So I bought a Ukulele...
Helloooo fellow steemians!
Gawwwd I've been busy recently. Not much time to devote to steemit activity because, well, life.
But then yesterday I made an impulse purchase and then… for some reason... decided to make a vlog type thing, mainly for my friends' amusement but I figured "heck! I haven't posted anything on steemit in ages and someone might find this as funny as I do, so what the hell"
so, voila, for your enjoyment (I hope?), watch me babble on about how I purchased a Ukulele and maybe be entertained by my frustrated first attempts at playing it. XD
Personally I think it's really funny to watch myself struggle and pull all those faces hahaha.
You see, I recorded this with my laptop camera and the standard iMovie (which btw is super limiting and crappy, like I wanted to add funny comments in text over top and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do it in this program, but whatever, it serves it's basic purpose) that comes with every macbook, and I actually had the Uke tabs and tutorial videos up on the screen and wasn't looking at myself while playing. So it was kinda fun to watch back (tho let me tell you, watching through 60 odd minutes of my awful plunking trying to find the funniest bits was a bit tedious haha).
Maybe some of you will get a kick out of it. I tried to keep it as short as possible, I mean no-one wants to watch 20 minutes of terrible ukulele practicing. I know I wouldn't haha
Oh, the song by the way, is Jason Mraz "I'm Yours" and one of my all-time favourite tunes, thankfully the "easy" Ukulele version has like 4 chords and a relatively simple strumming pattern, so it'sgood for beginners.
Though as the astute listeners among you may have noticed I'm having difficulties with the strumming pattern and always fall back to the standard one I learned during my brief guitar playing days. Singing and keeping a regular strumming up is hard af. O_O
But I'll get there eventally. Hopefully. If I stick it out through the painful phase LOL
I'm hoping that this time, I'll actually stick to it (as I mentioned in the video, I have terrible self-discipline so I have no idea if this'll go anywhere) and maybe make a little update video now and then of my progress. ;)
Let me know if that's a thing you might actually be interested in or if I should just stick to my art and animation related posts haha
Also, feel free to ask me questions, in case you have any. Like Who knows.
Oh, and of course, if there's any Ukulele players/enthusiasts stumbling across this, any tips for my learning journey would be greatly appreciated ;D
Really, any comments are appreciated, of course.
much love my friends and happy steeming,
till the next time,
Jill
Is it difficult to play it? I have always wonder that. Thanks for the post!
Well, everything is difficult when you first start out, but it's also fun. And if you can be amused by your own frustration it the process, even more so. The thing is, the very beginning of learning a string instrument like that is always very tough because your fingers are not used to the odd shapes you have to make, and you don't know how hard to press on the strings and then your fingertips hurt after a while because you haven't built up the calluses yet, you get crampy after a while in your left hand from not being used to the odd angle at which you have to hold it, and learning to strum and sing at the same time is hard as hell too, but I love instruments like the guitar and ukulele because you can actually play a couple of basic songs very very quickly and it's incredibly satisfying.
Finger calluses form pretty quickly from what I remember from back when I used to learn the guitar and as long as you pay attention to holding it correctly and learn to form the chords with your fingers correctly too, your hand should not hurt so quickly anymore after maybe a week of practice or so, and finger strength increase happens surprisingly fast as well as long as you practice only a little bit every day.
even 20 minutes is enough, if you don't have a lot of time in your day, like me. You can still get the basics relatively quickly and it starts getting more and more fun the more confidently you can play the few chords you learn.
The cool thing is too that with these 4 chords for example (C, G, Am & F) you can already play a plethora of songs so you get rewarded for your hard work very quickly.
which is awesome.
Also ukulele's rock.
They're tiny and super portable and light and as I mentioned in the video, that one cost me about 40 Canadian dollars and although it's one with nylon strings and not one of the higher quality ones, it's still decent enough for a beginner and not too big of an investment if you're unsure of whether or not you'll stick to it. I mean I spend more money grocery shopping for the week!
I recommend it anyhow! :D give it a go ;)
there's tons of tutorials and free tabs on youTube and the internet in general so you can very easily learn by yourself, just practicing a little everyday.
... whoah! text wall. LOL sorry about that.
hope that helped.
and glad you enjoyed the post! haha ;D
WOW! Thanks for all those tips @jillustrations , I really apreciatte them!
my pleasure!! :D always happy to help
absolutely accurate hahahaha!
you are super adorable jill * ___ * love your spirit ! and so talented! <3
im sure you will master the ukulele in no time!!!
upvotes
daaaawwwww~~~~thank youuuu~~~! haha <3 <3 watch out on your voting power love XD
Very entertaining 😂. Give him hard and do not give up, it seemed to me that you are on the right track. 👌
hahaha thank you! I'll do my best!! :D whoohoo!
Hey this is great! I think you pretty much have that down. Lol dangit now I want a ukulele I play guitar also. The red coat was hilarious! That looks so warm though. You have a great voice : )
thank you on all accounts! hahaha
yeah the Ukes are pretty cute aren't they? XD I really think it's ideal for me because I move around so much. I hope I keep it up so I can justify buying one of the sweetass ones with steel strings and a carved body <3 <3 <3 drool
The coat is indeed excellent for Montreal temperatures (around the -12°C to -16°C atm) <3 I look like a marshmallow but hey, I'm always warm! XD
Oooo nice, yea, I've seen some bomb ukulele's, it's always a good motivator to get better with a nice reward : ) Brrr! Yea, that's a good coat to have then wow!
Jill you are so cute hahahaha
I have a guitar at home but no one in the house knows how to play it LOL
aweee thanks! haha
LOL yeah, same in my home in Vienna hahaha XD
Hahaha the cut to you wearing the red coat was right on the money. The rest naturally is too :)
Good to see you picking up some music again, tis good for the soul ja.
hahaha thank you. the idea randomly came to me while I was telling the story, and I always enjoy unexpected jumpcuts in vlogs so I thought "hell, why not!" XD
and yes. yes it is. tho I hardly have time to practice -.- I do try to get in 20 mins a day at least tho
Very enjoying and at times funny video! Love it! :)
thank you!
You learned that instrument pretty fast! Great cover of Jason Mraz!
hahaha thank you! but I wouldn't say I've actually "learnt it" yet :P still a ways to go!
Sweet :D vote, follow here, and youtube too!
aww thank you! you don't have to on youtube tho lol. this is the only video that's up atm haha
Better :D im your only subscriber, the special one xD
Bwahahaha indeed! XD