Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working on playing the ukulele with a capo for Somewhere over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World, as well as learning Can’t Help Falling in Love with You. I have also been playing a lot of new songs to try and figure out what final song I would like to learn for this assignment. I am thinking that for my last song, I would like to find a one that I can play as a duet with a classmate. I have never really sung and played a stringed instrument with another individual, and I think that it would be a powerful experience for me to have.
Playing the ukulele with a capo is a bit of an adjustment. The strings are harder to strum, and you have less space on the ukulele to execute chord transitions. I find that it makes strumming slightly different as the strings are stiffer and it takes more power to execute strong strumming patterns. I have also begun to attempt to play the song up to tempo and I am finding it a challenge to gracefully transition between chords as well as strum with as much accuracy. Though, the more I practice the easier it gets.
Can’t Help Falling in Love has been a lot of fun to learn; it has always been one of my favourite songs. Finger-picking is a whole new concept to me and ensuring that I strum the right strings has been one of my biggest challenges. In addition, the transition from finger-picking to the strumming pattern has been slightly odd. Getting my finger and hangs to execute what my brain is trying to tell them is a bit of a struggle. The best thing about the song is it is in my tessitura and has been a lot easier to sing than my previous song.
I am excited to learn a final song and show my final growth.