“Tech notes” about Herb and Daniel’s playing…

I’ve been asked a couple questions about the way these incredible two guys play. Here’s what I saw at the workshop (and, at the end of the post I’ll explain their take on how to play the famous reggae-type strum IZ uses in “Wonderful World/Over the Rainbow”). Note: There’s a full account of these workshops on the earlier posting, just below this one.

Daniel said he is a classically-trained guitarist and I’d say his playing style reflects that. He used no pick, just his fingers. His right hand nails were not very long (just peeking over the top of his finger pads). He typically maintains a hand position for picking in which each finger is positioned over it’s “own” string. That way, he says, he doesn’t have to think about where to put the fingers, they’re already there, ready to play. He does not “brace” with his little finger on the soundboard. He uses a strap to hold his ukulele in place so he can roam up and down the fingerboard.

Herb uses a thumb pick (but his instrument doesn’t look scuffed up from it at all). His right hand index finger is a long nail (and I think the ring finger, too, but not so long); they looked “natural” but I didn’t ask to verify his nail’s composition! He typically picks using his thumb and his index finger. In most of the songs I saw him play, he used his thumb for the G string and his index for the other three. At least one song, though, found him using the thumb for the G and C strings… Herb does not use a strap–and he stood up playing the whole time and never once dropped the ukulele so I guess it works!

They both repeated—several times—that they were showing us optimal positioning and “style” in their instruction book and teaching, but they didn’t necessarily do that in their actual playing. The notes above reflected how they actually played.

Okay, now for that “IZ strum” as they shared it with us—as always, your mileage may vary: The strum has six elements. The first is a pluck of the G string, then a down-up strum. Then a definite mute action, then a a down-up strum. The count would be (grrr…I’m having a tough time lining this up visually):

Pluck—-Down/Up—-Mute—-Down/Up
1———–2/and———3———-4/and

Easier said then done–but I’m practicing!