Alright, people. The moment you’ve been waiting for all month long. I’m sure since I posted this video of my first time recording my mad skills mediocre bumbling on the ukulele that you’ve been sitting on the edge of your seats just waiting to see what song I’d be learning next. (If you’re curious about why I’m doing this awkward and uncomfortable thing to myself, you can read about it in My New Year’s Resolutions post.)
This month I’ve been working on learning a couple new songs. I was actually planning on posting a different one, but I suddenly found Ingrid Michaelson’s The Way I Am stuck in my head and couldn’t get it out, so I quickly learned this one instead. AND – I braved it on the great big ol’ guit-box.
I’ll remind you all I’ve never taken a lesson, and what I know is purely from teaching myself with books and the internet. If you want to get started teaching yourself to play guitar or ukulele, too, you’ll want to check out this post on 5 simple steps for learning. To learn this song, I used these chords from Ultimate-Guitar.com. I figured out a strumming pattern for myself. If you give it a try, note that all the “D”s in the tab should be Dm’s. Other than the strumming, it’s a fairly easy song to learn, and you could realistically just strum any way that comes naturally to you. Make the song your own.
This recording was taken only a couple days after learning the chords, and then just before going to record it I listened to the original and realized I wanted to change my strumming pattern. To do this I somewhat learned how to palm-mute (something that’s eluded me for years), so please bear with the fact that there is some fumbling. I also notice that I could relax while I’m playing and be more expressive. BUT… I am learning. And I am certainly trying to push myself into uncomfortable waters in search of growth.
Enjoy!