JustFourStrings

Prize Quiz!

Ukulele

by Dr Gonzo on May 4, 2020 0 Comments

Hi guys,
in these weird times of lockdown, clean air, and nothing to do (well for some of us), I thought I’ll invite you to do a little quiz and learn something new at the same time. Here’s a transcript I did earlier:

It’s a piece I wanted to learn for a long time and I think it sounds great on the ukulele. The chords are for C-tuning. It’s playable with high and low key G-string. Go ahead and give it a try! It’s not that hard. Start slowly and then speed up. The target speed is around the 136 to 140 mark. Try not to plant a finger on the uke whilst you are picking. It’s easiest to use the “claw hammer method”: Pick alternately with thumb and index finger, one note at a time.

Leave a comment if you figured out which piece it is, but don’t name it! The first three people who solve the quiz receive a free bag of original Norfolk Ukulele Sand, if they send me an email with their address!

Corona? Or rather something else?

Miscellaneous

by Dr Gonzo on March 20, 2020 0 Comments

Looks like the virus has finally reached the wild East of the UK. Yesterday they reported 11 cases in Norfolk. I had another look at the curve showing cumulative cases in the UK and it is clearly exponential with a doubling time of around 3 days. That means in about 2 weeks time we will see the same problems as Italy now, if nothing drastically is done. We as individuals can’t influence the rate of testing (which obviously is an important factor), but we CAN slow the down the virus by self-isolating. And by this I mean “physical isolation” and NOT “social isolation”!

For the forseable future I won’t offer face to face tuition anymore. It’s just not worth the risk. My students and I stay in contact through email and social media. To keep the ball running we are starting recording projects. That should keep us occupied for quite a while. It also helps learning to play more accurately, as you can hear every little mistake. If you play live, mistakes are gone in milliseconds and you tend to ignore them. On a recording they stay FOREVER! I am looking forward to this 🙂

Stay safe, stay home!

What’s with the Philippines?

by Dr Gonzo on December 12, 2018 3 Comments

So, I started this wordpress website a while ago to announce to the world that I am offering bass and ukulele tuition here in North Norfolk. Well, actually, I mostly wanted to announce this to the good people in this region, as I don’t expect a student to commute more than a few 10 miles for a lesson. Then I thought about how to promote this website, so that more people would find it. So I started a page on Facebook (as you do…): I basically copied stuff from here to FB in the hope that people would then click on the links to this page and engage with me here (or call me about lessons).

Anyway, a few weeks ago I noticed that the number of followers on my FB page started to rise. A lot. Every day. Constantly. And I didn’t know any of the names that cropped up, none of the new followers ever contacted me or asked about lessons, all strangers, some with very foreign sounding names (not that I mind that, my name is “Schröer” after all), some names in a font that I couldn’t even read… What was going on?

Fortunately FB provides you with some helpful statistics once the number of your followers has finally crept to more than 30. They call it “Insights”. So last week I had a look and now I am completely confused:

I currently have 247 followers, 236 of which apparently are from the Philippines!!! 3 of the remaining 11 I know personally (and they are not students). 42% of my followers are young men between 18 and 24 years of age. Only 18% of my followers are female, which on its own is already quite disappointing, but the vast majority of those are teenagers!

Can anybody tell me what’s going on???

Oh, and a big “KAMUSTA” to my fans in the Philippines from sunny old Norfolk!!!

Original 1966 Vox AC 30/6 Top Boost for sale

by Dr Gonzo on November 12, 2018 1 Comment

I am selling my trusted AC30 that has been at my side for nearly 30 years. Apart from 5 capacitors (and the tubes of course), everything is still original. It has the original Woden transformers and choke with the date code from September/October 1966, the sought after mustard caps, and silver alnico bulldog speakers. Two of the handles are reproductions, the middle one is original (the original handles come with the amp). The vents are original 1966. The amp still has the original heavy duty cover (although that has been stitched back together a few times).

The amp has just been serviced and a 100mA fuse with holder has been fitted to protect the choke in case one of the end tubes fails and shortens out. The rectifier tube has also been renewed.
The amp looks and sounds phantastic! The trem/vib is absolutely lovely and not so “in-your-face” as with some amps or foot pedals. The original foot switch is working without a problem. As it’s the 6-input version of the amp, you can easily combine the three channels with patch cables and adjust the volumes separately.

I would like to have £2490 for this amp. I might accept a near offer if you can convince me that you will treat the amp nicely.

I only sell the amp because I am now concentrating more on bass and uklele and don’t play guitar in a band anymore. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions. Just drop me an email if you are interested and want to see more photos, or come round to check out the sound for yourself.

What have I done?

