Fingerpicking Good

As this seems to be the month for challenge series, here’s the latest offering of a free fifteen day fingerstyle course from Terry Carter of Uke Like The Pros. It starts on 1 Nov.

Terry’s lessons are always clearly-presented and informative. He’s been running a number of monthly song challenges on the ULTP forum over the summer, ranging from old standards & pop hits to instrumentals, with prizes such as ukuleles for the best entries. This looks set to be the most thorough, taking people from beginner stage & upwards – covering good technique for finger-picking; introducing seven different picking patterns on alternate days, followed up with seven original pieces to play the next day using the pattern just introduced; including sheet music, tab and backing tracks. At the end of the process there will be a live interactive webinar with extra content.

Further details are in his introductory video. You can sign up here to receive daily updates during the challenge period.

Here’s Terry playing one of his original works, Fingerstyle Meditatio For Ukulele In A Minor, which is the type of piece he will be demonstrating on his course:

 

 

PLUC Weekend Workout

PLUC – Circle of Fifths – Whole Wheel

Christopher Davis-Shannon, aka the Tinman, has a website with playalongs of old-time tunes as well as various tutorials and Uke Minutes with different tips and techniques, including singing whilst playing, practice exercises, strumming methods, picking patterns, chord melody, using a metronome and showboating tricks:.

His latest YouTube series 12 Keys In 12 Weeks (#12Keys12weeks) gets you playing a different scale each week. He provides a number of exercises, including a little melody up the scale for each one using broken – arpeggiated – chords that ‘fit’ within that key by containing just notes from that specific scale (known as a chord family).

In the first video, below, he is demonstrating C major – check the original YouTube page for links in the description for his free worksheets (and more detailed lessons on scales and chords within them). As he progresses, he’s starting to add in different chord voicings to get you to follow the melody notes and play further up the neck. By the end of the series you should be more confident at playing in any key.

Should you want to understand a little more how he arrives at the chords for each scale, have a quick look at a Circle of Fifths.

If you’re playing in the key of C major, take all the chords nearest C on the wheel in a little ‘L’ shape. These chords are made up from the same notes that you’ll find in that specific scale. Go through the letters alphabetically from C right round to C again to get the whole scale.

PLUC – Circle of Fifths – C Major Chord Family

 

When playing chords in this key, the letters on the outside are major chords, the ones on the inside are minor ones and the one out on the leg of the ‘L’ is a diminished chord (dim7 or sometimes written as °):

C major – D minor – E minor – F major – G major – A minor – B dim – C major

 

PLUC – Circle of Fifths – G Major Chord Family

 

 

 

For G major, you’ll get: G major – A minor – B minor – C major – D major – E minor – F# dim – G major

 

PLUC – Circle of Fifths – D Major Chord Family

 

 

 

 

For D major, you’ll get: D major – E minor – F# minor – G major – A major – B minor – C# dim – D major

 

And so on, round the wheel in the same way for each different key.

 

 

See more of our posts covering improving your chord playing; musical keys, the PLUC Transposing Tool and other PLUC Weekend Workouts. Original Circle of Fifths diagram from Wikipedia’s public domain images.

Here’s Christopher, with the first video in the series – C major: