"Serious" book to learn playing ?

Hi,

I've been practicing a bit with aldrine's video, and they are both interesting and fun. Though I will continue to use them, they sometime feel a bit like "put your fingers there and just enjoue, don't ask questions"

I'd like a complementary source to have more theory / understanding of what I'm doing (trying to do ). I first thought that the "ukulele aerobics" would be exactly what I'm looking for (the cover seems to be very thechnical about hand position), but from the sample it seems to be mainly interesting exercices with few theory.

What I'm looking for is something like Modern Method For Guitar, but for ukulele. (no tabs, good infos and exercises to learn how to find your hand position from the sheet music, great progressives exercices and a companions DVD to show you details and positions).

Can you recommend a book that may match my wish ?

Th,
Jaunedeau.

jaunedeau said:

Hi,

I've been practicing a bit with aldrine's video, and they are both interesting and fun. Though I will continue to use them, they sometime feel a bit like "put your fingers there and just enjoue, don't ask questions"

I'd like a complementary source to have more theory / understanding of what I'm doing (trying to do ). I first thought that the "ukulele aerobics" would be exactly what I'm looking for (the cover seems to be very thechnical about hand position), but from the sample it seems to be mainly interesting exercices with few theory.

What I'm looking for is something like Modern Method For Guitar, but for ukulele. (no tabs, good infos and exercises to learn how to find your hand position from the sheet music, great progressives exercices and a companions DVD to show you details and positions).

Can you recommend a book that may match my wish ?

Th,
Jaunedeau.

Click to expand...

Interesting you mentioned the Mel Bay "Modern Guitar" series because I just ordered it today using their current 30% off sale. I ordered the complete expanded series as two volumes of something along the lines of 350 pages each, with the download audio consisting of two zip files of approximately 500MB each. I recently got Bill Bay's "Guitar Images" book and double CD of his own solo guitar compositions and am really blown away by the beauty of that music. In an interview, he talks quite a bit about the expanded Modern Guitar Method as teaching what he knows to compose such beautiful music.

Anyway, this is what I would recommend by Daniel Ho:

www.amazon.com/Ukulele-Method-Compl...=1446313105&sr=1-6&keywords=daniel+ho+ukulele

There are three volumes to this series, but the link is for all three in one volume, which is the exact same content, but more cost effective being one big book. Daniel Ho is a formally trained musician who has one awards for both his piano music and his ukulele music, and possibly for his guitar music. He is very accomplished on all three instruments, has several books out, and does a lot of composing and arranging for other people as well as his own use. The guy is truly a "heavy hitter" and thoroughly knows what he is doing across a very broad range of musical styles and instruments.

Edit: The all-in-one book has a CD with all of the audio as MP3s. If you buy the individual volumes instead, they come each with an audio CD. The material is the same, but just be aware of the different audio format and choose according to your needs.

Tony

James Hill's books and videos also offer music theory with ukulele fun.

I agree with the Daniel Ho book series, it's the best I've found so far.

tbeltrans : [Edit : it jsut occured to me we were *not* speaking about the same thing, I ws refering to http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Method-Guitar-Volumes-Complete/dp/0876390114 ]the modern method guitar for guitar is definitively the best guitar (I'd say the only good one) I know of. The only things that prevented me from following it a few years ago were the very bad french translation and the lack of details and demonstration. I now bought the english version with the DVD for the first book, and it is definitively an important addition. Now all I have to do is work like 1 hour a day (this is why I need to buy a uke, to also have a bit of fun )

edit : apparently the individual books now come with a DVD that may be usefull. Otoh, the first book with the dvd cost the same as the complete serie with the cd

TheOnlyUkeThatMatters : the free lessosn seem interesting (lesson 5, he says he want you to learn play hamony and melody at the same time and explain how the lesson 5 help you to achieve that, seems better than all the book I could find locally + he uses sheet music, not tabs nor "put yourfinger here" videos. As soon as have bought a uke I'll suscribe !