Ukulele

by Dr Gonzo on August 13, 2018 0 Comments

A few weeks ago, about 2km into my early morning running training, I was stopped by a well known local lady who waved at me from her car window. Somebody had told her that I was some kind of musician and “couldn’t I help her out at our local faire by playing a few songs in between to give their entertainer time for a drink and a trip to the loo”. Being who I am, I said “of course” and carried on with my workout. She actually stopped me a couple more times and now I am also helping setting up the marquee, doing some maître’d stuff (???), bringing my cargo-bicycle to do rides for the kids, and of course getting on stage to sing and play the uke. It slowly begins to sink in that this is going to happen NEXT SATURDAY (18th of August, also my wedding anniversary) and I haven’t stood on a stage on my own for about 30 years! I am alright playing with others, even singing a bit, even if I don’t really know the songs (I can always improvise and I can read chords from guitarrists hands rather quickly). All this doesn’t really bother me anymore. But this time it’s just me! I don’t know… where do these butterflies in my tummy suddenly come from? ARGHHHH… I better start practising….

Here’s the link, just in case you want to see me die on stage…

Review: Norfolk Ukulele Sand

Ukulele

by Dr Gonzo on May 19, 2018 0 Comments

Everybody who has played a Ukulele on a beach knows how much better it sounds in its natural habitat. Originating from Hawaii, it is perfectly understandable that the little things need a proper beach to sound their best. I first found this out on a holiday to the Algarve. I took the little Ovation to the beach and after playing a few chords everybody around us started to smile. It’s just lovely how the sound carries over the sand in a way it never does indoors. Never? Well, I played her a bit in the hotel after we returned from the beach and I swear she was sounding better than the night before. This carried on for a few days, but one evening I got annoyed with all the sand inside the uke. So I tipped it all out on the beach and went back to the hotel. That night the uke definitely sounded duff when I played her before going to bed. It couldn’t be the sand… or could it? Was it possible that a ukulele needed sand to sound well? Surely not!!!

The next day on the beach I poured some sand into the body. Back at the hotel I was amazed about the rich sound she was producing! There was no other explanation: a ukulele needs to be near sand to sound its absolute best! So I made sure she was well filled up before we took the flight home. Unfortunately the sand kept falling out of the sound holes and after a few months the Ovation was back to its duff land-locked sound. When I tried putting in some sand from the local sand pit, I made the next astounding discovery: it made the sound worse! Chords didn’t ring, melodies were scraping along, and the sand inside was rattling out of tune. Land sand apparently doesn’t do it for ukuleles.

Now that we live in lovely Norfolk we have a fantastic beach in cycling distance. So of course I took the little one out for a few tunes in the dunes. And guess what: the sound was back! Not quite as sun-drenched and smooth as in the Algarve, a bit sharper and saltier, but it nevertheless carried the proper Hawaii tone towards the sea. That evening I filled her up with Norfolk sand and tried her out at home. Let me tell you: the sand from Norfolk’s beaches works! Now I will never run out of ukulele sand again and all my ukes are kept according to the strict official rules of the Hawaiian Ukulele Association (HUA).

If you have problems finding proper ukulele sand for your little one, just drop me a message and I’ll pop a bag in the post for you!

PS: I would be interested to know how the folks from Brighton manage!

Ash… what?

Bass

by Dr Gonzo on April 21, 2018 0 Comments

Sometimes you feel the need for an excuse to buy something you REALLY want, but don’t really need. Sometime in the early nineties I had to have a surgical procedure and afterwards my GP told me that I was not supposed to lift anything over one and a half kilograms for several months to make sure everything would heal up properly. What a great excuse not to have to carry anything when you’re gigging, but then someone pointed out that even my bass was over the limit and I shouldn’t play at all anyway. Bummer…

After contemplating my dilemma for a while, I realised that this was my chance to purchase a bass that I had coveted for years, ever since I read about it in a German music magazine in 1987. It was called the “Ashbory” and looked like a sonic bass straight out of (the early) Dr Who… a bit like a dinosaur bone with strings. Compared to a normal bass it was tiny: slightly over half a meter long and weighing in at under a kilogram! It was fretless and equipped with special silicone strings and a piezoelectric transducer that was supposed to give it the sound of an upright bass. Unbelievable! And so finally I could justify spending a grand (in Deutschmark) for an instrument that nobody needs. The next day I was on the phone to every music shop in Cologne (the closest city with a professional music scene), trying to find out where I could get one of these Ashborys. It turned out they were as rare as hen’s teeth and nobody knew how to get their hands on one (remember: at that time the internet was only for boffins, not for buffoons). Well, I left my (landline) number with all of them and waited. Two weeks later I got a call from one of the smaller shops. They had managed to locate a second hand Ashbory in Switzerland (no further information available), and asked if I wanted it. I said yes, transfered eight hundred Deutschmark into their account, and another two weeks later I took possession of my new Ashbory. I was crestfallen: it looked like a bloody Steinberger and not at all like a dinosaur bone! It was also slightly longer, but at least it was under a kilogram, so I was officially allowed to play the thing. At that time we were rehearsing in the basement of my mums house. After the first evening with the Ashbory she complained that she had to push back all the crockery in the cupboards because of the noise: RESULT! I loved my Ashbory!!!

