Copyright Notice Easy Ukulele Songs: Step- By- Step Published by: Eduardo Uke EasyUkuleleSongs.com Copyright 2015 by Eduardo Uke in New York, NY No part of this publication may by reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without prior written permission of the publisher. Requests to the publisher should be submitted using the provided email address or official website contact page. Email: eduardo@easyukulelesongs.com Web: http://easyukulelesongs.com/contact/
Easy Ukulele Songs: Step-By-Step Contents by Cheat Sheet Number An Introduction Cheat Sheet #1: Care and Keeping of the Uke Cheat Sheet #2: Rhythm and Strumming Cheat Sheet #3: Put this Sheet on Your Wall Cheat Sheet #4: Your First 6 Chords Cheat Sheet #5: Strumming, Chords and Singing, Oh My! Cheat Sheet #6: Making Head and Tail of Uke Tab Cheat Sheet #7: More Chords? I m Yours! Cheat Sheet #8: Strumming (and Muting!) Patterns for Intermediate Players Cheat Sheet #9: Oh, the Time Signatures, They Are A Changin! Cheat Sheet #10: Eduardo Uke s 10 Laws of Picking Up Speed Cheat Sheet #11: Hallelujah! The Last Time Signature! Cheat Sheet #12: Plucking Up the Courage to Fingerpick
Easy Ukulele Songs: Step-By-Step An Introduction Imagine the basketball being passed to you in the last 10 seconds of the game. This is right in the peak of your career and a championship is on the line. The crowds are cheering for you. Your team is only down by 1 point. It is all up to you for the big win! This is an intense situation, wouldn t you agree? What if you missed the shot? Would you quit? Let s see what Michael Jordan would say about this, shall we? I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. My ukulele friends - please take a note to self on this. You may stumble learning a particular skill, you might take longer than expected to play the uke and sing at the same time. Perhaps switching from one chord to the other frustrates you. I want to tell you that you are not alone. You might take a couple of shots on playing barre chords and not get it right the first time. And you know what? That s okay! Easy Ukulele Songs: Step- By- Step is not so much a book as it is a group of Cheat Sheets, inspired by the likes of Michael Jordan It s a book that has confidence in you I believe that you can teach yourself to play the ukulele and learn the skills you need. I m just here to help. So go ahead: and have fun a little. Peek ahead, look back, print these cheat sheets out, bring one with you on vacation, take them apart, put them back together, use my videos, or not. Like basketball, tennis, or golf learning the ukulele is an experience and as you take your shots or make your swings you are only getting closer to your success. Have fun learning, because that s what the ukulele is all about. Stick with it, keep smiling and you will succeed. Don t learn my way. Learn your way. But whatever you do, learn all the way. In the end, no one can say it better than a kid can. Whenever I feel like giving up, I remember something a young student said to me about perseverance: People are like postage stamps. We stick to something before we get somewhere. See you on the road to your success! - Eduardo Uke
In this Cheat Sheet: Cheat Sheet #1: Care and Keeping of the Uke Anatomy of the ukulele (or, what do I call the parts of this thing)? What size ukulele should I play? How can I keep my uke in tune? How should I hold my ukulele? Before you start jamming, it s time to get sized up, tuned up, and held up I mean, it s time to not get held up trying to figure out which ukulele size to play and how to tune it. What do I call the parts of this thing? Every ukulele, regardless of the size or shape (sometimes, they come in funky shapes, like pineapples) has the same anatomy. Here it is: What size ukulele should I play? Ukuleles come in four sizes soprano, concert, and tenor, and baritone. The first three all share the same tuning; they differ based on scale length (the distance between the nut and the bridge). The soprano uke, the most petite, is probably what you think of when someone says ukulele. Concert ukes are a little bit bigger (giving you more room between frets), but still sound similar to sopranos. The largest in this group (those showoffs!) are tenors, which sound fuller and darker, a little more like guitars. And finally, the baritone ukulele is a slightly different instrument (it s tuned differently from the other three). For beginners, I always
suggest the soprano, or, if you re a bit lankier, the concert size. In that spirit, these Cheat Sheets apply to soprano, concert, and tenor ukes only. How can I keep my uke in tune? Before you can tune up, you need to know the names of the notes your strings are tuned to. Here s my favorite quick- n- dirty way to remember them: Goats Can Eat Anything. If you know that Goats Can Eat Anything, you ll always know what to call your strings, starting from the G- string (the one closest to your head when you play)! In Easy Ukulele Songs Step- By- Step, we ll use standard tuning, also called C- tuning, by tuning the G- string above C and E strings. (Your ukulele was probably already set up for standard tuning when you got it). Standard tuning is one of the things that give the ukulele its distinctive sound. Tuning the strings before you play is a great way to make sure that you always sound your best and can easily tell whether you ve made a mistake while playing! Also, things like thunderstorms and bumpy car rides can do weird things with stringed instruments, so it s best to stop to tune before you get in the groove. The first way to tune is with a chromatic tuner. I m a fan of the Snark SN6 Clip- On Ukulele Tuner, which, last I checked; you can get on Amazon.com for about $10. There are also several chromatic tuner apps for smartphones. Chromatic tuners automatically hear the note of your string and tell you whether it s too low (flat) or too high (sharp). Then, all you have to do is play each string for your chromatic tuner, and turn the string s tuner (or tuning peg ) counter- clockwise to raise the pitch and clockwise to lower it! Alternatively, some people like to tune by ear. Learning to tune by ear is a great thing to do to get your ears more in tune with your uke, but if it s tough for you, don t stress even people with great ears usually aren t perfect at it. To tune by ear, use a piano, web or phone app, or my tuning videos to play the note you want to tune. When you play your string, if you hear a quavering or dissonant sound, your string doesn t match. You can turn the string s tuner until the two notes get closer and closer together, and eventually, the quavering sound will disappear. Congratulations! Your string is in tune. In Section 1 of the P2lay With Me! Library, I also share the classic ukulele players
mantra, My Dog Has Fleas a great way to remember the relationships between the notes in standard ukulele tuning! If you happen to be using an online application that refers to notes by their frequency (e.g. 440 Hz ) or their number (e.g. A4 ), here s a chart to help you translate that into standard ukulele tuning. If this is confusing, no worries! You can use a chromatic tuner or the My Dog Has Fleas tuning on my YouTube Channel to tune your ukulele for every lesson in this course. Handy-Dandy Tuning-by-Ear Chart: Note Name Piano Note (Numbered) Frequency Musical Notation G G4 392 C C4 ( Middle C ) 261.63 E E4 329.63 A A4 440 How should I hold my ukulele? One of the great things about the soprano uke is that it s fun- sized and easy to hold! I hold these small, traditional ukuleles by cradling the bottom end of the body in the bend of my right elbow. That way, when my arm comes around, my fingers end up in a perfect place for strumming. I also use the spot where the base of my thumb meets my palm to support the neck near the nut, leaving my fingers free to play chords. If you re playing a concert or tenor ukulele, you may want to rest the bottom gently on your right knee. Now that you re holding your tuned- up uke, you re ready to play. In the next sheet, you ll be strumming away and tapping your feet before you know it! See you soon! - Eduardo Uke