Saturday, August 15, 2009

Jay Chou (周杰倫) on the ukulele??

Several weeks ago I saw a video on Youtube by kenlou1274 playing a song called "Dandelion's Promise" (蒲公英的約定) by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫). I've listened to several of Jay Chou's songs as he is a very popular singer in Asia, but I wasn't familiar with this one. I thought it was a cool arrangement and I actually found this song on my iPod (got tons of Chinese language songs on it that I haven't even listened to). So I decided to try and learn this by watching kenlou1274's video. It was a fairly straight forward arrangement but it wasn't easy for me to learn for some reason. It took a couple of weeks before I can play it all the way through reasonably. Since I got some time this afternoon I decided to give it a shot and made a video playing this song. It's not quite as good as kenlou1274's (check out his skills on his channel. I dream of being able to play 3rd Stream some day.), but I'm happy with it.

By the way, I seem to be more of a visual learner. I have learned a few songs by watching Youtube videos where the fretboard is clearly visible. I don't think I can quite learn by ear yet, but a clear video definitely helps me a lot. A few people have commented to me that they've learned a few songs from watching the videos I've posted, and I'm very happy to have been able to help out a few people out there wanting to learn more ukulele arrangements.

Happy strumming to all!


Which uke should I bring on my next trip to Oahu???

What's the maximum you'd spend on a ukulele case for your best uke?

If you could steal one of my ukes, which one would it be???

How curly do you like your koa? (preferably on a uke)

What's the maximum number of ukes a perfectly sane person should have???

Poll: How often do you play the ukulele???

Poll: Which guitar company's approach to ukes do you prefer???

Poll: What's your favorite type of headstock???

Poll: The new basic Collings concert uke (UC-1) sells for about $1k, your reaction is: