Ukulele Go: Recent Episodes
Dave Ellis
It’s fair to say I’ve helped a few newcomers to ukulele in my time, whether that’s been my own kids or people that emailed me for some extra tips.
One thing I notice when it comes to rhythm though is that a lot of ukulele beginners are far too eager to stop strumming.
What I mean by this is, it’s very common for beginners to stop their strumming arm from moving if there’s no strum to be played.
It makes sense right?
Sort of.
When I taught myself to play guitar many moons ago I picked up an awful lot of bad habits but the worst of all was my timing, or lack of it.
I didn’t count beats, I sort of guessed where I should be playing. This meant that my timing was way off.
Start By Counting BeatsEventually I got a guitar tutor and he taught me to count beats and tap my foot which is probably the most bang for buck than I’ve ever had in a single tip.
And this leads directly in to keeping your strumming arm moving.
Let’s take a look at a practical example.
The rhythm below misses beats 2 and 3, there’s nothing to play. This make it difficult to get your timing right after the first beat.
In the old days before I kept my strumming arm moving, I’d tap my foot for those beats, or nod my head or try and count them in my head.
Keep Your Strumming Arm MovingIt’s far better to make the action of the strum without hitting the strings.
By doing this your arm becomes your metronome, it helps keep the timing going even though nothing is being played.
Simple.
It does sound simple, but it can be a little tricky at first if you’re not used to it.
Let’s simplify that rhythm a bit and have a go.
I’ve removed the up strums from the rhythm so now all we’re playing is a down strum on beats 1 & 4.
We’re going to strum down 4 times, but only catch the strings on beats 1 and 4. Aim for a nice consistent pace with your strumming arm.
Don’t worry if you do catch the strings accidentally, as long as you’re making a conscious effort to try and avoid playing them.
You’ll get better with time.
Say It And Play ItI always think it’s a big help to say it out loud.
In the simplified strumming pattern above, I would count that as: 1, miss, miss, 4. You’ll be moving your arm every time you open your mouth.
Try that now, it should really help.
Practice With Patterns You Already KnowNow for a little bit of homework, go back to some of the strumming patterns that you’re already familiar with and check to see if you’re keeping your strumming arm moving or not.
If you’re not, see if you can work this tip in.
It may take a little bit longer and you may find that you’re playing a little bit slower to begin with but you should notice a significant timing improvement in your playing pretty rapidly.
If you have any questions on this one, you can drop them in the comments on here or on the UkuleleGo Youtube channel.
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Throughout 2022 I didn’t play much ukulele, this has happened a few times since I started playing. I lose interest from time to time and I just kind of stop.
There’s one skill that I’ve never fully got to grips with though and this year I’m determined to make some real progress. That skill is playing by ear.
I’ve written about playing by ear before and I can usually pick out melodies relatively quickly. Working out the chords though is quite a leap and I’ve never been great at it.
So the commitment this year is that I’m not going to look up the tab or music for anything. I’m not going to watch Youtube tutorials to learn songs, if I can’t work it out by myself I won’t play it.
It’s quite a severe approach, but I feel like it’s got some real potential. The limitations of not being able to play anything unless I can work it out myself will do me some good. And for a whole year too.
The PlanIn truth I don’t have much of a plan for this. When I do things like this, I tend to get bogged down in what the best approach is, which songs I should try and work out – how should I do it, etc etc.
And before I know it, I haven’t done anything. So there really isn’t much of a plan, I’m just going for it. But I can tell you what I’ve done so far and whether it’s working or not.
Starting With MelodiesI’ve started in the easiest place, I’m warming up in January by exclusively working with melodies. This is definitely the part that I find the easiest when it comes to playing by ear so I’m building my confidence by taking some quick wins.
Here’s a list of songs that I’ve been working on the melodies to. Sometimes it’s just the intro, sometimes it’s a solo. I can’t always get all of it but I’ll have a good go, get what I can and move on.
- Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
- Walk Of Life – Dire Straits
- Apache – The Shadows
- One Day Like This – Elbow
- Seven Years Old – Lukas Graham
- Fields of Gold – Sting
- Beautiful Girl – INXS
- We Didn’t Start The Fire – Billy Joel
- Right Here Waiting – Richard Marx
Hopefully that song list will prove to be useful of someone else out there – it’s not always easy finding songs with melodies that are good to try.
I find myself listening to the radio in the hope that a song will play that has a great melody that will be good to try and learn.
My Approach To Working Out SongsGenerally what I do is play the song and listen to it for a while, I’ll then pretty much jump straight in and just play a few notes over the top – hopefully I will land on a note that I hear in the melody somewhere. Sometimes this happens pretty quickly and sometimes it’s really difficult.
What I’m aiming for is the first note, but I’ll take any note. After that it’s a bit of a process of elimination, there are only so many notes that the next note can be, Is it higher or lower than the previous note, is it the same.
Again sometimes this can come together pretty easily and for some reason I really get stuck on some songs. I do know that this will definitely improve over time though.
If a song is particularly difficult but I still really want to work it out, I might try and find someone playing a solo performance of it. It’s much easier to work out the song if there’s just a single instrument playing it. I try not to do this unless I really need to though.
And that’s pretty much it for now. As we approach February I’d like to start moving into working out the chords for the songs and then the entire song, intro, chords, solo, outro etc etc.
Towards the end of the year I’d like to be making better solo arrangements. That’s the ultimate goal.
