Stuart Fuchs is another great performer I found early on with a clear & relaxed teaching style, predictably through some of his Beatle posts. He plays a wide variety of styles which reflect the versatility of the uke – here are links to a few YouTubes with him playing on a couple of road trips (a spot of Bob Marley up a mountain top and Billy Joel in the desert); concerts showcasing jazz medleys and stunt ukulele; followed by some more sedate Bach and Brazilian pieces.
I was lucky enough to attend two of his workshops at the 2018 Ukulele Festival of Scotland (UFoS) – Ukulele Zen (giving practice tips, such as how to play more easily without too much tension) and Fingerpicking Skills – & they were really interesting and useful.
(Stuart has recently set up a Patreon page and is busy adding extra content there from as little as $2 per month, for those looking to obtain more detailed lessons and techniques.)
Here’s one of his Beatle medleys:
I hope you’ve found this short Twelve Days Of Ukemasseries informative. People learn differently: whilst some prefer dipping in randomly, others fare better with a more structured approach, or find paying for a formal course or membership motivates them to progress better. With any luck, we’ve introduced you to some new sites and tutorial sources to help you vary and structure your practice so you can improve your uke skills for the New Year!
For Day Eleven, why not try a bit of folk & country music? Richard Hefner’s ezFolk site is another one with masses of free information, from beginners to advanced.
Tyler Austenfeld has been producing an amazing variety of lessons – at least two every week on Weds & Sats – since 2013. He loves teaching & is very encouraging, believing everyone can be musical given the chance. Topics covered in his YouTube Channel include:
There’s a wealth of songs, through many decades, right up to the current day: ‘How To Play’ Ukulele Songs; Song Tutorials Through The Decades (songs from 1950s – 2010s); Tutorials Of Popular Artists (eg Bruno Mars, Eric Clapton, Green Day, Jack Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Twenty One Pilots, Elvis Presley, Bob Marley, CCR, Queen etc).
Ukulele Tips, Tricks, Techniques & Songwriting – this covers all sorts of interesting items, often in mini-courses, such as different types of strumming (eg reggae, palm mute, chnking, triplets, Mariachi etc); hammer on & pull-offs; percussive techniques; barre chords; Twelve Bar Blues – licks & turnarounds; right-hand dynamics; fingerstyle & fingerpicking; jamming with others, soloing & improvisation; pentatonic & other scales; jazz chord progressions; songwriting tips etc.
(If you like what you see & want even more detailed information, you can join Ten Thumbs’ Patreon scheme from as little as $1 per month to gain access to tabs for every lesson, jam tracks and more.)
Here’s a Twelve Bar Blues with Barre Chord Shuffle in A major:
Along with Phil Doleman, Samantha Muir is another regular contributor to tutorials in the quarterly UKE Magazine. She focuses more on Classical pieces; instrumental arrangements of folk & fiddle tunes; studies and fingerstyle, so that’s great if you are expanding your repertoire from basic strumming and pop tunes.
In addition to performances and information about her publications, Samantha often publishes tutorials on her blog. Here’s a nice lesson for playing the C major scale in campanella style (this is the accompanying C Major Campanella Scale Exercises PDF – which is both in music notation & tab):
We know Phil Doleman – he’s a nice chap! He’s a good teacher & performer – always doing workshops at every ukulele festival he’s at. He explains things very clearly, so his sessions are well-worth attending. In fact, it never seems like a proper uke fest if he’s not there!
Phil has interesting online lessons (see his blog & YouTube Channel – or even via Skype) & a really good uke music theory book, How Music Works on the Ukulele (all based round the uke fretboard, so perfect for beginners or those who don’t read music).
From his selection of over twenty Two Minute Tips, here’s a demo on how to use your left hand more efficiently, without strain (and a little more on barre chords here – learning to play the Bb chord with ease).
By the way, if you’ve never attended a ukulele festival, it’s a great way to expand your knowledge. See many uke performers of differing styles; attend a few workshops to learn new skills, jam along with others and maybe even pluck up courage to play in an open mic session! The Got A Ukulele Calendar is international & updated regularly throughout the year as folk send in information. I’ve been a few – some small & local and others large-scale & national. My favourite to date is the Ukulele Festival of Scotland, which is held in lovely surroundings at Dumfries. It’s fantastically well-organised & packs in a lot from mid Fri afternoon to early Sun evening.
Cynthia Lin produces some well-arranged songs at different levels, with strumalong videos to help you learn through playing along with her. The songsheets are always free at Bandcamp (you can just enter a payment of $0 – or more if you wish to make a donation to her).
If you enjoy browsing through uke blogs to see a mix of articles on improving your playing techniques, tips on how to tackle learning new songs, music from old-time tunes and bad jokes a’plenty, then you should enjoy Danno Sullivan’s Play It Daily site.
In addition to his entertaining blog, there are many free mini-courses (including alternative ways of tackling the E chord and how beating time to tunes on the radio can improve your ukulele strumming technique), Office Hours live interactive lessons & discussions that you can access from the Free Library. Plus there are a couple of Facebook pages with more tips.
You can also take out paid subscriptions to receive more detailed learning resources, such as supplementary daily emails to Chad Johnson’s Ukulele Aerobics training manual, if you wish.
Here’s Danno with a few tips for making barre chords easier & why you will find it useful to use them:
