Hello from Fresno County, California

Hello,

I am bighatbulls from the sticks near Fresno County. I have been playing Ukulele for almost a year, I caught the bug last year when I went on a Walk to Emmaus retreat. One of the song leaders was rocking a uke and it looked like a lot of fun. I got my first uke a little Kahua Soprano for my birthday in August, and my husband got me my current ukulele (Kala SMC) just after Christmas. I lead a ukulele choir at church, we don't just play church music though, I like to challenge them to some popular tunes.

Welcome! Glad you've joined us!

Welcome aboard.

Welcome! What songs have worked well for ukulele choir music?

Andy

andy2353 said:

Welcome! What songs have worked well for ukulele choir music?

Andy

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We use Hymn Favorites and Gospel Hymns for Ukulele (both are Hal Leonard Books). They have a nice blend of old and contemporary songs. Before we got those books I was putting music together from watching Youtube, or finding stuff online. I am hoping we will get a few more books in the near future. Sometimes I have to lower the key, my chord wheel has been more precious than gold for that.

Its has been a challenge, the majority of us are GCEA, but I also have 3 Baritone Ukuleles in the choir. I couldn't find a Baritone version of the before mentioned books, and the ring leader of the Baritones refuses to capo, or consider switching to GCEA strings. So my work around was finding stickers that could be used to cover the GCEA chords so they could fill in the correct Baritone chord. Its worked out pretty well so far.

We really are bunch of beginners, they balk when they see B flat, but it used to be E minor they were scared of. There is plenty of music is available that doesn't have B flat in it though. I feel sorry for the Baritones, and I remind the rest of us that we should put more effort into learning that note than avoiding it.

We are a mixed age group the youngest of us is 18 the eldest is 90. Some members aren't members of the church, they joined us to learn to learn how to play.

Our main rule in the uke choir is, we are doing this to have fun and praise God, when it is no longer fun we need to go find something else to do.

Also Andy, there are some hymns that are just plain weird on ukulele (It Is Well With My Soul for example), but I got a chance to play with a person that plays harp and it was AMAZING! She filled in all those other voices that where missing when it was just the Ukulele.

I will get a song list of my favorites for you, off the top of my head I really like "What A Friend We Have in Jesus."

Blessed Assurance is good on uke! As is Amazing Grace.

I have both of the books you mentioned and I really like them.

This site has lots of free hymns on PDF - chords and finger style: http://www.music-folk-play-hymns.com/Ukulele-Hymn-Tab.html

thank you for sharing that link! Most of the songs would be fairly easy for the choir to play.

Thanks for the song recommendations. We have started a string group in our church as well.
Andy

Thank you for the link it was just what I was looking for!

Welcome! Hola from sunny Arizona!