Blog Post #8: A Great Song By a Great Artist

Progress: Although this was not one of the songs that was requested by my generous friends, I decided to choose "Say You Won't Let Go" by James Arthur, a personal favorite of mine. I stumbled upon the tutorial by TenThumbs Productions when I searched for beginner ukulele tutorials and I really wanted to give it a try. The chords are pretty basic: C, G, A minor, and F. I had already learned and practiced with these chords, so it wasn't a problem. The strum pattern was also one of the most basics since I have seen it in many other videos and practiced it over and over. The first video I posted above was recorded after a week of memorizing the chord progression and playing it whenever I had free time. It is evident that I take many pauses since I don't have enough practice and I'm still a beginner. However, in the video below, taken a week later, I have improved slightly and even though I still had some pauses, they were brief. My tempo was also a lot more accurate since I played slightly too fast in the first video. My fingers were able to move faster when switching chords since I had more practice.

Reflection: I am so happy that I was able to get this song down since I was worried that it would be really hard learning without an instructor. But so many people have learned from online tutorials so I pushed myself to do it too. It was hard since I am so used to learning from teachers in person but in the end, I was able to figure it out. It's strange how a couple months ago, I didn't even know how to hold a ukulele properly or any of the chords. I am really beginning to enjoy learning to play the ukulele, something I'm surprised to find myself saying since I never really had any particular interest in instruments. It made me wonder about all the other instruments I could attempt to play, such as the guitar since it is most similar to the ukulele. One of my goals for third quarter was to limit my pauses when playing a song and I was able to make improvements so I think I achieved that goal. The other was to play parts of various songs and I am definitely working on that. In fact, I already recorded another video and I will be blogging about that very soon!

#SayYouWontLetGo #youtube