anyone taught themselves to play the ukulele?

SplashWellyKid

I've also just posted this in the free Kindle books thread under FREEBIES. Watch out that this is a time-limited offer, so check out the price is still free before buying:

Ukulele Mastery Simplified: How Anyone Can Quickly Become a Strumming, Chords and Melodic Uke Ninja

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ukulele-Mastery-Simplified-Strumming-ebook/dp/B00AZSB934/ref=la_B00A3UP3E0_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379763298&sr=1-3

I've just received a link to a free ukulele beginners' e-book from author, Erich Andreas' mailing list. It's available free until Mon 23 Sep 2013.

From the Amazon description:

You Are About to Discover the Easiest Way to Master the Ukulele.
>> From the Author of the #1 Amazon.com Bestseller Guitar Mastery Simplified.

Would you like to know how to play the ukulele like an ukulele master and eliminate all your disbeliefs that have been holding you back from truly mastering the ukulele?

Sound impossible? Well it's not...

Ukulele Mastery Simplified, by Erich Andreas AKA Your Uke Sage, is packed with the most important ukulele lessons that will help you take your uke playing ability to the highest level it has ever been! Erich has taught/played ukulele and guitar professionally for almost 30 years.

INSIDE YOU WILL DISCOVER:

Exactly "Where to Start?"
The 3 Most Important Dexterity Exercises
How to Play Open and Bar Chords
How to Read Chord Charts
The Anatomy of the Ukulele
The 6 Most Fundamental Concepts to Guitar Strumming
How to Read Ukulele Tablature
Major and Blues Scale Maps
How to Use a Capo The Correct Way
Where the Notes Fall on the Fret Board
How to Tune Your Ukulele
Diatonic Harmony and Music Theory
And Much, Much More...

You will FINALLY get to fully understand ukulele music theory while at the same time learn all the important ukulele chords needed to become an advanced uke "ninja". This book is for beginners to advanced ukulele players.

The solutions you'll discover inside Ukulele Mastery Simplified will have you on your way to playing the ukulele like a true strumming, chords and melodic uke ninja! The ukulele lessons inside this book will have you rockin' out to all your favorite uke jams and songs in no time.

wingates

Bought a uke a couple of months ago, been following lessons on you tube. Love it. stay away from the "toy" ukes.

Indie_Kid

wingates wrote: »

Bought a uke a couple of months ago, been following lessons on you tube. Love it. stay away from the "toy" ukues.

I made the mistake of getting one of these - the brightly coloured ones. It lasted me about 4 months and then I had to replace it.:mad: My next uke cost me an extra £5 and I've had it for almost a year now. Have had no trouble with it.

I personally wouldn't bother with books. There are loads of free songs online - https://www.chordie.com is a good website for music.

wingates

Great to get a uke discussion going. Keep it up guys.:T

OK then. What makes of uke have we all got?
I have a Mahalo tenor. Love it.

Chickabiddybex

I have an Aiersi ukulele. It's wooden. And blue. And has Aquila strings. That's all I know!

I enjoy playing it, too bad it's so quiet though. I'm used to my loud guitar! So weird to get used to playing the uke. I have to train my brain to make my hand do something different when I see a chord.

jollyme

Lanikai LU21 Concert Black and shiny and I love it!! Just need to practice and learn to play

milky1991

A redwood S30 soprano my first uke acquired in January for my birthday I love it. Looking at getting a tenor as I have fat fingers oh and a banjolele

SplashWellyKid

Anyone on Facebook might be interested in this group - Learn Ukulele Free - who post links to lots of free videos & songsheets.

Particularly good are the Ten Thumbs Productions videos from Tyler Austenfiled - he does tutorials for a couple of new songs a week, plus very clear explanations of different techniques.

Happy strumming!

AtomBoy

I mess around playing Ukulele. I bought a cheap one that was about £10. The problem was it went out of tune REALLY easy.

I do play guitar, but had wipe my mind about chord shapes and re learn for the uke. However if you have it in the C tuning, you mainly only have to use about 3 fingers for most of the chord shapes.

I ended up buying a Banjo-Ukulele (Banjolele). George Formby style. Much louder than your standard Ukulele, but can be pretty pricey for a decent one.

sb44

My daughter wanted to learn to play the guitar (we had a cheapo kids one and an adult sized from Freecycle), but she found that her fingers weren't big enough to reach around the neck of the guitar (she was 15).

I wondered if she would be ok with a uke but didn't want to pay for something she wasn't going to use. So, I bought a cheap ukulele from Argos, Martin Smith, god awful thing and put some Aquila strings on it (when you buy an half decent one you realise how bad those cheapo ones are!).

Anyway, that was at the beginning of Nov last year.

She has taken to it like a duck to water, playing different songs every couple of days, most by memory after a few days as she says you mainly use 4 chords.

We bought her a Makala Soprano via Tesco Direct for about £40 and she loves it.

My cunning plan worked. Best birthday money present I ever bought myself.