Thanks for prompting me, Yvensong. This one is fun to hum if I don’t remember the words while moving my fingers on the frets and strumming.
I know, it’s for kids. But they have small hands. So I should be able to work through what they can.🤞
This one is fun. Like a REAL song! And look at the chord changes! Yay! Me!
This one has the wrong words. A great Kazoo song!
The book goes on and introduces scales of sorts. So my piano background is related not only by chords but note by note.
On the Bernadette Teaches Music I’m gradually moving from day 9, where we learned about ten chords, to day 10 and playing songs. But many chords don’t like me. They have the tone quality of a hammer. But but not by bit I’m getting better.
Ya know what? I’m beginning to have fun!
And my hubby is getting a guitar. We’re going to start jamming. Truly as a solo soprano singer and hidden piano accompanist, I don’t know how to jam. This should be interesting!
And now that everything is out, I might as well get to work.
Here’s that holey bendy bits and the rings bits. How do they fits?
Bendies at the top and bottom of the three chains. Ringies hook the top of the chains to the heart and another hooks the big gem at the bottom. Squeeze the hole parts onto the chain with pliers. Make sure they are on tight or you will be flustered and floundering and possibly throwing all the bits. Two suncatchers more to go. Enough frustration for this day!
Progress, mostly halfway finished
Real flounders entice sea turtles down to floor. The flounders are having a feast!
Another pair of slipper socks. I’m incorporating that nice stretchy arch I learned with the no-show socks.
I’m getting a little better with chording on the ukulele. I almost don’t have to look when changing from C to F to G7 and back to C all the while singing. Almost time for a new lesson. It’s supposed to be a 30 day course, but my soft, achy fingers needed more time. I’m still learning day 9 a couple weeks later.
The recorder comes and goes. Teaching myself and my fingers soprano, alto, and tenor. I can finally reach all notes on soprano and alto, though not consistently. I can barely get the top three holes of the tenor.
And. AND I CLEANED THE PIANO WELL SO IT WELCOMES ME! Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually play!!!!
A quick note. Door push-ups, floor to ceiling stretches, then more than 30 minutes or more than 5 miles on the stationary bike. All still happening. So some things are growing into habits. Others are still work. But a lot of flounder still happens. Ah, well, it’s February!
I finished these ages ago but never did the sealing or chaining them to the hooks and beads. So tonight I sealed side one. I think by Sunday I’ll have them ready to hang up.
I was able to last longer this time finishing the strip on the left side. This has a lot of color in it. Even the water is varied in its blues and greens.
I finally have a I, IV, and a V. Okay, I needed to do a quick note to myself as to how to do the G7 (V). But as I sing as I strum, I’m teaching myself to work with chords instead of each individual note (how I was taught all my life).Here is the next batch of chords I’m working on. Yes, I cheated by adding my own I and IV chords.On the recorder I’m playing with the G major scale and arpeggio, and that minuet. On piano both are easy but trying to be smooth with breath and fingers is the challenge.This song has memories. I was learning it in voice class when my grandmother was dying. I hadn’t memorized the lyrics but by her hospital bed as she was nearing the end, my cousin asked me to sing a song. Here I floundered, all I could hear was The Ash Grove. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know the words. It’s quite beautiful and fitting for the situation. So I sang nothing. I did get to sing In The Garden at her funeral. My work on this is to get smooth enough to record them to sing to.I can play all the melody songs on my soprano recorder. But now I want to learn the harmonies and all the alto recorder parts. Again I hope to record and do duets with myself.I found this pair of socks I’d started and somehow forgot. So I’m farther along in my family gift than I thought.I’ve made a little progress here probably 3 more inches then start the heel.One more inch and the arch gets made. I’m really enjoying these sneaker no-show socks. I nearly have the pattern memorized.
Since this guy showed up in my purview, I keep hearing about it or seeing new ways to use it. But when I looked up this comparison, this is what I found on Google:
Flounder and founder are happy little nouns that don’t get mixed up. But it all falls apart when they’re verbs — if you’re floundering, you’re struggling.If you’re foundering, you’re failing completely.I don’t feel I am foundering in any way. Just finding ways to see successes.
So, I am sticking with the fish. And that is better than a horse who founders.
Her hooves hurt, and she can’t go on. Actually, I don’t know that about the above horse. I just was looking for a picture of a horse on the ground. And she is so pretty!
The groundhog is a floundering hog. Or is it that Winter is floundering? Because we are supposed to be getting an early Spring. But we got this:
Yeah, the bag of trash got deserted on the front porch. And we only got inches. Our friends got feet!
Meanwhile, I finished the little boy’s slippers:
It’s fun to make smaller socks because they get finished quicker. But now I’m on the mother and the older daughter, and possibly Auntie and Grandma. All around sizes 7 and 8. Yes, the yarn is already on the needles.
My biggest floundering seems to be on the ukulele. My fingers just don’t want to be in those chord situations. But I keep trying. I did figure out I could plunk out Mary Had a Little Lamb on the strings as I figured out where each note was. But moving from F to C and back within a singing timing was crazy. The F chord is the hardest. Well, until I met G. Getting pretty sounds is crippling!
I’m not floundering so much on the recorders. Except I probably should play them before deadening the fingertips on the Uke. I am trying to remember where the F, F#, and B flat are. Other than that I’m getting better, slowly.
And so, I’m off to try again tonight. Wish me luck!
We started out with pretty snow, but now it is all atrocious mud and rain. Yuck!
Your prompt for JusJoJan, January 26th, 2024, is “atrocious.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
Jemima of Jemima’s blog provided us with the prompt of the day. Thank you, Linda and Jemima!
