Fingerstyle for beginners?

Hi everyone,
I just bought my first ukulele not too long ago. As everyone, I started with learning strumming Jason Mraz's "I'm yours". These chucks are quite hard to get.
Anyway, for this topic I want to start a side project. I was wondering if you could recommend some easy fingerstyle songs for beginners? I know that many can learn fingerstyle in just a few days but I probably will take months for this so I want to make sure the song is worth it. Personally, I really like this cover of "Wonderful tonight" but I have no idea of its difficulty nor have access to any tabs. What do you think? Do you have other songs to recommend?

1300cc said:

http://pdfminstrel.wordpress.com/2-tri-tabs-for-all-ukuleles-pdfs/

Click to expand...

Nice resource. Thanks cc.

I am pretty new to finger style as well, and I have found it a little difficult to find tabs for finger style ukulele especially ones that are 'easy' enough are even harder to find.

I started pretty simple with this song:
http://www.ukulelerocks.co.uk/sailor.htm
(Drunken Sailor)

I learned the chords then the melody. Then I mixed the two.
I strummed on "what should you do with a"
and played melody on "drunken Sailor"

The color charts for the melody are pretty helpful, and the song is pretty satisfying to play, you get a song that sounds much harder to play than it actually is. (and it only has two chords and most of the melody notes are open)

When I felt comfortable with that I moved on to Take Me Out to the Ball game.
http://liveukulele.com/wp-content/uploads/Take-Me-Out-To-The-Ball-Game-Tab.pdf
And that was a little challenging at first but not too difficult.

Now that I am getting the hang of reading the Tab, I have started looking for melody from songs in a three chord Hal Lenard 3 chord songs for the ukue book I never found useful before, and am adding the chords to various parts of them.

I also look for simple melodies like Mary Had a little lamb and try to add the chords on the first beat of each measure.

Hope this helps.

Vg12th said:

Hi everyone,
I just bought my first ukulele not too long ago. As everyone, I started with learning strumming Jason Mraz's "I'm yours". These chucks are quite hard to get.
Anyway, for this topic I want to start a side project. I was wondering if you could recommend some easy fingerstyle songs for beginners? I know that many can learn fingerstyle in just a few days but I probably will take months for this so I want to make sure the song is worth it. Personally, I really like this cover of "Wonderful tonight" but I have no idea of its difficulty nor have access to any tabs. What do you think? Do you have other songs to recommend?

Click to expand...

http://www.muffin.net.nz/muffin/Uke_Tab.html

Beginners who want to get into fingerstyle may want to check out James Hill's instructional material. That's his whole approach, including his ukulele for kids method.

"Somewhere over the Rainbow" in the Key of C is a song you can grow with. Don't go for the IZ version, (at first at least). Use a Standard version.

In the "A" part, (the verse) Use your thumb to strum the 3rd and 4th strings and your index finger strumming the 1st, 2nd, 3rd strings. You are Strumming the chords here. When your thumb is strumming the chord your index finger is striking individual notes on alternate 1,2, or 3 string. When your index finger is Strumming the chord your thumb is striking alternately the 4,3,2, sometimes the 1 string.

In the "B" part, (the bridges) you can use the same technique or just use alternating thumb and index finger to pick out the melody - this is almost entirely on the 1 and 2 strings.

Whether you are striking with the thumb or index finger you can pick out the melody or harmonize with the chords.

Try it and fool around with it a little. Even if this method of fingerpicking doesn't work for you, you will have learned a Ukulele Classic.

Edit: If you try this and the thumb strumming doesn't work for you you can still work the fingerpicking in but your thumb will be working in a circular pattern underneath the strumming index finger.
http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/j/judy_garland/somewhere_over_the_rainbow_ver11_crd.htm Transpose this to C. I use G7 chord rather than G chord in this version.

I don't consider myself an expert on developing finger picking, but I can recommend Hal Leonard's "Easy Songs for the Ukulele". I've been mostly strumming but on the back burner I learned how to finger pick every song in that book. My current fingerpicking book is Jumpin' Jim's '60's uke-in(Also a great book for intermediate chords)

PhilUSAFRet said:

Beginners who want to get into fingerstyle may want to check out James Hill's instructional material. That's his whole approach, including his ukulele for kids method.

Click to expand...

As pretty much a beginner, I second this, it's been really helpful so far! http://theukuleleway.com/