books

Just wondering what some of your favorite Ukulele books are. advanced, beginner, songbooks, lessons.

Thanks

Here are two from UU people (there are many more good ones)
Uncle Rod's Bootcamp http://ukulelebootcamp.weebly.com/
Brimmers Celtic https://www.dropbox.com/s/bobj3dxr731q63e/Celtic%20Music%20for%20Ukulele%202.0.pdf?dl=0

Amazonbooks (I know Tony is on UU)
Rob MacKillop 20 Easy Fingerstyle, Tony Mizen ukulele books

My two favorite books are "Ukulele Aerobics" (for everyone) and Aaron Keim's "Fingerstyle" e-book. Among the general beginner books that I've read/bought, I felt that "The Idiot's Guide to Playing the Ukulele" and "Ukulele for Dummies" were the most comprehensive. But there are very many of them out there. I also really like Al Wood's "Ukulele Strums" e-book, which comes with over a hundred audio files and fifty+ videos.

There is a discussion on here somewhere, but just as a guide,
Ukulele for Dummies
Ukulele Exercises for Dummies
Ukulele Aerobics
The Daily Ukulele - 365 Songs for Better Living
The Daily Ukulele: Leap Year Edition: 366 More Great Songs for Better Living
Get Plucky with the Ukulele: A Quick and Easy Guide to All Things Uke

All the 'ukulele books in print I've seen are "meh," at best. They are getting better, but still... Guitar books have evolved much further, IMO, and a clever 'ukulele player can use them for their benefit easily. These are my favs: http://liveukulele.com/reviews/guitar-books/.

Those, along with The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten will keep anybody busy for a lifetime.

If you have trouble finding some of these try Abebooks.com, they have a bunch of them

Just wait until the end of April, I'm going to sell, cheap, most of the books that I've bought. I might keep one or two, but then again, I might not.

One of my favorite books is the small (but thick) Ukulele Fake Book by Hal Leonard Publishing. Over 400 songs with cord grids for soprano, concert & tenor ukes.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476812934/

I like the smallness since I like to camp.

I sort-of-agree with the 'meh' sentiment - maybe I wouldn't quite go that far. I bought a dozen or so beginner books when I first got a uke and most have ended up at the local charity shop. None of them were out-and-out bad but then none of them really impressed me either. One personal bugbear for me is the often predictable and boring song selection - Li'l Liza Jane, Camptown Races, When the Saints Go Marching In, Go Tell Aunt Rhody and for a first taste of fingerstyle... Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every bloody time. Whilst I appreciate that these 'standards' often use very simple chord progressions, making them good for learners, I have a sneaking suspicion that their public domain status is a significant factor in their ubiquity also.

I do like Ukulele Exercises For Dummies, despite the fact that it mostly has a similarly uninspired selection of tunes. It redeems itself by including lots of useful exercises and plenty of solid practical advice.

jollyboy said:

One personal bugbear for me is the often predictable and boring song selection - Li'l Liza Jane, Camptown Races, When the Saints Go Marching In, Go Tell Aunt Rhody and for a first taste of fingerstyle... Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every bloody time. Whilst I appreciate that these 'standards' often use very simple chord progressions, making them good for learners, I have a sneaking suspicion that their public domain status is a significant factor in their ubiquity also.

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Definitely, yes. It is cheaper to use public domain songs, and it also (perhaps more importantly) removes the entire legal aspect, which makes publishing more straight-forward. Those songs are also well-known, though I think that doesn't universally apply and depends on where you live. Even with German beginner books (I haven't checked out many), there are frequently tunes in there that I don't know. It must be even worse for younger folks who are in their teens, twenties or thirties.

My main issue with beginner books is the lack of consistency. The coverage is frequently spotty and the structure is lacking. I think it sometimes shows that they are written by musicians and enthusiasts, not by pedagogues. As a self-learner, you typically have to put together your own lesson plan, or, more likely, just bumble around and inefficiently pick up bits and pieces. Outside of getting a good teacher (which aren't that common for ukulele), I haven't really found a good approach to a complete learning package yet.

There are subscription-based offers, but I shy away from making the financial commitment before I really know what I'll get and how it'll work for me.

Perhaps I should get some ukulele books.

I only had the patience to learn a few songs for their easynes when I started playing last year, then I skipped to deciding which songs I wanted to play and finding the chords online.

I searched amazon for ukulele song books, but with all of them it was only a fraction of the songs in them I wanted to learn. It seemed to me to just take up space.

I have a huge fake book "for C instruments" with 1200 songs that I can go to for inspiration. I bought it once for guitar purposes, but i guess chords are chords. It is not handy to carry around.

I pretty much agree with the "meh" statement as well with a few exceptions:

John King's and Tony Mizen's classical books
Aaron Keim's beginner fingerstyle book
Fred Sokolow's Fretboard Roadmaps
Ukulelezaza's two books (although I think these have become hard to find)
Roy Sakuma's Treasury of Ukulele Chords

uke1950 said:

Ukulele Exercises for Dummies

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This reminded me that I had bought this a couple years back and it was sitting unread in my iBooks library. Just looked it over and it's actually pretty good. A lot of material in there for a different skill levels. Looks suitable as a first book, too.

