Michigan Renaissance Festival - Got Kilt?

I'd forgotten how much fun the Michigan Renaissance Festival can be.

Stacey and I haven't been in quite a few years (13 or 17 - she was pregnant with either Sean or Lydia at the time). Lydia and Sean have never been. Stacey asked Lydia if she'd like to take a couple of her friends for her birthday. Usually, she has her friends go camping with us but that didn't work out this year.

Warrants of Arrest
for
"Sweet Entertainment"
 "Beatlejuice x 3"
and
"Revenge"

I received two Warrants of Arrest thanks to my lovely daughter and her friends. The first for Notorious DAD and again for Bein' Eveeeil.

The girls took off to spend some quality time with each other. Our paths crossed several times - at one point Lydia acquired Elf ears and Emily sprouted horns.

We didn't see as much of the stage acts as we'd have liked but did get to see some of the Scottish Dancers and US Canadian Highland Heavy Games. We saw the Braemar Stone Put (like the shot put but with stones), Caber Toss (flipping a tree length pole end-over-end for distance and accuracy), and 56lb. Weight for Height (iron weight on a short chain tossed one handed, over head, and over a horizontal beam).

Sir I-Can't-Remember-His-Name with Sean and Stacey

We saw the Roundtable Productions Joust, which Sean enjoyed. Sean also liked the glass blowing where he bought a glass paperweight. He also wanted to see the blacksmith demonstration, but they wouldn't be demonstrating until late that day so he missed it.

The Black Watch
3rd Battalion
Royal Regiment of Scotland 

I've always wanted to get a kilt, and almost bought one from Got Kilt. Not wanting to offend, I was looking at a Black Watch tartan, a tartan that anyone can wear, but there wasn't one readily at hand in my size.

Stacey and I are planning to go back Labor Day weekend without the kids, so I decided to wait until then. This turned out to be for the best. I remembered last night my maternal grandmother's maiden name is MacQueen (or MacQuien if you look at census data). The only down-side is that it requires a special order and will take longer. But, I should get it in plenty of time for my sister's annual Halloween party. Stacey is now looking at suitable attire to complement a kilted Scotsman.

I think the RenFest will become an annual event for us from now on.

Ukulele - Intro to Stairway To Heaven - Not Terribly Shabby Strumming Version

I took the finger-picked version of the intro to Stairway To Heaven I've been working on and added a strumming pattern. I have no idea if it's even close to being correct, but it sounds okay to me. But then, what do I know?

The strumming patter I used is Down-Down-Up-Down. The only really problem (other than the obvious lack of skill) is my slow transition to the G chord.

I recorded a video while practicing at my desk during lunch. If you watch it at the end you'll see one of the perils of practicing at work.

Ukulele - Intro to Stairway To Heaven, Karate, Philosophy, and BASIC Programming

There are a plenty of problems with how I play. An immediately obvious one to me is that I play like I'm programming in BASIC. 

I'm sure this is the same with learning just about everything. When we learn a kata in karate, we break complex movements up into distinct motions based on earlier kata or basic punches, blocks, etc. and string them together. A rendition of the kata starts as a robotic activity without fluidity or finesse, with the result being less than the sum of the parts. But you have to start somewhere.

As you get better acquainted with a kata, your instructor will begin replacing the robotic logic with "this is how that part is really done." This can be very frustrating until you realize you're never actually ever going to learn the correct and final "this is how that part is really done." That kata doesn't exist.

It's like concept of chair-ness. Everyone knows what a chair is. But I argue it's impossible to give a simple and complete universally accepted definition of a chair. You can give examples and describe the purpose of a chair. But can you enumerate all prior and future versions of a chair? How about a absolute and universal letter "a"? There are limits to knowledge, or perhaps to the expression of knowledge. Something about Kant and the sensory manifold. Sorry, I digress. Philosophy 101 was a long time ago.

Here's some song playing algorithm pseudo-code:

• For i = 1 to Song.Chords.Count
• Look at Song.Chords[i].ChordToPlay
• Set fingers on Song.Chords[i].ChordToPlay
• For j = 1 to Song.Chords[i].StringToPluck 
• Pluck Song.Chords[i].StringToPluck[j]
• Next j
• Next i
• ??????
• Profit!

The tutorial I'm watching doesn't explain anything verbally. Even if it did, it would be in Spanish. I wouldn't have a clue. I started out playing using the algorithm above, which kinda works. I slowed down the video playback enough so I can see the individual finger movements better and it's obvious most chord transitions are made while plucking strings. 

The string plucking finger pattern for this song is: pluck the first and forth strings, the third string, the second, and finally the first. Some chords drop off the second, third, or forth pluck. When playing the G chord, you can pluck the first and forth strings as soon as the fingers are fretting the first and forth strings and before the second string is fretted. I won't bore you with more pseudo-code.

Yes, I'm sure this falls into the category of having an amazing grasp of the obvious. But I'm going to guess that if it wasn't obvious to me there's a chance it isn't to other n00bs. 

No video today. I'm working on it, but I'm not prepared to embarrass myself yet again. I'll save that for another post.

What the hey. Recorded this at lunch. Better than the last one but not my much. Meh.

If you want to see how it should be done, check out Stairway To Heaven Tutorial (Led Zeppelin) Ukulele Chords on Ukeclases YouTube channel. Great resource for tutorial videos.

Ganbatte Kudasai!

Ukulele: Stairway To Heaven Intro - The Really Crappy Version

Well, here it is. I decided to try recording a video while I'm practicing at lunch. Here's my "best" take out of three for the intro to Stairway To Heaven.

My fretting is sloppy and slow, and my plucking is wrong. I'm using my middle finger on string three when I could be using my thumb. That's going to slow me down if I ever hope to get better. I tried fixing it, but royally messed up the rest of the recordings. The first one will have to do.

If you want to see how it should be done, check out Stairway To Heaven Tutorial (Led Zeppelin) Ukulele Chords on Ukeclases YouTube channel. Great resource for tutorial videos.

Sorry about the background noise.

Ukulele: The Noob's Guide to Tuning

Argh! I am such a music/ukulele n00b.

After I restrung my ukulele with Aquila strings, it didn't sound much better. It wasn't the digital tuner. We tested it with some other instruments and it works just fine.

Facepalm

I've been watching some videos on music theory, ukulele chords, strumming patterns, etc. the past week. While I was on vacation, I was able to get in some practice switching between Cmaj, Fmaj, and Gmaj. Not too shabby, but the strumming sounded really sloppy. I moved my strumming position down toward the bridge and it improved, but not much. I chalked it up to my naivete.

I was tuning an octave lower than I should have. 

In my defense, this is my first musical instrument, I do not have an ear for music (but hope to develop one), and I was skittish about tightening the strings. When the chromatic tuner said it was tuned to GCEA, I assumed it was correct - and it was, sort of. No wonder the C string sounded twangy.

This tutorial, How to tune a Ukulele using a digital tuner, on YouTube uses a chromatic tuner that displays the frequency. When I tried tuning with a program on my iPod Touch that also displays the frequency, I realized I was way off. At least the comments under the video made me fell a bit better, I wasn't the only person who had the same problem. Lesson learned.