Live Lesson Challenge #8 – (5/9/2019)
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- This topic has 12 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 7 months ago by
iseejonathan.
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May 13, 2019 at 10:48 am #24660
kahai
MemberHey Guys,
sorry I didn’t post the challenge earlier. We just got back from Denver Ukefest. It was a ton of fun, and awesome to meet a lot of you, UUers. Hopefully, we can hang out again. Here’s this week’s challenge:
Base Guidelines:
Key of C
At least 1 Major and 1 minor chordBonus Challenges:
Hawaiian Vamp
Pull-Offs and Hammer-Ons
Lyrics
Disco Uncommon Time SignatureIf you need some help with what chords are in the Key of C, they are C Major, D minor, E minor, F Major, G Major, A minor, B diminished. So you can use any combination of those chords as long as your song has 1 Major and 1 minor. For any advanced music theorist, I think it’d be cool to see if anyone can throw in some chord substitutions that are not in the Key of C. Just throwing that out there. The deadline to submit your songs and be entered in a giveaway is in 3 weeks, so May 30th. We’re always excited to see what you guys come up with.
Aloha,
-KahaiMay 27, 2019 at 9:45 am #24716Alan Fasick
MemberI decided to play around with Taro Patch tuning on my log-G ‘ukulele:
This first one was a quick sound check, but I ended up liking parts of it so thought I’d upload it.
Here’s the longer version:
I thought I’d use a IV iv I vamp like in White Sandy Beach as the main turnaround.
-Alan
May 28, 2019 at 9:02 am #24719kahai
MemberHey Alan,
that sounded great. The same thing happens to me where I’m just fooling around, and I come up with something I really like, but when I sit down, and try to intentionally write a song, I have the hardest time. I’m glad you posted the first video. It’s cool to see the evolution of it starting of as a short riff and then turning into a full song. I’ve thought about posting progress videos of my songs. Maybe I’ll do it next time.
May 28, 2019 at 8:09 pm #24732iseejonathan
MemberAlan,
Really liked that one. I don’t know what it is about you songs but I always get images when I listen to them. Here in Canada we have something called May Day, which is basically a celebration and a parade and kids dancing the May Pole dance (hard to explain but if you look it up you’ll see it) anyways….. I had images of that day when I was a child. Thanks for the trip down memory lane….
also, love the shirt.
-Jonathan
May 29, 2019 at 3:41 am #24733Alan Fasick
MemberKahai,
I actually think I should setup a recording anytime I’m messing around — would love to have a way to record a 10-minute loop that I could just stop if I come up with something I like and I could save it. Most of the time I feel it comes out better before I record. ;D Would love to hear how you progress in your songwriting — I’ve been listening to the Undertale soundtrack a lot (my kid’s favorite) and listening to how Toby Fox layered motifs to come up with an amazing array of songs, so I’d love to hear from you how you step through adding the different parts and putting it together.
Jonathan,
That’s cool — I appreciate you sharing, getting an inspiration on that last song helped me develop it more. I have a lot of memories from May Day as well, but it was a little different in Hawai’i. The 6th graders would represent each island like a Hawaiian royal court and the rest of the grades would perform dances and songs for the court. I hated it at the time, but looking back it was pretty cool.
Not in the right key for this challenge and no minor chords, but I started thinking of how I could mess around with the tuning a bit more and ended up in the equivalent of Open D on ‘ukulele, which comes out as Open G, here’s some improvisation around that tuning I was doing last night:
A hui hou,
AlanMay 29, 2019 at 9:14 am #24734kahai
MemberThat’s funny that you mention may day. I just went to my nephew’s may day. It’s pretty much like Alan describes except the elementary school on Kauai only goes to the 5th grade, so the 5th graders represent the court, and they dance too. For my 4th grade class, I got to blow the conch shell, and for my 5th grade I was on the court. I can’t even remember what Island I represented, but I remember spending a lot of time learning to dance. It wasn’t always fun (especially sitting in the sun and waiting for your grade to dance), but it’s usually held about a week before school ends, and most of the kids go home after the celebration, so it is a pretty fun half day. I can definitely imagine Alan’s songs being used for may day. Most of the songs that the kids dance to are contemporary Hawaiian songs, so they usually have some slack key elements.
Hey Alan, if you like motifs and seeing the process behind songwriting, you should check out this video if you haven’t already:
I also got the idea of the Thursday Songwriting challenge from Andrew Huang’s 4 producer videos too, so it’s cool to see what actual composers can do when they get a set of guidelines. I was thinking about suggesting a bonus where we need to incorporate a simple melody for the next challenge. I’ll try to post my process for the next challenge, but we’ll see how it goes. This last one, I was writing the night before.
May 30, 2019 at 9:11 am #24736kawai
MemberAlan!!! That is beautiful!!!!
May 30, 2019 at 9:12 am #24737kawai
MemberStill finding it a little hard to find time for ukulele with the new born, but here is what I’ve been noodling around with for this challenge!
However I did have to find time to work on the old time family banjo band with Kaipo:
May 30, 2019 at 12:28 pm #24739kahai
MemberHey Kawai,
great song. I liked that you ended on that G7. It just had me itching for the resolution on C. Also awesome extra vid too. I can’t imagine how busy you must be, but it’s so cool that you still participate in the challenges.
May 30, 2019 at 1:38 pm #24740Alan Fasick
MemberKawai,
Love it! I really like the dynamics transitioning from the picking section to the strumming and back — made me want more! It has a similar feel to the Lava song.
Your uke sounds great too.-Alan
May 31, 2019 at 7:09 am #24754kawai
MemberThanks all!
I wasn’t able to make it to the Thursday live lesson, but I’m checking it out now. I really enjoy these song writing challenges!
I was wondering if anyone would be interested in changing the formula in an upcoming challenge. I think it would be interesting to take a known song and give us all the super basic info on how to play it. Maybe provide the chord progression or the melody notes, then the challenge would be to interpret the song in our own way. Add some flourishes or change the key its in or perform the song in a different style.
May 31, 2019 at 7:49 am #24756kahai
MemberHey Kawai,
we actually talked about doing something like that for a Live Lesson Challenge. Since we already set the guidelines for the next challenge, maybe we can do that idea for the next next challenge. I think it will be cool. I always like seeing how people will remix and reinterpret the same song.
July 5, 2019 at 10:19 pm #24939iseejonathan
Membersixsixty,
Great video with your daughter! Looks like you’re creating some great musical memories with her. Thanks for the motivation. I have been very busy with work and haven’t had much free time……I thought that was a valid excuse…… not anymore….. you have a new child, and you still were able to post a video! Good on ya! Thanks for the motivation.
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