Twelve Days Of Ukemas – Day Eleven

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.

Sections & YouTube playlists include tutorials for a basic uke course; clawhammer; fingerstyle; strumming and a selection of playalong songs & lessons.

Also included is a useful ukulele chords section, showing many variations of chords up the fretboard (plus baritone chord variations).

Here’s Richard with an introduction to the bum-ditty strum – part of his clawhammer course:

 

PLUC Weekend Workout

Why not try livening up your playing by using a few different chord voicings?

Most regular ukulele songsheets often only give the basic open or first position chords but it’s possible to play each chord in numerous ways just by finding the same selection of notes elsewhere on your fretboard. By experimenting and trying a few of these out you can add texture and interest to even basic songs.

Chords.cc is a handy website that gives you chord shapes for a number of stringed instruments, including three tunings of ukulele, banjos, guitars, mandolins and more. In addition to showing fingering alternatives for a good selection of chord types, there are nice advanced features where you can customise it to show left-handed chords; open strings or not; rootless voicings; maximum stretch (good if you have short fingers); whether to include muted strings; and a ‘how many fingers’ options (approximating how you might play the chord).

Here’s the standard layout for a regular gCEA tuned uke for C major:

Chords CC (http://chords.cc) – C major voicings for a gCEA uke

Other options are being added by user request, including the ability to zoom in on the chords to see more detail if you’re on a mobile device and to generate PDFs.

More PLUC Weekend Workouts.

 

PLUC Weekend Workout

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.

 

PLUC Weekend Workout

Tamás Gáll has just developed a new chord training site called It’s Chordtime, which allows you to change chords to a regular metronome tempo and help become a smoother player.

 

UkeTubes

It’s Paul McCartney’s 75th birthday today (or maybe not, if you subscribe to the Paul Is Dead conspiracy rumours!). Here’s Cynthia Lin with her version of Maybe I’m Amazed. If you’ve not viewed her YouTube channel yet, it’s well worth a look & includes some interesting free uke tutorials.

 

New Year’s Workouts

Happy 2017!

Sheila’s 50th – PLUC

• If you’ve just received your first ukulele, then have a look round our site for playing tips, such as our New Uke For Xmas? article which directs you to some beginners’ guide and handy resources. Or search down the right hand side of the page for the many topics we cover.
• Should you wish to buy a uke, check out our recommendations for decent starter instruments in Good Buy To All That….
• For those of you wishing to access some online lessons,  James Hill’s Booster Uke is free until the end of Jan 2017, which will get you moving up & down the fretboard.
• For a bit of a workout, why not try out the Chord Quiz on Ukulele Go or head over to Uke Hunt’s more challenging Ukulele Quiz 2016.

 

Chord A Day

Csus4 ukulele chord – 31 Jan (Photo credit: Ukulele Chords)

Fancy learning a new chord every day? Then hop over to Curt Sheller’s All Things Ukulele site.

There are also a number of other useful free resources on there – including lots of lessons covering chords, techniques, learning the fingerboard, strumming, finger-picking, scales, rhythm, ear-training & songs.

Jeanette