Also awesome is The Ukulele Underground.  I learned a lot about scales and it’s entertaining.  At the same time, even!

First, the instrument.  It’s a Kala concert uke.  (Fun Fact!  “Uke,” pronounced, “Oooh keh” means something entirely different in Japanese!)  Concert ukuleles are larger than the sopranos, but smaller than the tenors.  It’s a bright sounding ukulele that doesn’t sound like it’s constantly in a tin can.  On the other hand, that “plucky” quality may be the sound you want.

Really, it’s a personal preference issue.

Next up, the tabs for the song, which are readily available on the internet.  Done.

Then there’s the matter of me having no musical training whatsoever, so that’s where the flash based ukulele chord finder comes in.

Finally, there’s the matter of recording.  I’m using a ZOOM H4 Audio Recorder, which is a great portable audio recorder, but I have yet to really start using it for its intended purpose, which was podcasting on the go.  It has a ton of features that I’ll never utilize, but it excels at  “click record twice for decent audio” performance.  It was about two feet away from where I was practicing, and I thought it sounded pretty good.

Even though I had a cold and was recording it in the bedroom.  I’ll try again with vocals after I recover.

It’s interesting to note that I didn’t do any audio adustment to the mp3 that I recorded for the last post, I just dragged that mp3 over from the recorder and sent it straight to the internet.

And now you know the rest of the story!

Although I don’t know if I can really call it practice if it’s four chords.

Easy ones, at that.  Well, take a listen.

Ukulele Practice

Inspired, of course, by watching Amanda Palmer do it.