Songs that justify E

Shows us what to think of your opinions.
Oh a big fan I guess? Or just a violent person?

I was just trying some constructive criticism, instead too hard to judge what I like too about their music. I guess for some people their songs are a religion.
 
Justification? I think the OP asked the question the wrong way but by all means teach some songs in the Key of E. The key of E is important if you want to play popular guitar songs in their native key.

I transpose to E all the time because it suits my voice but I can't say it has a special sound to me. My case is somewhat different though because I'm not in standard tuning. I tune mostly E,A,C#,F#. This effectively is guitar tuning or baritone tuning with a capo on the second fret and then I just play ukulele G shapes or guitar D shapes. Guess what? LOTS of guitar songs that you may want to cover are guitarists playing D shapes with a capo on second fret so therefore in E.

Anyway. It would be a good learning exercise to teach students that its possible to take a song in many keys and transpose them to E to see if it suits their voices in E. A lesson in transposing.

E is also common because its fairly easy on guitar. Its A in standard ukulele tuning.
 
Hi, Doctroid!

The second part and third part of Departure Suite by Jake Shimabukuro are written on the key of E. This song is one of the favorite songs in the album of Travels. This second part is my favorite tune to play. Part 3 may be bit difficult to play but part 1, which is not key of E, and 2 are worth to try in your class.
 
In my life - Beatles uses the Eb chord IIRC
 
Some songs can end up in some uncommon keys. The thing you need to know is that, these songs in odd keys usually were NOT played on standard tuning instruments. Using a capo to transpose is REALY common on guitars. Different tunings is pretty common too.

Now there maybe some really good studio musicians in the world that can use bar chords and play in any key they like at a moments notice but many of the songs that your trying to play in an uncommon key weren't originally played that way without a capo.
 
The Beatles are popular with ukulele for a number of reasons, I don't know them all.

My reason is that they are objectively awesome. If you're going to learn a Beatles song, it isn't going to be C-F-G. As a rule of thumb, you're going to need about 10 chords and there are going to be a fair share of minor chords, sus4 chords, add9 chords, and maj7's. If you don't cheat with a capo, you're going to learn a lot of different keys. In fact, to some degree you could say that to know the Beatles is to know music. Okay, that's a bit over the top, but you will receive quite a musical education just by understanding their catalog.
 
Why is Beatles so favored in this forum. I like their songs to listen, but to play along? Or what key, really? Or to play their songs just with ukulele with no other?

Their tuning was a bit off from what we tune our instruments and play:
http://www.beatlesnews.com/blog/the...ns-know-the-beatles-were-not-out-of-tune.html

I am not old enough to be alive when Beatles played. I am 34. But I guess that my high school music teachers were young when Beatles played, I remember Beatles songs appearing a lot in the material they brought to class. And when I put some on the stereo at home, my father would sing along. So for me Beatles oozes of something that can bring generations closer.
You could also say that about The Rolling Stones, but there is more risk of some of the lyrics being offensive to some. (Not to me)
And of course they have great melodies :)
Most of them might have a lot of difficult chords, but that arrangement of 8 days a week we did in school was not hard.
 
"My Favourite Things" from The Sound Of Music

Reason being the E chord only appears once, but when it does, it's really satisfying to do some fret-hand damping to get a staccato effect leading up to "Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes". It's like the E chord is the hero of the whole song!
 
Just a couple more thoughts to the Beatles discussion...

1) George Harrison was a ukulele player and enthusiast, even in the unpopular years of the ukulele on the US Mainland. As such, the Beatles are instantly relegated to a higher status in the ukulele community.

2) More importantly, in terms of music history, we talk about the lasting qualities of music. In classical music, there have been millions of works by (likely) hundreds of thousands of composers--nearly all forgotten. Certain composers became represntative of their time, or showed a creative spark (or originality) that other composers did not. Those are the composers we remember. In a similar way, the Beatles were really the first modern "rock" group. While there were some precedesors to the Beatles, and many, many contemporaries--they emerged as the preeminent group. Not only did the expand and experiment with their own sound, they laid the foundation for all popular music after them. Their music directly impacted the lives of people currently in their 50s-70s, and their lasting legacy continues to impact musicians and listeners today.

3) On our music education technology podcast, we recently interviewed the CEO of UberChord, an app that helps guitar players learn how to play (ukulele is on their radar). The most requested songs to help people learn? Beatles tunes, by a wide margin.

Music has shifted so much that the sound of the Beatles may no longer be attactive to many young people--particularly those accustomed to heavy synthesized drum beats and other synthesized sounds. To those people, I would suggest that they expose themselves to the Beatles, perhaps through the "1" album (all their #1 hits), just to ground their own understanding of music and music history. The Beatles aren't going anywhere, however--they have earned a place in music history and will never be forgotten.

By the way, I don't know every Beatles tune, and I am not going to say that everything they ever wrote was great--there are people who believe that. But I will say that if you can cannot listen to and respect the Beatles for what they did, that's a problem.
 
.... There are great arguments for keeping things in original keys--particularly with classical music...until you start figuring in the changing nature of intonation and how A has changed over the years.

What did you mean "how A has changed over the years"?
 
A song worth playing is dependent on the age and musical tastes if your students.

For an older set, you have good suggestions, but there may not be the same motivation from a younger crowd. Might even want to evaluate the genre.

John
 
What did you mean "how A has changed over the years"?

I won't go into it. Sufffice it to say, some music has been pitched nearly a half step higher when originally performed than we perform it today. There are some people who argue that you cannot change keys of a song because it changes the meaning--but when intonation itself isn't a constant (to as much of a half step), how can you say that?
 
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