The OP said no tabs.
The D. Ho books have tabs. I know because I own the beginner book w/ DVD.
It can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Ukul...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446332080&sr=1-1

Why not use the Mel Bay's Modern Ukulele Method Grade 1 book? That is what I have. No tabs.
There is a video here.
http://www.melbay.com/Products/30095BCD/modern-ukulele-method-grade-1.aspx

Buy it here for $15usd.
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Ukulel...sr=1-1&keywords=Modern+Ukulele+Method+Grade+1

jaunedeau said:

Hi,

Can you recommend a book that may match my wish ?

Th,
Jaunedeau.

Click to expand...

http://www.mammothgardens.com/books/NBBailyPracticalMethod.pdf is an "old fashioned" ukulele method that'll serve to give you the basics. No DVD, but it's free How far you progress into the book will depend on your tastes, but the basics will serve you fine

http://www.mammothgardens.com/books/KamikiUkuleleMethod.pdf may also be of interest, though it's "D" tuning, rather than "C". Although they are also in "D" tuning, you may care to look out for publications by May Singhi Breen, "The Ukulele Lady", which are in a similar vein.

Good Luck

I too recommend the James hill books, but to get what you're looking for, you probably should have lessons with a private teacher. That's where musicians have historically learned theory and solid technique, and it works. It's unfortunately the step many of us ukulele players skip.

jaunedeau said:

tbeltrans : [Edit : it jsut occured to me we were *not* speaking about the same thing, I ws refering to http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Method-Guitar-Volumes-Complete/dp/0876390114 ]the modern method guitar for guitar is definitively the best guitar (I'd say the only good one) I know of. The only things that prevented me from following it a few years ago were the very bad french translation and the lack of details and demonstration. I now bought the english version with the DVD for the first book, and it is definitively an important addition. Now all I have to do is work like 1 hour a day (this is why I need to buy a uke, to also have a bit of fun )

edit : apparently the individual books now come with a DVD that may be usefull. Otoh, the first book with the dvd cost the same as the complete serie with the cd

TheOnlyUkeThatMatters : the free lessosn seem interesting (lesson 5, he says he want you to learn play hamony and melody at the same time and explain how the lesson 5 help you to achieve that, seems better than all the book I could find locally + he uses sheet music, not tabs nor "put yourfinger here" videos. As soon as have bought a uke I'll suscribe !

Click to expand...

OK, that is the William Leavitt book out of the Berklee College of Music. I was talking about the Mel Bay series. I am interested in the Mel Bay series because, in books 5 - 7, he goes into all the things one would need/ant to know to compose music similar to what he did in Guitar Images. The William Leavitt books are quite popular, though few people ever actually get through them. There are other books, such as the Rhythm Studies that go along with the Leavitt books, where the 7 books of the Mel Bay series are complete in themselves. The Leavitt books are a part of the Berklee curriculum, a much larger study than this set of 3 books. Any of these series are very intense, and therefore quite difficult for a self-teacher to sustain the motivation long enough to get through even one of the books alone.

Tony

Not a book, but... I became a member of James Hill's "The Ukulele Way" website, which has a bunch of lessons divided into 6 "books". The lessons are in high quality video format with accompanying music notes and tabs if you need them. Some lessons are only technique or theory lessons, and usually you get a song lesson after that which uses the new technique or theory. I think it's best to go through the lessons in order, not jump around too much, cause then you might miss out on some things.

Most of the songs are not really to my musical taste, but I still recommend the website warmly! I've learned so much from it. And a cool thing which you get here that you don't get from a book, is that in every lesson, there is a place where you can ask questions and James is very good at giving a detailed answer! Other peoples questions and James replies are also visible, so often if you are wondering about something, someone else has already asked and gotten a reply from James.

Another recommendation, which isn't either a book (I'm not trying to be difficult, I promise!) is the Bob Brozman DVD set "The Ukulele Toolbox" 1 & 2. He teaches some practical theory, chord inversions etc. as well as right hand techniques, not so many songs. I've found it so much more helpful than the DVD's or books which only teaches particular songs in one arrangement.

Cheers,
Max

I'm not sure where you are in your ukulele journey but I have just put a book out "Beginning Ukulele" Lessons and Theory for absolute beginners and it focuses on learning with theory and tab and chord charts. The first lesson is available for free [PROMOTIONAL LINK REMOVED BY MOD] and the full version is available [PROMOTIONAL LINK REMOVED BY MOD] I hope this helps and enjoy playing the ukulele.