Why not whip out your ukes and have a go at Ukulele Hunt’s Annual Chord Quiz?
There are twenty-five questions, covering five different areas – from naming the chord in the diagrams to identifying different chord progressions (that’s where your instrument might come in handy!).
Good luck.
More Uke Hunt quizzes.
More PLUC Weekend Workouts – including a fun way of seeing how many chords you know & the list of songs you can play with them, using UkeAbility‘s website.
James Hill has released a free ukulele board game called Strumble.
It’s to make practicing more fun but is very practical too, as it splits up working on a piece into: getting yourself familiar with the lyrics; singing the melody of the tune correctly; strumming the rhythm (ie with proper accentuation / dynamics, like you’d use when playing percussion) and changing chords accurately.
I enjoyed listening to him demoing it in episode #29 of his Uketropolis podcast. He picks a song with the Bo Diddley / clave rhythm and shows how focusing on just one or two areas at a time can really help, your performance, instead of rushing in & trying to master it all at once.
I can certainly see how it would be useful splitting up a new tune into sections (e.g. verse, chorus, middle eight) and practicing it this way over a few days. Or when trying to master something tricky. Why not give it a go and see how it works for you?
UkeAbility – Select the chords you know & be shown tunes with just those in.
UkeAbility has a nice twist on the standard playalong site!
You’re presented with a page of chord diagrams. Click to select the chords you know & you’ll be given a list of the tunes they have containing just those ones.
It’s interesting to look through & note which chords you can play without any thought – & likely to be far more that you expected! Scan through a second time: you’ll spot chords you do actually know, either through using them in context in a song you perform regularly or just ones you use occasionally & might need a little memory jog to recall.
Also, most of the moveable chords aren’t on there so, once you’re able to use those, that increases your repertoire up the fretboard giving you new voicings for familiar chords. Thus, if you know three ways to play C that gives you an even larger number of chords at your fingertips.
UkeAbility – If you select 3 chords, they have 72 songs you can play
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:
Musical-U Genre Quiz
How much attention do you pay to the different styles and genres of music when you are listening to tunes? Can you identify what’s jazz or soul? Do you know your arias from your Elbow?
This week’s fun quiz from Musical-U has fourteen short clips for you to match up with the descriptions of various genres ranging from alternative to world, blues to rap & country to ska. Bonus points if you can also identify the artists!
More Musical-U articles & podcasts
People of Lewisham's Ukulele Club 