Over the past couple of weeks, I have been focusing on playing and holding my ukulele properly. During the class time to practice our assignments, Anita came into the room full of my peers and I who were all practicing ukulele and let us know how to properly hold and play the ukulele. Since the beginning of my self-taught ukulele journey, I have held my uke on my lap, resting on my chest, and strumming in the middle of the body of the instrument. We learned that the proper way to hold the ukulele against your chest with your right forearm across the top edge of the lower bout. Your strumming finger should be able to comfortably reach almost to where the neck meets the body. With your left hand, you put the pad of your thumb on the top half of the back of the neck somewhere between the nut and third fret. Since adopting this new technique I have found that my ukulele stays in tune for longer and sounds crisper, and allows me to switch to new chords with more ease.
I am still having a small amount of difficulty singing the song, but have found that playing and singing along with the song, or a cover, helps me stay in tune throughout. I believe that I have stayed fairly on-track when it comes to following my growth template, and have learned some additional skills that were not outlined on the template. I am both nervous and excited for the video upload in a couple of days and hope that the process is relatively painless. I know that there is room for growth throughout this process, and I am intrigued to see where the rest of the semester will take me.