what about modern ukulele?

Lillo

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I couldn't help to notice that all these books such as Ukulele Fretboard Roadmaps by Jim Beloff or Ukulele Fingerstyle by Aaron Keim teach theory often using country and folk songs. What is the reason behind that?

Is it that in general these songs are easier, and it's better to teach through them?
Is it that these genres of music are part of the culture of the instrument (for example when studying drums my teacher went through jazz because that was the origin of the instrument)?

Or is it that everybody is totally in love with country and folk music except me?
Tastes are tastes no judge to make over there, I just do not like it. I guess it's one of the reasons I love listening to Jake Shimabukuro music, apart from his technique and awesome skills he approached the ukulele in a more "modern" way I guess.

Anyway theory is theory, then you can apply it to whatever you want
 
I couldn't help to notice that all these books such as Ukulele Fretboard Roadmaps by Jim Beloff or Ukulele Fingerstyle by Aaron Keim teach theory often using country and folk songs. What is the reason behind that?

Is it that in general these songs are easier, and it's better to teach through them?
Is it that these genres of music are part of the culture of the instrument (for example when studying drums my teacher went through jazz because that was the origin of the instrument)?

Or is it that everybody is totally in love with country and folk music except me?
Tastes are tastes no judge to make over there, I just do not like it. I guess it's one of the reasons I love listening to Jake Shimabukuro music, apart from his technique and awesome skills he approached the ukulele in a more "modern" way I guess.

Anyway theory is theory, then you can apply it to whatever you want

I think a big part of it is that they're trying to use songs that 1) most people know the tune to, and 2) don't have copyright issues.
 
I couldn't help to notice that all these books such as Ukulele Fretboard Roadmaps by Jim Beloff or Ukulele Fingerstyle by Aaron Keim teach theory often using country and folk songs. What is the reason behind that?

Is it that in general these songs are easier, and it's better to teach through them?
Is it that these genres of music are part of the culture of the instrument (for example when studying drums my teacher went through jazz because that was the origin of the instrument)?

Or is it that everybody is totally in love with country and folk music except me?
Tastes are tastes no judge to make over there, I just do not like it. I guess it's one of the reasons I love listening to Jake Shimabukuro music, apart from his technique and awesome skills he approached the ukulele in a more "modern" way I guess.

Anyway theory is theory, then you can apply it to whatever you want

What genre would you prefer? And what do you mean by theory? :eek:ld:
 
What Twibbly said is probably most correct. Copyrights are closely and jealously held in the Music Industry.

Also I expect Jake, James Hill and the other greats play their own arrangements, which could be considered theirs alone.

Not much of a problem finding music of all kind around. Goggle is your friend.
 
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I think a big part of it is that they're trying to use songs that 1) most people know the tune to, and 2) don't have copyright issues.

This. Most of these songs are public domain. Although, to be fair to Aaron Keim, Americana is very much his 'thing'. And you can argue that, since most of these songs tend to have simple chords progressions, they are easier for beginners to learn. On the other hand, it can be kinda boring if they're not to your taste.
 
What genre would you prefer? And what do you mean by theory? :eek:ld:

Hello Down Up Dick!
By theory I meant teaching you the notes on the fretboard, the chords structures, the scales, etc. This usually is then applied to a concrete example, such as a song.

I wouldn't mind some more recent songs, or something a bit different, even classical but I guess the whole point is this: some are actually too hard to be presented to ukulele students, and some others are too recent to not have copyright issues, as Twibbly and Jollyboy were saying.

Thank you all!
 
Rob MacKillop uses his own compositions to teach concepts in 20 Easy Fingerstyle Studies. They are quite beautiful.
 
Hello Down Up Dick!
By theory I meant teaching you the notes on the fretboard, the chords structures, the scales, etc. This usually is then applied to a concrete example, such as a song.

I wouldn't mind some more recent songs, or something a bit different, even classical but I guess the whole point is this: some are actually too hard to be presented to ukulele students, and some others are too recent to not have copyright issues, as Twibbly and Jollyboy were saying.

Thank you all!

Well, I define theory differently, and it's probably still best for one to learn the basics before he/she gets into jazz or rock.

If you really, really dislike folk and country, you could just whack away at chords 'til you get 'em done and play scales over and over to find out where the fingerpicking notes are.

Folk songs are more fun. :eek:ld:
 
A lot of the old books used to use nursery rhymes & xmas carols! :)

Start learning the basic chord shapes, get good at switching between them, download a fretboard map & start using it to pick out the melodies of songs you like. ;)
 
North American finger style plays on guitar are originated from blues, country and folk songs. Alternating bass, Carter family picking and Travis picking are often played in acoustic guitars. Many ukulele books show these styles. But I think these style do not work on 4 strings or very difficult to play on ukulele.
 
It's mostly a copyright issue, if uke authors could have access and the rights to use modern songs (or had the funds to pay for them without driving the cost of the book too high), I'm sure they would use them to get more of a diverse audience.

With that said, Hal Leonard pretty much owns the copyrights to a lot of the newer stuff, so if you are interested in a songbook or method book that has that kind of stuff, Hal Leonard as a publisher is a good bet.
 
I dont really understand the question in the OP.

Jim Beloff's books and the Daily Ukulele series are regarded as some of the MOST accessible books for beginners.

