anyone taught themselves to play the ukulele?

SplashWellyKid

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

Free ukulele book with five easy songs:

The people behind 21 Songs In 6 Days (Facebook page) are offering their current eBook 'Easy Ukulele Songs: 5 with 5 Chords: Ukulele Songbook (Learn Ukulele the Easy Way 2)' for free on Amazon for a short while.

Description:

Wouldn’t it be great to have easy uke songs to work on that use chords you know and are familiar? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Easy Ukulele Songs: Five with Five Chords is the perfect book for you to move on with ukulele. You’ll learn:

This Land is your Land
Amazing Grace
Greensleeves
Five Foot Two
Auld Lang Syne

You get:
video lessons with lyrics and chord symbols
sheet music with tab underneath
lessons on how to read ukulele tab and fingerpick melodies
suggestions on how to practice so you can learn fast?

Plus you can even teach yourself how to read ukulele tabs with this book because each song comes with TWO lesson videos. With one video you can learn to sing and strum chords, and with the other video you can teach yourself how to read ukulele tab and finger pick melodies.

Here are the ukulele chords you’ll use in this book:

C Major
A Minor
F Major
G Major
E7
G7
C7
A7
D7

sb44

sb44 wrote: »

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.

She has just bought herself a Banjolele, it's about the size of a concert ukulele so not as heavy or big as a full sized and tuned the same as a uke.

All set with the entertainment now, should we have major power cuts this winter.

SplashWellyKid

sb44 wrote: »

She has just bought herself a Banjolele, it's about the size of a concert ukulele so not as heavy or big as a full sized and tuned the same as a uke.

All set with the entertainment now, should we have major power cuts this winter.

Excellent stuff! I've put a number of postings in this thread with links to plenty of free resources, especially songbooks (eg there's a long list on the community group uke site I run for PLUC & also the Facebook group Learn Ukulele For Free).

Indie_Kid

You don't need books for the ukulele. There are loads of free resources online, such as ukulelehunt.com

If you can, join a local group. I've picked up a huge amount of hints and tips that way. (and worked out exactly where I was going wrong on that pesky B chord!)

I made the mistake of buying a cheap brightly coloured uke as my first. It fell apart after 6 months. I then got another which lasted 2 years until I decided I wanted something better. I now also have the concert version of that.

SarahMiles

I bought one of the cheap ones about 4 years ago, taught myself on it and still have it now. It doesn't have the same nice sound that a better one would but I personally think it was definitely worth the £20 I paid for it and was good for a beginner. But I am overdue an upgrade.

SplashWellyKid

Free one year digital subscription available to US-based Ukulele Magazine (ie four free issues) - we were sent the info to our group & told we could share it amongst uking friends.

Email Ed Ackman from BanjoUkes (eackman@xtra.co.nz) & he will send you a free subscription code; register on the Ukulele Magazine site with your name & address, then go to http://www.ukulelemag.com/magazine once you've received your confirmation email & you can download the PDF for the Fall 2015 issue by inputting your name & email.

Clawhammer lessons & fingerpicking tunes amongst other useful articles.

[Note - Ed will also send you a YouTube link promoting his tenor banjo uke, which is why he's issuing these free codes.]

PS The offer includes all the back-issues too, so that's another nine magazines you can download for free.

SplashWellyKid

Posted by M Ryan Taylor on the Learn Ukulele Free Facebook page:

Get a free review copy:
157 2-chord songs, ukulele-friendly keys, in Titan M's 2 Chord Companion.

If you're willing to spend some time with the book and leave an honest review on Amazon at http://amzn.to/1L5kawI in the next few weeks, just fill out this form to get your free review copy in ebook format: http://goo.gl/forms/2scTYryZzO

Two-chord songs are great for a lot of things:
• Introducing basic chord pairs
• Hammering the transition between those pairs
• Teaching chord relationships
• Training the ear to hear these relationships
• Gaining practice in transposing songs
• A feeling of accomplishment for beginners
• A jumping off point for intermediate players to
begin embellishing chords
• A blank slate for advanced players to begin
working on chord substitutions and arranging
• A safe place for players of all levels to jam together
This offer expires October 8th, 2015 at midnight.

See the Amazon page for a full contents listing.