OCTOBER UPDATE
(Let’s overlook @roger_holland 
statements 
)
- EAR TRAINING
In the past few months I had this 15mins big Ear Training label in which I tried to focus on just feeling my ear to be there, active, aware, challenged, really being foccusing on the sounds and nothing else. This month I organised aĺl those “activities” or “exercises” that I felt to be beneficial into single items of practice on which I invested a lot of time:
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E.T. working out melodies by ear
C and G Major Scale, using a capo to maintain the key of original recordings. I’m slowly getting better at this - I’m quite happy with myself to be honest. -
E.T. Singing from Standard Notation
Musicsheet
Last month I had started singing the notes as degrees of the Major Scale, but I soon realised that I wasn’t challenging my ear because my cognitive Theory knowledge would get in the way. I took this “on paper scale” tool from a Special Needs Education Music Course I did last year for school and this made me feel more aware of myself using my ear - you’ll see it in the video…
(shame on me that I couldn’t find the time to tell you about that, the lecturer was one of those persons you instantly know you can learn a whole lot from - she wrote books for the Suzuki Method too) -
E.T. Songs’ chords
I somehow don’t feel I’m ready for chord progressions yet, I’m afraid it might sound a bit silly, I wouldn’t be able to explain why and while I have the knowledge that songs are made of chord progressions they just look like abstract stuff (heresy, I know!) I thought it wiser to stick to the real world I can make direct experience of: songs! And my exercise is just take one song at the time from my songbook (and they’re already many and mostly I couldn’ t play them from memory!) - without even taking the songbook it’s clear - and just do my downstrums on the beat, uhm some melody, focus on the chord change and being able to hear what chord is to be played. Easy right? No, it’s not… as I’ve always been focusing on tapping my foot, strumming along in time, move my fingers properly on the fretboard and make sure that the change was in time too. The truth is I always neglected my ear - no big deal, the time has come to take care and work to develop it! I’m afraid that if I don’t put the hours into this kind of practice first I won’t be able to use chord progressions in a practical way. The immediate pro of it is…I’m finally learning to play my songs from memory
I’m actually being bolder with playing the Uke at school too, as I used to have a look at the songbook while playing…you know they pay me to look after the children not to hear the chords in my musical mind 
No problem with those many tunes that are just C and G all the way through, but if there is a third or even a fourth chord then I needed the songbook - I’m getting used to not need it anymore 
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Major Scale noodling aroud and improvising
The title says it all already…it’s really about noodling around and use improvising to get my ear used to the function of the notes within the Major Scale and the Tonality! I never thought I would be able to improvise and it’s really much fun!
- STRUMMING
I’ve been practicing strumming with my first finger as if holding a pick and focussed on adding accents on the and after 2 and on 4. Soli by A. Celentano is the song where I hear these accents in the following strumming pattern D DU DU DU for the verse…In the chorus I’m just adding the U after 1, I don’t hear much difference in the Rhythm, the real dynamics maybe lays in the key switching from Gminor in the verse to Gmajor in the chorus (…or so it seems). Also targeting specific strings for the strums as shown in the lesson.
…
Bravo! 
it seems like a new Chord Melody project is in the making 
…a bit of the initial steps in the video below, which I made just for the sake of documenting the learning process 
Thanks Rogier for noticing, I went over YT and changed it!
It happened because this past week I prepared documents at school up to June 2026 and got a bit crazy too…uhh 
so much burocracy! Can you believe an actor from the Theater is coming at school for his show and I had to set a document asking for the schoolbus that day?! It’s unbelievable and crazy and if I don’t do it they’re gonna call me from the school offices to tell they need that piece of paper 
… bureaucracy and distrust is one of the main causes of the collapse of our entire healthcare system … I wish you all the strength and many with you to ever change this system … a Dolorian would be useful … for example, to have an urgent " conversation" with some people about their absurd ideas…brrrr,
I was just referring to my job, (I’ll add a few lines in the sentence, so people won’t misunderstand) the system is so different from what was in the past …they won’t succed anyway!