Blog #12: 1 Finger Technique??!

Progress:

It has been two weeks since I last updated my progress with the ukulele! This time, I decided to try something different. I learned from Annie Rose's video (mentioned in my previous blogs but I'll include the video below) that there are different techniques to strum (4:46-5:08). In this video, I wanted to try the one-finger strum that I've seen in many videos. I wanted to see if it made playing any easier or if it was just more confusing. Honestly, when I first tried it, I wasn't sure what to strum. Normally, I just do the basic strum pattern which is down, down-up, up-down-up (D-DU-UDU) but I was actually confused when trying it with one finger, which is pretty strange. I think it's because my finger placements are all different and I don't think about the pattern anymore now that I'm used to it. I've played it so many times that it just comes naturally now. So I had to play how I typically play to memorize the pattern before going back to one finger. I do admit that there are some benefits to this technique though. My usual technique, which is the four fingers down strum and thumb up strum, sometimes causes me to miss a string or mess up because all my fingers are involved so it's more difficult to play at a faster pace. The one-finger technique allowed me to play faster because there was so much room for it to move. I didn't play very fast in the video because I'm still not used to the technique but I was able to improve much faster than when I used the other technique. I also notice that the sound is slightly different with this technique because it seems more abrupt each time I strum. I'm not really sure which way I like more though. I added a poll below so make sure to vote so I know which one sounds better!

Reflection:

My goal for the very last quarter actually is to play full songs. However, I realized that with the ukulele, it's really just the same strum pattern over and over until the song is over. I thought it was like the guitar but it's really not. So all I really have to work on is playing longer and making the least mistakes as possible :). Since, that isn't very interesting, I decided to add some challenges to this quarter. I wanted to attempt different techniques so I can discover which ones I like and dislike. I didn't have much time to work on this technique since I need time to practice for dance show but I was still able to try it, which I'm very proud of. I went over the pros and cons already, so I'd like to say that I actually enjoy this technique. It's different and easy in ways. I'm not sure if I mess up more or less often though. Remember to vote below and let me know what you think though!

#SayYouWontLetGo