Wonderstruck Ukulele Academy (WUA) is a 3-day immersive educational event focused on performance and songwriting for the intermediate ukulele player looking to sharpen their skills. The event takes place in Fort Collins, CO on November 7-9, 2019. Held at the Music District, this interactive, one-of-a-kind workshop features professional touring musicians Jeff Freling and Erin McGrane of Victor & Penny, and Danielle Anderson of Danielle Ate the Sandwich, who will share their knowledge and expertise in an intimate one-on-one environment. Along with group jams and an open mic, participants will enjoy student-focused classes on performance, songwriting, musical techniques, and rhythm. Wonderstruck Academy concludes on Saturday evening with a concert featuring performances by the attendees, the new Wonderstruck Cadets.

A strum is:

A Strum is the execution of a specific rhythmic pattern, in tempo, in a particular style.

Strumming requires a specific set of skills. They are: 1) Memorization of chords 2) The ability to switch chords smoothly and 3) The ability to choose and execute a suitable rhythmic strum.

Let's break that statement down from the end of the statement to the front.

Style

Each strum is identified with a term that differentiates it from every other strum. This term is typically called a “feel”. Drummers learn these terms early in their studies so learning this language is not only helpful to learning the strums, it’s also helpful with communications among musicians in general and drummers in particular.

A style's term. such as Rock, Country, Samba, FOlk, Bossa Nova, Double Time, Funk, Reggae, Island, etc. don't tell you much about what is actually needed to execute a specific rhythmic pattern. A style's term or name is an organizational tool for later when recalling the elements of a particular style.

In Tempo

Tempo merely is how fast the discernible pulses are going by. It can directly correlate to the downbeats or be implied.

Rhythmic Pattern

Strumming is inseparably linked to Rhythm.

This starts to get to the heart of what a strum is. It is also often the neglected part of music that is taken for granted. It is something identifiable by non-musicians as something wrong when it is not quite right.

The study of Rhythm is an integral part of really identifying and organizing particular song styles and genres.

One best ways to study rhythm is using Chuck Anderson's Modular Phonetic Rhythm, The Foundation and Workbook 1. I've had great success using this method with students and myself to identify the rhythmic elements of a style.

Once you have started working on mastering the Rhythmic Syllables from Chuck's Modular Phonetic Rhythm, The Foundation and Workbook you can then begin to work on the execution part.

Execution

Strumming can be executed with fingers or with a pick or really any device your like. Regardless of your own style of strumming, it ultimately involves combinations of down strokes and up strokes. In the finger style, down strokes can played with the thumb or the nail side of your fingers. Up strokes can be played with the thumb or fingers. Any technique is usable as long as you can differentiate between down and up strokes.

One strum is different from another based on the stroke direction, the stroke density, the subdivision of the beat and the accent pattern.

The tough part is getting your hands to follow your inner, musical ear an execute the desired rhythmic pattern, in tempo for that particular style. Typically the style will play an important role in determining how it is performed.

A strumming patter is NOT, "down down up up down etc..." and not how to organize a rhythmic pattern. On an instrument like the ukulele where gravity effects strumming and a down strum sounds different then the up strum. The verbal commands "down and up" can be helpful to train the strumming hand to follow and convey the pulse of the style and not go off on their own.

Links, Resources on LearningUkulele.com

• The Book: A Guide to Ukulele Strums
• The Book: Modular Phonetic Rhythm, The Foundation and Workbook 1
• Lesson Series: Ukulele Strums - Getting Started

  6 Lessons in the “Ukulele Strums - Getting Started” Series starting with Level II of the Modular Phonetic Rhythm System.

• Lesson Series: Building Your Core Strums for Ukulele

  14 Lessons in the “Building Your Core Strums for Ukulele” series covering the Four Famous Strums, The Quarter Note Strum, The Muted Strum, and more...

As always I'm tweaking the site navigation, look and layout - trying to keep it easy to find what you are looking for. A challenge giving the number of lessons, songs, books and listings the site has. I'm adding new content and features everyday.

