Ukulele Master Daniel Ward Infuses Flamenco Flavor into his Performing, Writing, and Teaching

BY E.E. BRADMAN | PHOTOS BY DMITRI VON KLEIN | FROM THE SUMMER 2026 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE

If you play ukulele or read Ukulele, you’re no stranger to Daniel Ward. He’s been in these pages (and on our YouTube channel) for nearly a decade, but he’s been a four-string virtuoso for much longer, traveling the world playing, teaching, and composing, often with his partner Heidi Swedberg. Ward’s CV also includes children’s music, acoustic guitar, reimagined covers, electric jazz, flamenco, film and TV scores, string quartets, and jingles, and his ukulele albums are vibrant expressions of a master musician who is one with his instrument. 

But Ward wasn’t always a ukulele evangelist. The native New Mexican, who grew up in Los Alamos and played guitar in high school, went to college as a trumpet major. Halfway through his second semester at the University of New Mexico, he switched to guitar and got into jazz. He soon fell in love with Albuquerque’s rich flamenco scene, and earning a degree in classical guitar and accompanying for flamenco dance companies led to several years as Grammy-nominated guitarist Ottmar Liebert’s right-hand rumbero in the 1990s.

Getting his first four-string in 2009 gave Ward the chance to try out his flamenco chops on uke, and he’s been on fire ever since. Albums like, El Ukulele (2015), the soundtrack to the film The Old Man and the Sea: Return to Cuba (2018), Arpeggio Meditations for Ukulele (2018), Melodic Meditations for Ukulele (2019), ‘tis the Season for Ukulele (2019), and Tube Tone (2022) showcase a serious musician who doesn’t take himself too seriously; his work as an educator and instructional book author sets the bar high while keeping the instrument accessible. Now back in Santa Fe after a 15-year stint in Los Angeles, Ward is taking full advantage of New Mexico’s music scene (“Albuquerque and Santa Fe are full of some of the best musicians in the world,” he says). And when he’s not on
the road with Swedberg, he’s composing, recording, engineering, transcribing, arranging, writing, and mostly teaching, which remains one of his favorite pastimes.

You teach a lot! How did you get into it?

I love teaching. I did a lot of subbing in preschools, elementary schools, and high schools for years, where I learned how to connect with kids and put the shiny objects in front of everybody so they didn’t get bored.

How did those experiences affect the way you teach online?

I do my video lessons in one take as if I was in a room with a student, as honest as I can, telling you how it works.

What kind of common mistakes do you see in beginners?

I always tell my students that those aren’t mistakes; they’re just unfortunate angles. That angle you’re using is not going to serve you well if you keep doing it. (For example) don’t get into the habit of holding the ukulele in your lap and looking down on it instead of leaning over it. If you have your thumb all over the neck and your fingers sideways instead of parallel to the strings, if your hand is even at a little bit of an angle, you’re already at a disadvantage. 

Most people pick up a uke and just go for it, so do you consider it your job to help guide them toward good habits?

Exactly. I help people figure out how to make chords and scales work a little easier without passing judgment on whether they’re making mistakes or not. A lot of the people who sign up for ukulele festivals are already retired but might have arthritis or other physical issues. It’s important to figure out ways to show them how to play fun stuff without messing up their hands.

What was it like touring with Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra?

The band was made up of all of my classmates from college, and it was really fun. We traveled in buses and planes—Istanbul, Japan, Australia, New Zealand—and I was the rumbero. My job was to groove and play barre chords all night.

What did you bring to ukulele?

Techniques from flamenco players. They can play faster, crack it harder, and make it louder than anybody, and they do the least amount of work. So, I put that on the ukulele. 

Was it easy to transfer those techniques?

Ukulele is a nylon-stringed instrument, just like a classical guitar or flamenco guitar, but just missing two strings and starting at the fifth fret. All the notes are the same to me. If I go backwards from the high E on the ukulele, which would be the double dot on the guitar, all the notes are exactly the same, up until where there would be a capo on the fifth fret. I can see the whole fretboard in my mind. This way I can read music on ukulele, and I don’t have to relearn any of my chords. 

Do you help students be fluid on both instruments?

I teach ukulele to lots of kids and help them switch to guitar later if they want to go that route. They’ll already know all of the shapes; the chords are the same. The relationships in the first four strings of ukulele are exactly the same as guitar, except for the high-G tuning. I have a bunch of different instruments, and I use both high- and low-G.

Which ukuleles do you play most often?

