Lessons and Advice

Get a Smoother Sound on Your Ukulele Using Legato Techniques

BY DANIEL WARD | FROM THE SPRING 2019 ISSUE OF UKULELE In music performance and notation, legato (Italian for “tied together”; French lié; German gebunden) indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, the player makes a transition from note to…

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Learn to Play ‘Happy Birthday To You’ on Ukulele

Learn to play "Happy Birthday" on ukulele: Here's a simple beginner version with 3 chords to strum (C, G7, F) plus a more advanced chord-melody version.

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Smartphone Blues: The Fastest Way to Become a Better Ukulele Player

Record yourself playing these blues pieces and listen back to hone in on what you need to practice most

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Learn Two Ukulele Arrangements of the Jazz Standard “Avalon”

"Avalon" became a jazz standard and favorite jamming vehicle for instrumentalists like Django Reinhardt, Benny Goodman, Red Nichols, and Coleman Hawkins.

James Hill’s Arrangement for Ukulele Orchestra

BY JAMES HILL // FROM THE FALL 2018 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE Theme from La Réjouissance (G. F. Handel), arr. J. Hill These days anyone can access original manuscripts for most public-domain works. The free Petrucci Music Library made it…

Ukulele Lesson: Daniel Ward’s Backwards Method for Learning Songs

BY DANIEL WARD | FROM THE FALL 2018 ISSUE OF UKULELE MAGAZINE This is it. Stepping out onto the stage, you know this is no group sing-along. You are solo. Perhaps it’s a new arrangement by James Hill, a cool…

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Nailing It: A Revealing Look at the Hands of Top Ukulele Players

Here, the ukulele’s right-hand women and men share the long and short of their rhythm styles and manicure strategies for a wide variety of musical styles.

Get Great Time: How to Use a Metronome—and Enjoy It

However you feel about the metronome, spending some quality time with one will not hurt.

Teach an Old Song New Tricks with Chord Substitutions

Adding substitution chords can create more movement within a piece and add harmonic interest

Taimane Teaches Her Strum Pattern for ‘Jolene’

By Greg Olwell In this video lesson from Taimane Gardner, she shows off a cool strum she uses for “Jolene,” a classic song from Dolly Parton. For this lesson, you’ll need Am, G, and C chords, so your fretting hand…