Camp for some guidance. I’d look at the fret placement and strum the chords. I started working on the chords just blankly. The project started exactly how I had planned. ![]()
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