Should you practice ukulele exercises if you’re a beginner?
Yes!
Ukulele exercises are designed to warm up your fingers, increase the coordination between your fingers and mind, and build strength in weak fingers.
Don’t worry. These exercises are perfect for any skill level ukulele player. Include them into your practice routine for just five minutes of practice for best results.
[Continue Reading...]Plucking out a melody on your ukulele is a whole lot of fun.
It all begins with the major scale!
In this new video, I show you how with just 1 major scale pattern you can pluck the opening melody of Judy Garland’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow in multiple keys.
[Continue Reading...]One of the hardest things to figure out as a new ukulele player is the strumming pattern for a song.
Nowadays it’s fairly easy to look up the chords online and you’ll get a chord chart where chord letters are written above the lyrics.
So you’ll practice those chords, figure out where to put your fingers, and now it’s time to strum.
But then there’s all these questions:
If it feels overwhelming to figure out, then, just know you’re not alone, but there’s actually a big trick you need to know which I cover in today’s video lesson.
[Continue Reading...]You’ve been teaching yourself ukulele for a couple months now and play religiously every day.
You even know a handful of beginner ukulele chords and a strumming pattern.
You want to continue to see improvement.
But you don’t want to pick up bad habits.
And you also don’t know if you’re even using your time wisely to learn the most important things.
You’ve heard it’s possible to learn an instrument by teaching yourself. Heck, your neighbor Jim said he learned the “self taught” way. However, if you’ve never played an instrument before, how do you know if you’re on the right track? What are the best practices for teaching yourself? And is it even possible?
If I were to go back in time and learn ukulele again, I could probably list 100 mistakes I made, but out of all of those, I would absolutely avoid making these 3 mistakes.
I want to warn you though – some of what I’m about to say might make you feel uncomfortable.
[Continue Reading...]Will this be the year you finally learn ukulele?
It can be… by focusing on the right things!
No, you don’t need to memorize hundreds of ukulele chords to start playing actual music. It’s better to take a different approach.
In this video, I cover the four things you need to do this year to learn how to play your ukulele proficiently and teach you to play an easy song.
Don’t let another year go by without learning ukulele!
[Continue Reading...]Making the decision to learn a musical instrument like the ukulele is exciting, however as a beginner, you might be wondering:
“How often should I practice?”
How you answer this question lays the foundation for your ability to make the music you love!
Let’s look at the optimal practice frequency for ukulele players at different skill levels – beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
[Continue Reading...]How do you “feel” the rhythm?
Finding the groove when strumming your ukulele can be difficult but there is a way to improve.
It starts with building what I like to call a “Strumming Vocabulary” where you practice simple strumming rhythm exercises – trust me, any level ukulele player can learn these with a little effort and improve their rhythm!
With that vocab, you acquire the muscle memory to be able to just “feel” the beat.
It all starts with playing some fun strumming pattern exercises.
In this video lesson, I teach you three exercises to play on your ukulele that will help you:
I break everything down in the following video lesson!
[Continue Reading...]Being able to make music is a fulfilling and enriching endeavor regardless of age.
But if you’re thinking about learning an instrument later in life, it’s important to know that engaging in this creative pursuit isn’t just about checking “Make Music” off from your bucket list, but rather, it’s something that can offer remarkable health benefits.
From cognition to emotional well-being, let’s explore five ways backed by research in which learning ukulele can enhance your health and overall quality of life!
[Continue Reading...]Learning to play an instrument as an adult shouldn’t be the same as when you were a kid.
If you learned music as a kid, there was probably a big focus on traditional music education. You know what I’m talking about… scales, classical music, rote memorization, theory, ticking metronomes, rulers smacking your knuckles if you mess up, and all that fun stuff!
And a big reason for the “traditional” approach is, when you’re a kid, time is on your side… you have time to follow through the “twelve grades of playing piano” over the next 12 years.
But as an adult, you don’t want to spend 12 years… you want to play music as soon as possible.
Of course I’d be lying to you if I told you that you don’t need to practice.
You need to practice.
But what you practice is SUPER important.
For most adults, the starting goal is to be able to take your favorite song, look up the chords, and play it!
Note: This is a very reasonable and attainable goal for new players who have just started playing the ukulele.
To do this, here are the most important skills you need to develop in your practice and nothing else.
[Continue Reading...]Strumming patterns are the bread and butter of playing ukulele.
And they can also make or break you.
“If only I could figure out the strumming pattern to this song.”
What if I told you there isn’t a magic strumming pattern for a song? What if the best pattern is the one you come up with?
In order to come up with the right strumming pattern, you start by using what I consider my favorite strumming pattern of all time. As someone who’s played ukulele for over 25 years, this is still my go-to pattern whenever I’m first learning a new song. And I suggest you do the same!
But I’m warning you…
This pattern is super easy.
Because of that, a lot of people overlook it, but that would be a mistake.
I explore all this and more in the video.
[Continue Reading...]