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I’ve Been Working On the Railroad

by Brett McQueen

“I’ve Been Working On the Railroad” is the first song I learned how to play on the ukulele. My grandfather, who actually worked on the railroad, taught it to me when I was just six years old.

This song is a great song to learn if you are just beginning to play ukulele.

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Motivational Monday: Healing Power of Ukulele

by Brett McQueen

Do you believe that people can receive healing through music?

Last week, I came across a really cool post over at the Ukulele Underground forums on the healing power of music in action.

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“Trouble” by Never Shout Never

by Brett McQueen

If you’re a dude, and you play this song for some lovely lady you fancy after, you might just have a chance.

The good thing about this song is that it’s pretty easy to play. The only thing is that it might be pretty hard to sing. Nonetheless, here are the ukulele chords for “Trouble” by Never Shout Never.

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Major, Minor, Diminished & Augmented Chords Explained

by Brett McQueen

You’ll have to forgive me, but I loooove talking about music theory. If we understand how music is put together, it unlocks a bunch of creative ideas for approaching songs in a different way and even writing our own songs.

So in view of our past post “Ukulele Scales Explained for Beginners” I wanted to take a look at the differences between major, minor, diminished, and augmented chords.

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Motivational Monday: Back from the Studio

by Brett McQueen

I want to apologize for dropping off the face of the earth last week. This past week I had an exciting opportunity to go down to Nashville to work with my brother on a recording project of his. He’s doing a five song EP, so we were in the studio all week working away on that.

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Ukulele Scales Explained for Beginners

by Brett McQueen

What are scales? How does a scale work? Why are they important to know?

We’re going to tackle these questions. In this lesson, I want to take an introductory look to scales, specific to the ukulele. This little bit of theory is very helpful to know, and it’s pretty easy to understand.

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Motivational Monday: Build Me Up, Buttercup

by Brett McQueen

There are some folks on YouTube who’ve established themselves as ukulele legends. One such person is jaaaaaaa or Julia Nunes who has received over 5.5 million channel views and over 38 million upload views. Not to mention she’s even played some shows with Ben Folds. Dang!

As a ukulele player and as an artist, I have to ask myself, “What makes her so successful as a ukulele player and artist?”

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5 Great Chromatic Tuners for Ukulele

by Brett McQueen

Using a chromatic tuner will always give you the easiest and most accurate tuning. A chromatic tuner is a device that detects and displays the pitch of the strings on your ukulele.

In this post, I want to take a look at five chromatic tuners that aren’t that pricey but will do just the trick in getting your ukulele tuned up.

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Motivational Monday: “Hey, Soul Sister” Cover by 8-year-old Kid

by Brett McQueen

I remember learning how to play the ukulele when I was six years old. Even by the time I was 8, I was in no way as good as this kid. In this video, 8-year-old Aidan Laprete Powell tears it up as he covers Hey, Soul Sister on the ukulele. Are there any parents out there who have taught their kid(s) how to play ukulele?

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Minor 7th, Dominant 7th & Sixth Ukulele Chords Added

by Brett McQueen

Hello to all of you fine ukulele folks. I just wanted to make another quick update to say that even more progress has been made on the ukulele chord library. Last time, I mentioned that major seventh chords had been added to the ukulele chord library. Since then, I’ve added minor 7th, dominant 7th, and sixth chords to the chords library.

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