In the winter I made a short video teaser for Jesse’s upcoming album by getting him to perform a song off it called Make Hymn Cry. As the only ukulele piece on a rap album, it definitely stands out.
Then it dawned on me this morning to see if I could cover it. As I was trying to figure out the chord progression, I realized it’s a fairly simple song that only alternates between the G and C chords. The strumming in Jesse’s video is slightly simpler than on the album, the latter of which is the pattern I use in my version, and includes the picking arpeggio for the second verse.
Still, it took me half the day just to get comfortable with the strumming pattern because it’s syncopated in a way I’m not used to yet, the rhythm at the end of each bar divided beyond eighth notes into sixteenth notes. This is what long weekends are for.
The main thing I’m concentrating on is counting the beats so I can strum off them and keep track of where the extra strum is at the end of each bar. The next is trying not to speed up, which is a very bad habit of mine, regardless of instrument. I also need to pay attention to softly resting my hand on the strings when transitioning to the second verse; firstly, to prevent the last chord from ringing too long, and secondly, to physically feel where the strings are so I can get my thumb on the C string. I’m definitely not good enough to know where it is at all times. Most of the rest came by itself (i.e. I’m not consciously focusing on it), probably from already listening a few times to a pre-release copy of the album Jesse gave me.
The phrases of the lyrics are also syncopated against the strumming; it always feels like your strumming is late because the first word of every line falls on the beat before each down-strum), which adds another layer of complexity. The fact that I made it through without any major mistakes but fucked it up right at the very end is why I can’t stop laughing.
My singing is strained cause I’m trying to project above the strumming to stay in balance, but it’s clearly out of my comfort zone. I’m not good enough to strum softly with control yet, so I cheated and just raised my voice. The thing is, I never practice singing when I’m practicing my playing, usually because I need to concentrate on one thing at a time. Singing practice is also boring by itself, so I never do it, even though I should.
Anyway, I had a good day after learning this little piece, and being able to figure out the chords and the strumming was probably just as fun as being able to play it.