Well, I’m a very lucky man because I’ve been gifted amazing instruments by lots of luthiers. I officially play for KoAloha, and they’ve given me a good five or six amazing instruments. They’re still the loudest, cleanest ones that I use for all the flamenco stuff. Mike DaSilva in San Francisco built me a couple of beautiful instruments, and he’s one of the heaviest ukulele luthiers in the world. Terry Harris, in Kernville, California, builds incredibly beautiful ukuleles. Ken Franklin up in Mendocino built me another stunning instrument. All of them are just amazing. For years I’ve had a relationship with Ohana, too, and they’ve been incredibly supportive, super wonderful, nice people who help the community. 

What are your favorite pickups?

I’ve always hated pickups because of the low-mid thing that comes right through the PA. I play so much percussion on the outside of the instrument, and pickups don’t pick up any of that. I’d rather just walk up to a condenser mic and play. Recently, my friend Keith Vizcarra, a luthier, told me about Go Acoustic Audio from Nashville. They build bridges out of ceramic, and the bridge itself is a pickup—there’s a separate volume for each string and a microphone on the inside that you can balance. I plugged it in, and it sounded just like a microphone. 

You’ve written several popular instructional books. What inspired Arpeggio Meditations?

When I was in college, I played Heitor Villa-Lobos’ studies for guitar that made my right hand do crazy arpeggios over and over, arpeggios that didn’t change as the chords changed. I ended up practicing until my right hand turned into what I call “the Terminator.” Arpeggio Meditations is based on that idea: doing nothing but the same thing with your right hand and then writing a beautiful piece of music that tricks you into practicing.

Were you thinking about your audience as wrote the book?

Yes. I made the notation super huge, and each piece is usually one or two pages so that everyone can see it and do it right from the start. The ukulele crowd needs something that they can have success with quickly; frustration is something you don’t want. If it’s a little too hard, I’ll dial it back a little bit. The readers have to be able to make it through and actually enjoy the lesson. 

You do an amazing job of making the on-ramp easy. 

The first one’s always free, right? [laughs] But yeah, I want people to succeed and enjoy music, so the book starts really, really easy. Most people never make it through it the whole way, but if they do, they get a lot out of it. Arpeggio Meditations outsells all the other stuff.

What kind of songs do you like to teach beginners?

Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” is a great song. I love teaching that one. A lot of people go back to songs like “Jambalaya,” which is fine, but I’m not a big fan of teaching just two-chord songs for too long. I like pop music that’s a little more interesting harmonically, you know? I’ll even do the Pretenders’ “Brass in Pocket,” or something like that, which only has a few chords in it.

Which uke players are inspiring you right now?

Elisabeth Pfeiffer in Germany is doing great stuff. People in the UK are doing cool things, too. In Italy, you can get a degree in classical ukulele. [Editor’s note: Giovanni Albini established the world’s first bachelor’s degree program in ukulele in November 2023 at the Conservatorio Antonio Vivaldi in Alessandria, Italy.] And my good friend James Hill’s Uke Heads project is like nothing you’ve ever heard on ukulele. James plays the crap out of the instrument—he’s a really good musician and a super nice guy.

What do you learn from other uke players?

James and I are working on a 12-tone blues with crazy dominant 7#11 harmony underneath it. Jake [Shimabukuro] and I get together on some weekends. He’s been stealing my right-hand flamenco stuff, and I’ve been stealing some of the cool bel canto scales and other techniques that he does. Basically, we just wake up in the morning, have coffee, and trade licks on Zoom.

Sounds fun! What’s next?

Heidi and I are both going to put out new books in the next couple of years. I’m going to do a flamenco and Latin ukulele method book to add to the ones I already have. She’s doing a book called Simple Gifts—“big little” songs from around the world, easy rounds, and beautiful Shaker-style songs you can sing with anyone at any age.

I’m teaching at the New Mexico School for the Arts twice a week, and this year I am the interim professor of classical guitar at the University of New Mexico. I have 16 students and four ensembles, and it’s kicking my butt!

We’re meeting up with Ben Hassenger and playing the Midwest Uke Fest in July. From there, we’re going to visit Germany, France, Italy, Cheltenham for the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain, and then the Forest Ukulele Retreat with Matt Stead. We’re going to spend all summer in Europe touring and hanging with Elisabeth Pfeiffer and a lot of other cool ukulele players, as well as visiting uke clubs and doing workshops. It’s going to be fun.

After all these years, do you still love being on the road?

I love running around and performing, and I really love traveling. Ukulele is the coolest instrument in the world to travel with: You just get on the airplane, throw it in the overhead, and you’re done.

Why do you think people from so many different backgrounds are attracted to ukulele?

If you have 30 or 40 guitar players hanging out at a festival in a room, they’re going to pass around the guitar and see who’s the best. But if you have a bunch of ukulele players in the same room, they’re going to play the same song, no matter how good or bad they are—and then hug each other and have a freakin’ ball.