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.
[Continue Reading...]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.
[Continue Reading...]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.
[Continue Reading...]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?”
[Continue Reading...]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.
[Continue Reading...]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?
[Continue Reading...]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.
[Continue Reading...]It’s been cool to see how pop music has been drawing attention to the ukulele over the past few years. One such song is Train’s single Hey, Soul Sister off their “Save Me, San Francisco” album. Today, we’ll be looking at the chords for this song. As a four chord song, there aren’t going to be a lot of chords to learn. Here are the chords you will need to know.
[Continue Reading...]I asked the question last week if any of you have ever thought a little outside of the box for a performance. I was thrilled when Krapo responded saying he had covered System of Down’s “Chop Suey” on ukulele and glockenspiel. If you’re not familiar with the song, it’s originally played as a heavy rock song, so to cover it on ukulele is pretty gutsy.
[Continue Reading...]Having a hard time figuring out what size of ukulele to buy? Maybe you’re trying to figure out what size of ukulele you have? Whatever your questions are, we’re going to look at the different sizes of ukuleles and the advantages and disadvantages to each.
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