Lesson 5

It was great to introduce two new members to Dee Ukes. They both appear to like what we are doing and have said they will return! There were 19 of us present today and both the singing and playing were impressive!

The main points from today’s lesson were:

• Revision of chords C, C7, F, and G7.
• Strumming patterns 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 using above chords and “Extra Strumming Practice” sheet.
• Sing: “How Much is that Doggy in the Window”, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”, “I Have a Dream” (still sounding wonderful!), “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountains” ( complete with tooter from George and various other sound effects!)
• Introduced “Down by the Riverside”.
• Introduced chord G. Work on transitions from G to C.
• Handed out “Bonnie Dundee” for members to look at before next week.

Some members have now completed 5 lessons and are doing really well. Others are at various stages, with one still to get a ukulele. The important thing is to progress at your own pace – complete beginners should not try to learn everything at once and set themselves small achievable targets. Others have downloaded additional songs from my website which is great. Some have tracked down other songs with different chords. That is also impressive. THE most important thing is that you enjoy what you are doing and feel you are making progress.

I know I certainly get a lot of pleasure from our weekly meetings. Happy strumming everyone! 🙂

Lesson 4

Despite me getting slightly muddled up with songsheets we still managed to have a productive, fun class. The main points from today are listed below for those who missed the lesson or for those who may wish to go over things again.

• Reminder that Finger Stretching Exercises can be downloaded. (Just click on the link)
• Revision of chords C, C7, F, G7
• Strumming practice using the above chords and strum patterns 1, 2, and 3 on the “Ukulele Strum Pattern” sheet. We also tried out pattern 4 (d dud du) – say to yourself (1 2&3 4&). Reminder re how to give yourself more time when changing chords.
• Sang: Jambalaya, Down in the Valley, How Much is that Doggy, Deep in the Heart of Texas and He’s Got the Whole World ( Note the ending of last song listed has changed slightly. The last line now reads: G7    C    <C><G7><C>
• Introduced two new songs: I Have  Dream ( which sounded beautiful!) and She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountains. ( We had some interesting sound effects to go with this and a promise of an even better “toot toot” next week.
• I had intended to go over chord G, but ran out of time. We will definitely be looking at this next week, so have a go if you feel ready for it!
• If you would prefer a colour version of the songs, just download from the website and print them off.

Again I am very impressed with the effort and progress being made. I am hearing stories from some about small targets being set and achieved through practice. Well done! Looking forward to next week already. 🙂

Extra Strumming Practice

As I have introduced chords in a slightly different order to which I initially intended, I have created a new  sheet which I will be using next Tuesday. You can have a sneaky peak by clicking on Extra Strumming.

Lesson 3

Another good turn out for the third meeting of Dee Ukes. Two more first timers were there today and seemed suitably impressed. 🙂 Three more songs have been added to our repertoire. Main points from today are listed below:

• Finger exercises
• Tuning check
• Revision of chords C, C7, F
• Strumming practice using the above chords and patterns 1, 2 and 3 on our strumming sheet.
• Play and sing Jambalaya and Down in the Valley. There is now a new video section (You Tube Videos of our Songs) on our website showing artists singing ‘our’ songs.
• Practiced transition from chord C to G7.
• Introduced How Much is that Doggy in the Window using chords C and G7
• Introduced He’s got the Whole World using chords C and G7
• Introduced Deep in the Heart of Texas using chords C and G7

I think everyone is doing really well and making good progress. As a group we are already sounding good. Keep practicing as much as you have time for. Set yourself little targets and enjoy reaching them.

Remember to come in early (12.15pm) if you want some extra help with anything you may have missed. 🙂

Tuner Issues?

Most Dee Ukes members are now happily tuning their ukuleles, however, if you are having problems with your tuner e.g. my tuner is not working properly! / battery died! / lost my tuner! then another option is to tune your ukulele by using an online tuner. Click on UkuTuner.com . Our ukuleles use ‘standard’ or ‘C’ tuning GCEA. On screen just click on one string at a time. You will hear the note repeatedly, giving you time to tune your own string. Then work through each string in turn.

If anyone still does not have a tuner, I have a few more for sale and will make sure you know how to use it!

If you buy one from a shop, make sure you are told how to use it as there can be significant differences depending on the make. Each tuner will have paperwork detailing how it works as long as you have a magnifying glass to read it!!

Happy tuning! 🙂

Lesson 2 – They Came Back!

I am delighted to say that all of last week’s class returned today and we welcomed a few newcomers!

Today’s lesson was mainly revision of what we covered last week but we also worked on a few new things. The main points were:

• Revise tuning the ukulele to G, C, E, A
• Revise chords C, C7 and F
• Revise strum patterns 1 and 2 on sheet entitiled Ukulele Strum Patterns (4/4 timing) d d d d, dudududu and (3/4timing) d d d, dududu
• Try strum pattern 3 on same sheet (4/4 timing) d dududu   and (3/4) d dudu
• The strum patterns can be used with the sheet entitled Strumming Practice key of C.
• Sing/play Jambalaya and Down in the Valley
• We looked at some finger stretching exercises and basic fretting practice. For more information click on Finger Stretching Exercises.
• We had a brief look at how to play G7 and will practice all chords again next week. You can download songs using all of the above chords from the Songsheets tab.

Remember the only way to improve is to practice, but please go at your own pace. It is better to be able to play 1 song well than 4 songs badly.

If anyone has a problem with their tuner or with basic chords and would like me to go over things more slowly, then I will be at Finmill from 12.15 onwards, so feel free to come along a bit earlier!

Hope to see you all next week.

Happy strumming! 🙂

 

Lesson 1 – Brilliant Start!

The first ever meeting of Dee Ukes took place today with no less than 16 enthusiastic participants and 1 excited tutor. Thank you to everyone for contributing to the lesson and having a go. I was amazed at how much we actually covered and within 3o minutes we were all playing and singing our first song – Row Row Row Your Boat!! We soon added Frere Jacques to our repertoire and played our first medley! 🙂

For those who missed the lesson, the main points we covered are listed below

• Tuning your ukulele – G C E A
• Chord of C
• Simple strumming patterns (1 and 2 on help sheet)
• Chords C7 and F
• Play and sing Jambalaya and Down in the Valley using chords C7 and F

What a great group of people – lots of smiles and helping each other out.

Can’t wait for next week!

P.S There was a mention of the possibilty of our group being asked to perform at the Christmas Concert. Our first gig booking!??! Now that’s what I call making speedy progress! 🙂