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How to Learn the Ukulele Fretboard. You Spelled CAGED Wrong.
Theory Thursday: Learn this system to master the ukulele fretboard I recently learned that guitarists use a method called CAGED to master the guitar fretboard. I became curious: Does the CAGED system work for ukulele? Turns out, yes, CAGED does work for ukulele, if you respell it as CAFD. Both CAGED and CAFD are a…
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Free Interactive Ukulele Fretboard Learning tool
Last week when I published Is It Finally Time for You to Learn the Ukulele Fretboard? Here’s how!, I had worked hard on building an interactive ukulele fretboard learning tool. I built it because it was exactly the tool I wanted to help me learn. Unfortunately, I had to remove the tool from that post for…
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Is It Finally Time for You to Learn the Ukulele Fretboard? Here’s how!
Theory Thursday: Learning the Fretboard I’ve been playing the ukulele for 3 years and I still don’t know each note on the fretboard. I’ve realized not knowing which notes are at each fret is holding me back. I want to be able to look at my fingers as they shape a chord anywhere on the…
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When You Feel Out of Control, Try Thinking a New Way
There are times when I feel out of control and helpless, overwhelmed by obligations I need to fulfill and expectations I need to meet. When that happens, I find it useful to remind myself that I have power over the situation. I am in control of my own life, the captain of my own ship,…
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Scared You’ll Never Be Creative Again? Here’s How to Paddle Back Out Into The Waves
I was riding a powerful creativity wave in 2022. Mid-year, I started journalling and writing songs. I had so many ideas I started this blog to share what I was learning. As a first time blogger, I was concerned I’d abandon the blog after a few posts. However, I stayed on track from August to…
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My Songwriting Process in 10 Steps
Earlier, I posted about using Soundslice to write my latest song, “Two Trees”. Today, I’ll give you the origin story of “Two Trees” as a case study for how to generate lyric ideas and to develop a song. I recently joined a women’s songwriting circle. As the first assignment, each of us were challenged to…
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Songwriting with Soundslice
My brain is more of a colander than a steel box. A new song idea may drain out through the holes before I can commit it to long term storage. Luckily, I am not a medieval bard relying solely on memory to retain my songs. I have technology. In today’s post, I’ll discuss how using…
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The Difference between Meditation and Journaling
Each morning you have a limited amount of time. Maybe you’ve got a commute, or a baby that demands to be fed exactly at 5:30am, or a commute and a baby. How do you fit in self care? Self-help gurus say to set your alarm a bit earlier to squeeze in a morning run or…
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Jamming with Banned Books : Music-first Songwriting
Writing a song doesn’t have to be complicated. A simple song is just lyrics and a melody, think Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner (before DNA got a hold of it). However, you may itch to add more depth and texture to your song, but wonder how to add music to your…
Lyrical Thinking 