5 Unexpected tips to help you become a better ukulele player

hey welcome today we are talking about five really random tips that will make you a better ukulele player and also a little bit more interesting with your playing so subscribe to the channel hit the like button if you want to see more like this and let's get started okay so let's start with tip number five this one is really weird but bear with me okay so if you have a deck of cards at home you know sometimes you get that one card that doesn't really belong on the deck it's usually just telling you about the brand or something so i tried weaving this whole card in the strings because i thought like it'd be cool like johnny cash with his dollar bill um that didn't work on a ukulele so what i did is i cut the card until something finally did work and so what finally ended up working for my ukulele was a strip that is this size and all i did is i went over under over under on the strings so now when johnny cash did it it was to achieve a percussive sound so this is not going to be like the most beautiful melodic sound on the ukulele this is more to just kind of add that like kind of rattle to it that you would hear in a snare drum like on a drum set or something like that so i'll give you a playing demo this is just a fun one but it sounds totally different if you use paper or if you use like a dollar bill um just know that for ukulele because their scale size is smaller you will have to um cut the dollar bill so that's why i'm not using money on this one okay the open ukulele sounds like this and then i'm gonna play just a ca minor fg chord progression so this one is uh tip number five just experiment with different things in your strings just to see what kind of like timbre you get on the instrument i think it's really fun to go beyond just having the strings and your hands okay so for tip number four i know some of you have asked me about this um if you have sweaty hands and your sweaty hands stick to the fingers or when you lift off to go to like change a cord you hear that and you're asking like why does that happen um if your hands are sweaty and sticky and like bringing the string with you um here are some things you can do to fix that so if you have a natural deodorant and uh you you want to use that on your hands that'll help so if that makes you think like oh i wouldn't use like the deodorant the same one then you buy like a sample size at the store i know they sell like the travel sizes in the stores that i like shop at so um you can use that and i have like an extra deodorant that i just carry around for emergencies that i never end up using so that's what i'm using for this example but you can use theater and another thing that works is baby powder and i think i've seen one of my performer friends use but i'm not sure but anyway you can use deodorant flour baby powder i would i would probably try the deodorant one more but i actually have very dry hands but anyway those are that's tip number four okay tip number three is more for my beginners but if you're my advanced person let me know if you've tried this before so um let's say that you're learning a chord that has several fingers being used kind of like e chord for example and you're getting some ringing notes like that and you're getting some muted ones like this and so you're just like really frustrated so something that i've haven't really seen anybody do is to really take the ukulele like this like this like this and look down the fretboard and check to see if your fingers are touching the strings and actually try this out with any of the chords that you ever struggle with like literally just take that you could like hold the position and take the ukulele and look down and see if you can readjust your fingers like being able to see how the fingers go press the strings and how like sometimes we're a little lazy and we press the string next to it so just looking at the ukulele you can see like oh my goodness like i have terrible form here's where i need to fix it now along those lines and while i do this please hit the subscribe button and the like button that really helps the channel out okay so the places where i do not want you to play the ukulele are where you see the x's that is not the right place to play where i want you to play is on the finger tips that's like right next to the nail so yeah that's a random tip that i've used with students before and it just makes chords click because you can see it and they sound a lot better right away so yes let's move on to the next one okay so let's say that you could not play with the top tips chances are that your nails are too long on the fingerboard hand so for that reason i would like for you to keep one of these in your gig bag or wherever you keep the materials for your ukulele playing and at least once a week give your nails a trim because having those really nice short nails on the fretboard hand is like it's really going to improve your form i have short nails on the fretboard hand and long nails on the picking hand you don't need long nails in the picking hand it kind of helps and i guess a little tip for the picking hand you do not want your nail to look like this um what you would like for it to do is be a little bit flat so what you can do and the reason you don't want that to be curved is because it's going to catch on the strings so what you can do is go in and kind of like clip off those little curves at the edges or you can um file them a little bit so what you want is the nail to be nice and kind of almost straight so that it won't catch the strings and we go all right and now we've made it to our last tip but before we go on to that one let me tell you about the ukulele that i'm playing today i am jamming with the bougainvillea ukulele from enya this is actually a ukulele i collaborated with so this is the bernadette signature ukulele i didn't want to put my name on it so i just put a b on the back of the headstock so it would just be between you and i i will link this one down below if you would like to buy the electronics version so you can plug it into an amplifier that is also available i'll have all the info down below okay so the last tip that i would like to share with you on how to pee a better ukulele player is something that probably we have all done or do and this is a habit that i think would be nice to get rid of um many of my students what they'll do is they'll practice the song from the beginning and then they'll continue playing until they get to a tough part make a mistake and then go back to the beginning and practice the whole song again and then they'll make the mistake again and then go back to the anyway what they're doing is actually practicing the mistake and practicing to learn to play the mistake isn't that crazy like we're practicing to do it wrong so to fix this when you're practicing play without stopping so play from the beginning or play from whatever and keep going keep going beyond the mistake keep going past it now when you want to fix a mistake what you do is you just practice the chunk of where you're making the mistake and slow it down a lot a lot like whatever you think is slow double the amount of time so make it very slow and then practice just the part you're making a mistake and then then here's key practice a little chunk right before the mistake and master that and then practice the little chunk right after the mistake and master that and then what you're gonna do is put the little chunk before it the part where you were making the mistake and the little chunk after and practice that and then what you're going to do is add a little bit before and a little bit before and a little bit before and slowly make your way back up to the top i can't say that i've seen many people practice this way but it is such an effective way not only to learn how to play beyond a mistake and master that section but also to memorize because you're going to work so much on that piece and going into it so if any of you have struggled with memorization this is really going to be one of those things that kind of doubles up and helps you with that as well in the comments below let me know which one of these tips were your favorite and if you have another funky random tip that works for you share it down below if you would like to do lessons with me on patreon we use zoom so we all turn on our cameras i'd love to have you there so i'll add the link to my patreon site down below i also give my patrons a lot of printables and extras so join us there alrighty well i'll see you in the next [Music] one you

Channel: Bernadette Teaches Music

Views: 34,270

Rating: 4.9542642 out of 5

Keywords: music teacher, ukulele, ukulele teacher

Id: Dj0GA5YV5wo

Length: 9min 57sec (597 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 16 2021