You dont have to love the song choices nor the music genres of them, but if you want to learn 21 Pilots and Walk Off the Earth and Eddie Vedder songs, you can just go buy that sheet music and where it has the guitar chord diagrams above the music staff and the melody line on the treble clef, it is basic and simple to perform the SAME on the ukulele when you know about 12-15 chords, and can at least read the treble clef notation...

if is says a 'G' chord, but has a GUITAR chord pictogram, you can just PLAY a UKE 'G' chord and you'll be fine.

If you dont KNOW a 'G' chord, well, then you need to google for UKULELE CHORD CHART and download and print out one of the PDF files and tape it to the side of your computer screen, etc or keep it near your other sheet music for easy reference.

As to WHY ('insert some music genre here') is NOT presented in some music books that YOU are looking at, I think you are just not LOOKING hard enough.

Case in point: on Amazon, Elderly, Flea Market Music, Doctor Uke, ScorpexUke, Aliigator Boogaloo, there are TONS of UKULELE music... paid in the former three and FREE in the latter three listed here, in ALL genres from Folk, Rock, Blues, Country, 50s, Classical, Celtic, BlueGrass, Polka, Hawaiian, etc....

WHAT genre of music do you want? have you SEARCHED for that? :)

Search YouTube for 'Ukulele Mike' or Aldrine's lessons and you will see songs from nearly ALL styles of (popular) music...
 
Darn... I was just getting good at playing and singing "Home on the Range" on the uke in the key of G. I love that song!!! :cool:

As the others have already mentioned, there are always copyright issues. Though a ukulele book from the publisher Hal Leonard could probably obtain the rights to almost any modern pop song as already stated.

Petey

I couldn't help to notice that all these books such as Ukulele Fretboard Roadmaps by Jim Beloff or Ukulele Fingerstyle by Aaron Keim teach theory often using country and folk songs. What is the reason behind that?

Or is it that everybody is totally in love with country and folk music except me?
 
I'll throw in my 2 cents as a choir/voice teacher. Those songs also have a strong, singable melody...an entire method of elementary instruction (Kodály) is based around teaching children to sing folk songs. Those songs used to be the background of a music education. Today? Not so much.

In my final doctoral defense, one of the professors (Paul Haack, who passed away a couple of years ago) took the committee and I off topic by producing a list of the top 100 folk songs in our country, and asked me to sing a passage from each. I amazed the committee by knowing 97 of the 100 (3 were more regional to the SE United States than my Midwest background). If you did that same thing with a millennial, you might struggle to hit as much as 50.

So...I think in addition to the Copyright issue (which is really moot as soon as something is published, as Hal Leonard basically owns the rights for just about any song under copyright), choosing songs that people know and can sing is an important part of the process.

Once you get to popular music, the topic splinters into sub-genres and sub-sub genres very quickly--pretty soon, every artist is their own genre and the appreciation of popular music at that level varies greatly between person to person.

As a choir director that tries to include some "pop" in the Spring concert, music selection becomes very divisive once you break past the Beatles (and even then isn't in agreement). Sometimes you have fewer battles choosing folk music that they might not love in the same way, but they can hear how it goes.

What I need to find, however, is a collection of Irish Tunes for ukulele. Those Irish folk sure knew how to write beautiful songs!
 
......What I need to find, however, is a collection of Irish Tunes for ukulele. Those Irish folk sure knew how to write beautiful songs!

Fellow UU brothers Brimmer and Ukulele Tim have shared LOTS on these topics in PDF tabs, search for 'CELTIC' and you will have LOTS of music to study...

also Rob MacKillop and Lil' Rev have each published SEVERAL books on these topics and I think also Fred Sokolow, ALL of which are UKULELE music. Amazon has these books as well as Hal Leonard or Mel Bay...
 
Booli...don't call me out like that! :) I just haven't looked yet. I was just speaking my thoughts at the moment. Just like I am thinking, "I need some Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia RIGHT NOW."
 
Booli...don't call me out like that! :) I just haven't looked yet. I was just speaking my thoughts at the moment. Just like I am thinking, "I need some Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia RIGHT NOW."

Not to worry - just like in the X-Files:

"The Truth is Out There..."

LOL

srsly tho, if you use search terms like 'celtic' and 'irish fiddle tunes' and 'jigs', 'reels' and 'irish dances' your searches will have more useful results as per my own experience....sorry for the off-topic - please carry on...
 
What I need to find, however, is a collection of Irish Tunes for ukulele. Those Irish folk sure knew how to write beautiful songs!

I use a very popular book called Irish Songs for Ukulele. I got it at Sam Ash Music. Try Amazon.com
 
I couldn't help to notice that all these books such as Ukulele Fretboard Roadmaps by Jim Beloff or Ukulele Fingerstyle by Aaron Keim teach theory often using country and folk songs. What is the reason behind that?

Having to get permission to use copyrighted material is a pain in the butt, and you have to also pay royalties, lowering the already low profit in a small market.

I think this problem is more pronounced for us folks from non-English speaking countries who use English teaching materials, because we don't know a lot of those folk songs, so they don't sound familiar, which makes playing them less interesting. Being familiar with a song makes it easier for a beginner to learn it, and presumably those traditional songs have a better chance of being known by the learner (regardless of age) than some pop song that may be very familiar to someone who is 20 or 30, but not those who are 60 or 70. Folk tunes are also more timeless.

This only applies to teaching books, though. There's no shortage of ukulele-versions of rock, pop, and other modern music, either in forms of books or YouTube videos. Not as much as for the guitar, so looking there might be useful if you have a specific song in mind that you can't find ukulele chord sheets or tabs for.
 
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