Hippie Guy said:

All the 'ukulele books in print I've seen are "meh," at best. They are getting better, but still... Guitar books have evolved much further, IMO, and a clever 'ukulele player can use them for their benefit easily. These are my favs: http://liveukulele.com/reviews/guitar-books/.

Those, along with The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten will keep anybody busy for a lifetime.

Click to expand...

The hardware store down the hill from me has a book exchange. Last year there was two guitar books, and one was on scales. That book has been very helpful. Scales are scales, regardless of what you play them on. I've learned a lot about scales, and the exercises were easy to adapt to the ukulele. In fact, adapting them to the ukulele is something that has been very helpful in itself.

jollyboy said:

I sort-of-agree with the 'meh' sentiment - maybe I wouldn't quite go that far. I bought a dozen or so beginner books when I first got a uke and most have ended up at the local charity shop. None of them were out-and-out bad but then none of them really impressed me either. One personal bugbear for me is the often predictable and boring song selection - Li'l Liza Jane, Camptown Races, When the Saints Go Marching In, Go Tell Aunt Rhody and for a first taste of fingerstyle... Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every bloody time. Whilst I appreciate that these 'standards' often use very simple chord progressions, making them good for learners, I have a sneaking suspicion that their public domain status is a significant factor in their ubiquity also.

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I agree with you there. I'm sixty-five years old, and most of the songs in the ukulele books I sang in grade school, and they were old then. I think you are right about the public domain. But I've taken to looking at what songs are used in a book, before I buy it, and I haven't bought a book since I started doing that.

jollyboy said:

IOne personal bugbear for me is the often predictable and boring song selection - Li'l Liza Jane, Camptown Races, When the Saints Go Marching In, Go Tell Aunt Rhody and for a first taste of fingerstyle... Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every bloody time. Whilst I appreciate that these 'standards' often use very simple chord progressions, making them good for learners, I have a sneaking suspicion that their public domain status is a significant factor in their ubiquity also.

I do like Ukulele Exercises For Dummies, despite the fact that it mostly has a similarly uninspired selection of tunes. It redeems itself by including lots of useful exercises and plenty of solid practical advice.

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That is why I like the Rob MacKillop 20 Easy Fingerstyle book. They are his compositions and they teach some good foundations of fingerstyle playing. The Celtic songs are not new, but many are new to me. Same with the Welti arrangements of German songs, which I meant to include, but are found here on UU. I do like the Mizen books because I know those classical music songs and think it is cool that I can play songs I have been listening to on public radio for years.

Mivo said:

My main issue with beginner books is the lack of consistency. The coverage is frequently spotty and the structure is lacking. I think it sometimes shows that they are written by musicians and enthusiasts, not by pedagogues. As a self-learner, you typically have to put together your own lesson plan, or, more likely, just bumble around and inefficiently pick up bits and pieces. Outside of getting a good teacher (which aren't that common for ukulele), I haven't really found a good approach to a complete learning package yet.

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I agree with you, again. That pretty much describes me. But really, that method has worked well. I have played with some people who have been playing much longer than I have, and have a much more regimented approach to their learning, who haven't been at a very high level, from my observations.

I'm satisfied with the Dummies and Idiots books (sometimes very fitting titles), but, from now on, I'm gonna try to buy books with real music in addition to tabs. I have some, and I like them much, much better. I'm also working on reading music and playing by ear. I'm trying to rise above tabs . . .

I really like the Wayne Erbsen books a lot, but some don't have music--only tabs. ld:

It is *tough* to decide which (if any?) learning resources and song books might fit your needs. That's why I started a free ukulele library for our club--and I'm surprised more groups don't do the same.

Here's how it works: The church we meet at charges $25/meeting. We collect (done informally, there's a Tupperware container to put your money in and I just pass it around the room) $5 per person (after you've attended a first "free" meeting--we know it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea so we don't want them to feel obligated). I stuff $25 of the cash that night under the church secretary's door. The rest of the funds are collected and we purchase materials which members are interested in to add to the library.

We now have 91 items in the library--ranging from very beginner materials to more advanced, some Hawaiian culture items and theory. We have books, DVDs and ukulele music CDs by "professional" players. After borrowing a resource, I include a time in the next month's meeting where folks can give a brief "review" of it (whether good or bad, helpful or not).

I can't tell you how many times someone has borrowed an ukulele book from the club library and gone on to decide that's a resource they want for themselves so they buy a copy of it for their own library. It's also helped some folks save money because they've "tried" it and realized it wasn't what they were looking for.

I think all of the books mentioned in this thread (so far) are in our Ukuleles of Paradise library. You can see the 91 items in our library here: http://ukuleletonya.com/uke_library/

If you need any tips for setting up a club library, give me a holler and I'll help!

I've decided to give this one a go, http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1423453395/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item - The Ultimate Rock Pop Fake Book (for instruments in C).

It's meant to have the melody, lyrics & chords for over 500 songs, with a bias toward the 50's & 60's, (maybe 70's), which is the kind of music I like. So I should be able to write uke (fingerstyle) tabs from the melody lines, that's the plan anyway.