Nowadays it’s all much easier. You just ask Aunty Google and all the information is there at a touch of your finger. So now I know that the Ashbory bass was invented by two blokes from London, Alun Ashworth-Jones and Nigel Thornbory, and that the first series of dinosaur bone shaped Ashborys was produced by Guild in the USA. Apparently they flopped and for a few years nothing happened. Then Al and Nigel decided to give it another go and managed to make 80 Ashbory Mark II basses for the Bass Centre in London. The ugly Steinberger copy I bought from Switzerland through a small music shop in Cologne turned out to be one of these rare Mark IIs. Now I love it even more!

If you want to read more about the astonishing story of the Ashbory bass, here’s a link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030605141040/www.ashelec.demon.co.uk/ashbory/index.htm

Learn backwards!

by Dr Gonzo on March 19, 2018 0 Comments

The other day I was trying to figure out a bass riff on a record by a rather obscure finnish band from the eighties (Bluesounds). The problem was that it was rather quick and only lasted for a few bars, and it drove me mad for a while because each time I was ready to try something new, it was already over. I figured out the first note and then …. nothing. I wasn’t quick enough. But after a few tries I remembered a tip I usually give to my students in such a situation: Begin at the end and figure it out backwards!

If you start with the last note, you are always ready for it when it comes. Once you got it, carry on with the second to last one, and so on. This way you always have time to get ready to play with the recording and check your notes/chords. Also you don’t keep repeating the stuff you already know over and over again and then fail at the first new note. If you learn in reverse order, the part you are learning gets easier the further you get through it. The hardest bit will always be the beginning of the piece and not the end. That makes it easier to relax once you played the first note and helps to store the piece in your memory.

This technique is not only great for figuring out a part by listening to a recording, it is also fantastic if you try to learn a difficult passage from scores or tabs. If you start at the beginning, you repeat the easy bit over and over again, but the hard bit (the one you WANT to practise) always throws you out and after a while turns into a real barrier in your mind: you start to fear this bloody note and therefore failure is a given (especially if you try it on stage)! But if you start at the end of the passage, you have time to prepare for the hard note and then afterwards it’s all downhill. Once you got it, the hard note joins the easy ones and the one before it becomes the new hard note. I hope that makes sense… Give it a try anyway!

Blank Sheet Music

Miscellaneous

by Dr Gonzo on March 12, 2018 0 Comments

When I was a younger (and not at all interested in musical notation), you could go to your local stationery shop on the high street and buy a5- and a4-sized music notebooks, basically exercise books with blank staff paper. I haven’t seen those for ages, I presume pupils don’t learn music notation at school anymore. Nevertheless as a music teacher I sometimes feel the need to write down a few notes or tabs for myself or my students. I used to draw lines with ruler and pencil and then copy these templates at the local copy shop (they seem to have vanished too). Luckily there’s a great website that lets you print your own staff paper: https://www.blanksheetmusic.net/
The pages are fully customisable for all your needs using a simple menu. You can choose different clefs, different tabs, lines for lyrics, etc, combine them all if you want, choose the magnification, and then just print out the staff paper on your own printer. Great!

Ukulele Chord Finder

Ukulele

by Dr Gonzo on March 9, 2018 0 Comments

I always have problems remembering the more complicated chords on the ukulele. You know, the ones ending in “aug”, “dim”, “7sus4”, etc… And it doesn’t help that my students prefer the c-tuning, whereas I rather like the d-tuning on my favourite uke. I keep a chord cheat slip in my uke bag, but that isn’t large enough for all combinations.
Also sometimes I accidentally come up with a fingering combination that sounds great, and then I start deciphering the notes and possible combinations to give that chord a name. With only four strings there are usually several possibilities to name that chord.

A while ago I found a great tool to solve these problems: An online ukulele chord finder! Here’s the link: http://www.ukulele.nl/chordfinder/
This great little app knows four different tunings (C, D, C / low G, and G), nineteen different chord options, and it can even play the chosen chord, so you hear how it should sound! You can also click on a virtual fretboard where you put your fingers and it will tell you all possible names of this chord. You want more variations in your songs: two blank buttons in the options section let you step through all possible variations of any chosen chord in the selected tuning.