Wish me luck.
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Six years back I reviewed the Outdoor Tenor and I was a fan, it was durable, well balanced and sounded pretty good. Since that review Outdoor have updated their ukuleles and I’ve taken a look at the latest version. The Spec For those that don’t know, the Outdoor Tenor is a polycarbonate ukulele that is […]
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Many years ago my dad expressed an interest in playing ukulele but was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to play. I wrote a post connected to this and it sparked a lot of interest from others with similar issues. But what has this got to do with playing ukulele […]
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Recently I’ve been teaching my 10 year old son to play ukulele, as I’ve been teaching him I’ve spotted some of the mistakes that he’s been making that are very common among beginners and others that I’ve taught to play. Today we’re going to look at some of those mistakes and work out why they […]
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Moving from strumming to fingerpicking is when you know that you’re starting to get a little bit more serious with ukulele. In this lesson I look at 5 fingerpicking patterns that you can use as a starting point to move your fingerpicking skills forwards. Before we get started, the chords I’m using in the video […]
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In this lesson I’ll walk you through a simple solo ukulele arrangement of the nursery rhyme Itsy Bitsy spider (or as I knew it growing up, Incy Wincy Spider). This simple arrangement was taken from David Lawson’s excellent Ebook Fingerstyle Classics. It’s quite a simple one to learn so if you’ve never done any fingerpicking […]
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Often I’ll be noodling around on the ukulele, strumming chords I know and I find it very easy to stay in the comfort zone and play something that really doesn’t require much effort on my part. SO I set myself a little challenge to come up with something using C, F and G that sounded […]
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Playing songs is one way to practice but it’s also important to focus purely on technique sometimes. So today we’re going to take a look at some exercises that will develop your fretting hand abilities. All of the exercises below are intended to develop your finger dexterity, speed and finger strength. They’re a good way […]
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Back in 2016, twelve year old Grace VanderWaal turned up on America’s Got Talent with her ukulele in hand and stunned the audience with her original song I Don’t Know My Name. Grace went on to win America’s Got Talent and subsequently signed a record deal with Columbia Records. Today we’re going to learn how […]
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When I first started to learn guitar (well actually it was the second time, the first time I gave up fairly quickly), I often wondered whether I was actually capable of learning to play. My Story I’d never learned an instrument before, I didn’t take music at school and I’d never shown a natural ability […]
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I’m a little ashamed to admit that I didn’t hear this stunning song by Fleetwood Mac until recently. I was watching Shane Meadows’ This Is England and it came on and caught my attention immediately. Initially I started playing it on guitar but I wanted to try a version on ukulele and I think its […]
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If you’ve not heard the Wellerman over the first few months of 2021, where have you been? This sea shanty became massive thanks to Nathan Evan’s rendition on Tiktok, lets learn The Wellerman on ukulele.
It’s a simple song, as sea shanties tend to be with a driving beat and it shares a lot of similarities with perhaps the most famous sea shanty of all, What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor?
The Wellerman originated in New Zealand in the mid-19th century.
The Chords You’ll Need For this ukulele version of The Wellerman we’ll be using 5 chords: Am, Dm, C, F and the dreaded E. If you need a little help with the E chord, check out my post on playing the E chord.
The Strumming Pattern As sea shanties were primarily sung on ships and boats, they’re largely unaccompanied by any instruments and performed acapella which means anything we play is going to be quite simple.
We’re going to go with a steady D DUD DU repeated across the entire song, this will give us the driving beat that keeps the song moving forwards.
Here’s that strumming pattern as a diagram…
And here’s what it sounds like…
Try and emphasise the first and third beats to really drive it.
Song Structure Here are the lyrics alongside the chords so you can perform it and become a TikTok sensation.
For the verses you’ll be repeating the chords as follows…
Am x 4 | Dm x 2 | Am x 2 | Am x 4 | E x 2 | Am x 2
And the chorus…
F x 2 | C x 2 | Dm x 2 | Am x 2 | F x 2 | C x 2 | E x 2 | Am x 2
Taking It To The Next Level If you’d like to push this song further then I’d recommend checking out my Patreon channel. Jonathan Lewis and I covered a more comprehensive fingerstyle performance of this one which you can hear a demo of below.
Our Patreon is just $5/month and includes many intermediate level lessons which will really develop your playing. Every month we produce a combined lesson alongside other lessons and tabs for you to learn.
Join the Patreon channel
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In this episode I talk about some of the methods I'm using to help my 7 year old son Max get to grips with playing the ukulele.
I talk to Alex Beds, manager of Southern Ukulele store about all things strings. Alex tries to convince me to change the strings on my 4 year old concert ukulele, but does he succeed?
The six steps that I use to learn to play songs and sing at the same time. It works for me, hopefully it will work for you too!
A little fretboard knowledge can go a long way. Here's some tips on how to remember the notes on your ukulele fretboard.
A look at some more advanced ukulele strumming techniques to take your playing to the next level
Everyone wants to get faster right? In this episode I look at a bulletproof way to speed up your playing. This method works for chord changes, strumming, fingerpicking and anything else.
More information can be found over at http://ukulelego.com/articles/speed-ukulele-playing/
In this episode we'll talk about how it's possible to play hundreds of songs on your ukulele using just 4 chords.
More information on the 4 chords can be found over at http://ukulelego.com/lessons/play-hundreds-songs-ukulele-just-4-chords/