Enjoying playing for others more

I've been playing a lot out in public lately. It's a lot of fun playing in front of an audience now that the performance jitters are going away. The other day I even had an impromptu jam at a wedding! I've considered going out and finding gigs, but I just don't know if I'm good enough for that. In any case, its nice to stop worrying about playing out and about now. :D

Met a fellow uke player

I was with my friends at Bass Pro shop in Grapevine the other day. Like always I was carrying one of my ukes around and an employee named Larry commented on it. It turns out he himself was a ukulele aficionado. He even had a Kala Pocket Uke! I was so jealous! I always find it cool when I bump into another uke-player. it doesn't happen very often though. The last time (excluding Bass Pro shop of course) was a few months ago at Gamestop when I ran into a fellow Ukulele Underground member. still, it's good to know there are so many ukulele players in the Dallas area. Now if only I could find some local ones to jam with.

Hot N' Cold on Ukulele

This video is a cover of Katy Perry's Hot N' Cold. I decided to wear my goofiest hat for this cover, I think I made the right choice.

Enjoy!

Ukulele Genres

One thing I often have trouble with is recreating the feel of certain genres using the ukulele. I can play a song, no problem, but I often want to do more than just strums chords. This is probably the main reason why I take so long in between videos. I love all kinds of music, and I REALLY love to PLAY all kinds of music, so I struggle alot with more complicated things like Metal and especially Pop Techno. So I often watch people cover different genre's and try to mimic their techniques. So here I've compiled a list of my favorite examples of ukulele being used well in different genre's. I hope this helps anyone who finds themselves in the same boat I am. :D

(Classic Rock) Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing

(Classical) Bach's Bouree in E Minor

(Metal) Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train

(Pop) Michael Jackson's Billie Jean

(Techno Pop) Lady Gaga's Telephone

(Modern Rock) White Stripes' Fell In Love With A Girl

I hope you are inspired by these great uses of ukulele! :D

Mad World on ukulele

Next in the cavalcade of Evan Wearing Stupid Hats is my ukulele cover of Gary Jules' Mad World. originally created by Tears for Fears, Gary Jules drastically changed the feel of this song with his version. And so I donned my most Donnie Darko-esque beanie and played this cover. I hope you enjoy it!

Fender Ukulele mini-review

I got to try one of the Fender brand ukuleles the other day. They had the solid koa one up at Zoo Music, a local music store in Garland. I asked the guy working there if I could try it and he was more than helpful in getting it down and tuned for me. Overall, it's okay. A lot of people have complained about the thickness of the neck, which I agree can put the player a bit out of touch with playing at first, though this is easily adjusted to. It was insanely hot and humid that day (I live in Texas, after all) but the string's were surprisingly reliant, so I know the tuners were great. intonation wise, I'd say its about as good as my Oscar Schmidt OU6, which is perfect until about the 7th fret. all in all, if it was about 50 bucks cheaper, I'd jump on board, but Kala and Lanikai still do much better. Anyone has a different opinion please let me know.

Greensleeves on Ukulele

This video is an instrumental strumming version of Greensleeves, the old Renaissance tune. this was my first ukulele video ever, played on my very first ukulele, Oscar.

as with many of my covers, I hope to have tabs made and put up soon. until then, Enjoy!

Hallelujah on Ukulele

For my first video I'm posting my cover of Hallelujah on tenor ukulele. It's not fantastic but I hope you enjoy it! 

My First Post

This is going to be the place where (hopefully) I'll post most of my videos, plus different things about my views on things. Hope you all enjoy!