Ukulele Aerobics

Down Up Dick

Down Up Dick

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Remember Ukulele Aerobics? I hated it when I first started it, and I felt ripped off. But I think I've found a new way to use at least some of it.

It's pretty simple, and this thread may seem kinda stupid to some of you but here goes. I've been looking for a book on strumming but couldn't find one that I liked. But the UA has lots of strumming lessons, so I marked those entries and will just use them to see if I can learn more strums.

One could also just learn lots of chord shapes or fingerpicking or riffs, etc, and ignore the stuff that doesn't interest him/her. Certainly, a lot of the stuff doesn't interest me, and, maybe, I can get some use of the $17.99+tax that I paid for the book. So there it is.

A penny saved is a penny earned! :eek:ld:
 
Great site, thanks for sharing. Having problems registering. End up with this "Russian" looking email address and don't get a confirmation email.
Not sure what the problem is.
 
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I worked and worked at it, but by week 26 I gave up and moved on. I particularly found the fingerstyle to be helpful, the scales in the different keys as well, however, you can find those scales anywhere, and much of the rest just didn't have any practical applications to me. I bought a book specifically on fingerstyle, which is working pretty well. Riffs and licks got to the point where it was taking way too much to get them down, just to move on to another one. I was finding riffs and licks more consistent with what I am playing, elsewhere and I started working on them and incorporating them with my music, which I wasn't doing with UA. Anyway, I was pretty bent on working my way through it, but around Thanksgiving I stopped keeping up with it. So then I had to pick and choose what I was going to take to PR, and I decided to leave UA behind. So now I am here, and it is there. Maybe I will go back to it this spring, when I get back North. Or maybe not.
 
Dick, I just got this book. I went with my brother to Guitar Center and he found his dream guitar, a custom Les Paul. While he was looking at it, I was looking at the uke books. The ones they had in stock were almost all for beginners. But they had UA. I took it over when my brother was paying and I asked the guy, "Hey would you throw in a ukulele book?" and he said, "Sure." So, score on that thanks to all the $$ my brother was dropping.

Anyway I like the book. I've gone through it pretty fast. Nearly halfway through. I try each lesson a few times, and then similar to you and Kayak Jim, I mark the lessons I like best and practice those more. I find it helpful. I like that it's teaching different scales and keys like Eb. I personally get burned out playing in C F G D A all the time. I like the arpeggios and the blues licks. I haven't played the CD once yet haha.
 
Well, bonesoup, you're a better person than a lot of us who quit a long time ago. I tried my new way of using it today, and it worked fine for me.

I don't play Eb on the Uke mostly because I don't have any music in Eb. When I'm singing, I like to play in C, D, F and sometime G if it ain't too high. I don't have much music in A either. When I fingerpick, I play the above keys plus E and A.

Well, I'm glad you like the book and good luck on the rest of it. :eek:ld:
 
That's what I liked about it. You can go through it with the daily plan or make your own lesson plan using material from it. Lately I use it as filler. I use when I'm warming up or can't decide what I want to do.
 
Dearman said:
That's what I liked about it. You can go through it with the daily plan or make your own lesson plan using material from it. Lately I use it as filler. I use when I'm warming up or can't decide what I want to do.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can use parts of it, and that's what I'm talking about doing now. But the whole point of the book was that one could do some each day and so forth and so on, until he/she had finished the whole book. That was it's selling point.

A person can take a little of any book to use as a warm up, or even noodle a little by ear.

Well, anyway, I'm glad you like the book, and I hope you feel that you've got your money's worth. :eek:ld:
 
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Down Up Dick said:
Well, bonesoup, you're a better person than a lot of us who quit a long time ago. I tried my new way of using it today, and it worked fine for me.

I don't play Eb on the Uke mostly because I don't have any music in Eb. When I'm singing, I like to play in C, D, F and sometime G if it ain't too high. I don't have much music in A either. When I fingerpick, I play the above keys plus E and A.

Well, I'm glad you like the book and good luck on the rest of it. :eek:ld:
Click to expand...

That's cool you found a way to make the book work for you. Like Jumpin Jim says, the whole point is to have fun.

And maybe I'm just more obsessed :)
 
Quick question (and I didn't feel like starting a new thread for it) - can this book be used with a soprano ukulele or does it require a bigger format?

I'm looking to get something as a guide for ukulele practice. I'm currently using Uncle Rod's bootcamp and it will keep me busy, but I like the premise of this book (even if a lot of people end up disliking it :) ).
 
I haven't found UA very useful and I'm disappointed in it, since it didn't keep its promise. I'm a pretty strong intermediate, though.

I'll take a second look at the strumming exercises. "Twould be nice to get something out of it all.
 
Yeah, I feel ripped off. Even the strum program I was trying didn't really work out. The book uses the same few strums over and over mostly, and most of the chords are ones that I'm not interested in.

Well, it's not the first $$$$ that I ever wasted. :eek:ld:
 
Just so Eddie doesn't immediately dismiss it, Ukulele Aerobics is one of the instructional books I use most. Every single practice session (i.e., daily) I play several of the exercises from it. Lots of reviews on line. $15 well spent.

So as with most things, YMMV.
 
In counterpont, wheneverr I've been at my pusher...er....at Elderly in the past year. Whenever Uke Guy is sitting loss prevention, he's been working his way through UA
 
I read through the "other" thread (started by Down Up Dick, IIRC) and am aware of people's feelings towards the book - as reinforced here in the replies to my question.

Now, as for my question: "can this book be used with a soprano ukulele or does it require a bigger format?" This remains unanswered :)
 
EddiePlaysBass said:
I read through the "other" thread (started by Down Up Dick, IIRC) and am aware of people's feelings towards the book - as reinforced here in the replies to my question.

Now, as for my question: "can this book be used with a soprano ukulele or does it require a bigger format?" This remains unanswered :)
Click to expand...

If I recall it is primarily for reentrant tuning, so yes Soprano, Concert, and Tenor will all work fine with the book as long as you are using standard C6 tuning (GCEA). I like the book, it's got some good exercises in there and as you can see some people will do the book from cover-to-cover while others pick and choose the exercises in the book.
 
LloydAZ said:
If I recall it is primarily for reentrant tuning, so yes Soprano, Concert, and Tenor will all work fine with the book as long as you are using standard C6 tuning (GCEA). I like the book, it's got some good exercises in there and as you can see some people will do the book from cover-to-cover while others pick and choose the exercises in the book.
Click to expand...

Lloyd, I think Eddie was joshing....
 
Kayak Jim said:
Just so Eddie doesn't immediately dismiss it, Ukulele Aerobics is one of the instructional books I use most. Every single practice session (i.e., daily) I play several of the exercises from it. Lots of reviews on line. $15 well spent.

So as with most things, YMMV.
Click to expand...

I agree. I finished the book and now I play some of it every day. I like the fingerstyle, licks, and misc sections best. It's certainly taught me some new things. I've still never opened the CD though.

Eddie, it's great for soprano. It teaches you weird chords like 7b5, and those stretches are easier on sopranos.
 
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