I myself am not a big fan of subscriptions beyond the traditional monthly magazine. I do know the need for them to generate a consistent income. I'll use a quote from Walt Disney applied to my site and music. "I don't make music and lessons to make money. I make money to make music and lessons." I would do this even it I didn't make any money - did before. Just trying to cove the hosting, software and time put into it.

Updated Sections:

• Glossary of Music Terms
• Reading Music - The Basics

Learning and knowing the terms of music goes a long way in understanding how to apply the principles of music to the ukulele and learning.

Music Theory - Learning, discovering and exploring The Principles of Music. allows you to be literate, expanding your musical horizon, and to gives you a method for increasing your musical vocabulary.

Here are some myths regarding music theory:

• It will stifle my creativity. Knowing music theory wasn't a problem for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, etc...

That pretty much squashes that myth.

Why you NEED Music Theory by Gary Ewer, B. Mus - This is a great article on why we need music theory. Gary uses an analogy of how a native English speaker learned English growing up. 1) Learned the language in context, purely by ear. 2) Learned the theory of English, and learned to read. 3) Enhanced your use, and increased your ability to communicate your ideas.

Harmonic Analysis For Scale Selection And Chord Substitution

Applying harmonic analysis principles with harmonized scale charts for scale selection and chord substitution.

Harmonic Analysis is the understanding of the functional sequence of chords. It is the process used to analyze the harmonic structure of a progression, song or composition. This analysis is then used to make scale selections for improvisation and chord substitution.

Link to Harmonic Analysis For Scale Selection And Chord Substitution.

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”- Dr. Suess

Granted - great instruments and quality gear can make big difference - in the right hands. It never will allow you to sound and play like ( Insert Your Favorite Artist Here ). You can play their gear and their songs, but you will only sound like you, playing their songs.

With fingerstyle and fingerpicking a big part of playing the ukulele, keeping your right hand fingernails in top shape can be tough at time. Here are a few tips to protect your nails and keep out of trouble.

• Keep nails short. DO NOT clip you nails on the plucking hand. Clipping sends shock waves through the nail weaken them. You can clip you fretting hand all you want.
• Organize your pockets for potential nail damaging objects suck as keys, coins, etc...
• Learn to reach and use your left hand more. You're left hand is already pretty developed from playing. Door knobs are what get me the most and wearing bi-focal glasses are what get me the most.
• Wear gloves.Basically watch out for potential nail damaging situations in your day-to-day travels.

A great source for a lot of information on nail care is classical guitarists.

Added a great video from Victor Wooten to the The Study of Music Today page. talks about learning music as we learned language.

This is a the approach that is used with* Chuck Anderson's* Modular Phonetic Rhythm. This is the system that I use all the time with great success with ALL my students. And, refer back to with my own rhythm studies.

You can now buy my books, again - if you are not Gold site member with FREE download access to ALL my , Curt Sheller books.

Books are prices from $1 to $3 and you can pay what you like from that starting price. Basically pay what you like based on the value you place on the content and the sitre content.

There are still several books that are FREE.

As always I'm tweaking the site navigation, look and layout - trying to keep it easy to find what you are looking for. A challenge giving the number of lessons, songs, books and listings the site has. I'm adding new content and features everyday.

Forever Plan Extended Until Spring 2019 - $149

I myself am not a big fan of subscriptions beyond the traditional monthly magazine. I do know the need for them to generate a consisten income. I'll use a quoate from Walt Disney applied to my site and music. "I don't make music and lessons to make money I makye money to make music and lessons.". I would do this even it I didn't make any money - did before. Just trying to cove the hosting, software and time put into it.

Updated Sections

• Glossary of Music Terms
• Reading Music - The Basics

Here is a link to a great article from one of mys favorite places to buy strings, String By Mail.

Article: Can Amplification Impact Repetitive Motion Issues? by by Ken Donnell.