My achievements for this Friday are meager, but I feel good about them. My greatest accomplishment is over a year in getting it done. Now, I need to find a way to send it to its new home.
Sealed and an acrylic paint border. I had tried different types of tape including a pretty duct tape. But none stuck very well. But I think the black looks better anyway. I’m just so sloppy with paints I got it on everything. It cleaned up okay. But I’m ready to do some new diamond paintings.
The socks I was knitting ended up being tinked back to the arch area. I had them all the way to being close to done, but I held them in my hand and wondered about the size. They are supposed to fit a size 1 child, but when I looked that up, that would have been at least 7 inches long. These were only 5. So most of the week I have been undoing the work. The good part is I am getting better acquainted with the shadow wrapping needed for the heel and above. So when I finally get there again I’ll know what I’m doing. By the way, in the picture, you will see that each sock has its own needles. When I reach the heel of these no-show socks I find I do better with them separated.
The sock on the right is the one I’m working on until I reach the heel. The ball is all that I had to tink off the sock. For the sock on the left, I just wound the yarn around the sock so I wouldn’t get them mixed up.
When I want to just relax I am working on this pair of slipper socks.
I’m going to have to decide who gets these soon so I know how large to make them. I already have a pair I made for me but I love them enough to want another pair. They are comfortable.
I’m still only on day 8 of the lessons as I haven’t mastered the few chords taught so far. My fingers are getting tougher, but they still aren’t coordinated enough to not mute other strings. But, hey, I can now get through Row, Row, Row, and Mary Had A Little Lamb. Yay! I’m thinking I need to make a strap for my uke to carry it around and take the pressure off my hands. There are several patterns on YouTube.
I wish I had learned recorder as a kid like these guys. But I’m glad I do understand music so that I can read and play the notes I know how to play. I finally got out my alto and found I remembered how to play it. My lapse of learning happened when I realized I had been using the wrong fingering for the type of recorder I had. Baroque versus German. All of my recorders and I inherited a lot of them from the school I worked in, plus my alto and my tenor that I bought are the Baroque.
Now that I know that I have retaught my fingers the F. I stopped playing before because it sounded wrong, and I couldn’t figure out why. Now I know, and I have to re-train my brain for it.
Speaking of the musical instruments, this is the time I usually play around with them. So, have a great Friday night and week-end!
I’m so stoked to finally develop calluses on my fingers. I am beginning to learn a few chords on my ukulele. My first couple of songs use the F and the C7 (Mary Had a Little Lamb), and the C gives us Row, Row Row! And though the fretting fingers still hurt a little, I am hearing purer chords.
This little uke was $10 at a BiMart in La Pine. It seems to hold its tune nicely for something so inexpensive. If I can get to changing chords quickly, I may invest in a more expensive ukulele. It is fun to learn new things. And hopefully, it will help my brain to stay healthy.
And I’m stoked that I finally know an F from an F# on this recorder. I am such a newbie on both of these instruments I feel I might never play nicely, but I am making myself happy with each little improvement.
“ending to keep a firm hold of something; clinging or adhering closely.
“tenacious grip”
or
not readily relinquishing a position, principle, or course of action; determined.
“you’re tenacious and you get at the truth”
or
persisting in existence; not easily dispelled.
“a tenacious local legend”
When I am working on something I can seem stubborn. But I would rather think of it as tenacious. Sticking to it until I become better, sticking to it until I have a product to wear, or give to someone else to enjoy. The following are my newest slippers and socks.
These are a pair of this-and-that slippers using up leftover yarn. If they don’t turn out well, I will keep them and love them myself!
These will be the smallest no-show socks for a sweet little girl who is a size 1 child. I hope they turn out to be her size. I have to admit my own size is easiest to do as I have my own feet available to check as I go.
I tenaciously cling to the idea of learning to play new instruments while maintaining the ones I know. My recorder is always near me. I’ve finally gotten the idea of how the Baroque fingering for F and F sharp is different than the fingering I learned at first. I like that it sounds right now.
The last time I tried a stringed instrument was a guitar I had as a young teen. I named it Herman. I gave up because it hurt my fingers. So, I thought a ukulele would be easier. Definitely easy to tote around. Nope. I’m only on one-finger chords, and it already hurts. But now I have a group on Facebook helping me learn to keep practice times down to 10 minutes until my fingers develop callouses. I plan to stick it out. And still get back to my piano. No sense in letting that go when it has been with me since I was 5. 69 years of piano? I ought to be at the concert level! No. I just want to enjoy it and learn more.
Remember this guy? I was working on him a year ago. I gave up because I didn’t like to do the last steps. But I finally finished sealing the painting. Tomorrow, I will frame the work with the tape in the upper left corner. Then he and the leg-warmers will go to their new owner.
Through the limbs of the mesquite, you can see the tenacious snow that won’t leave the driveway despite the rain we have had for a couple days. More rain is expected. Somehow, I don’t think I will see snow tomorrow.
My brother has a new but beautiful enemy. We have about 6 of these guys hanging around our yard and our neighbors’ yards. Though I would appreciate them dealing with all the mice around here, they seem to be going after the chickens and small stray cats and rabbits that hang out in our area. My brother got beak to beak with one as he tried to save one of his chickens, but the owl had already won. So he strengthened the coop so that owls couldn’t get in. Sadly, our chickens are free-range during the day, and that makes it dangerous for them. When not being pests, these large birds are gorgeous. And probably more tenacious than any other predator around here.
But I can’t leave this prompt without this tribute:
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
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