Fingerstyle book

To help me get through my 12 week enforced isolation I am aiming to get fairly decent at finget picking the uke.When I could handle a full sized acoustic guitar I played mainly flatpick before hand problems made holding a pick difficult so I began fingerpick folk music. I would now like to do this for soprano uke and I am looking for a decent book that is available in the UK. I am a follower of Aaron Keim and his music but I can only find his fingerstyle book in kindle form here in the UK. Has anyone any suggestions of other books that are similar ?

Try Sam Muir. She has lots of free fingerstyle stuff.

PeteS said:

To help me get through my 12 week enforced isolation I am aiming to get fairly decent at finget picking the uke.When I could handle a full sized acoustic guitar I played mainly flatpick before hand problems made holding a pick difficult so I began fingerpick folk music. I would now like to do this for soprano uke and I am looking for a decent book that is available in the UK. I am a follower of Aaron Keim and his music but I can only find his fingerstyle book in kindle form here in the UK. Has anyone any suggestions of other books that are similar ?

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I have found value in The Musical Ukulele by Colin Tribe, published by Lindsay Music. How widely available it is I don’t know but it is a U.K. publisher. I have an assortment of finger picking music books which were bought via eBay; finger picking is easy for a smallish percentage of folk but joining that club ain’t easy, I keep working towards membership.

Kindle is something that I don’t do, but to be honest at times I’m too mean for my own good so if you can comfortably afford to then why not get a Kindle too?

Good luck and enjoy your Uke.

I don't have a folk music recommendation for you, but Fred Sokolow's Fingerstyle Beatles for Ukulele is worth checking out if you like the Beatles.

PeteS said:

To help me get through my 12 week enforced isolation I am aiming to get fairly decent at finget picking the uke.When I could handle a full sized acoustic guitar I played mainly flatpick before hand problems made holding a pick difficult so I began fingerpick folk music. I would now like to do this for soprano uke and I am looking for a decent book that is available in the UK. I am a follower of Aaron Keim and his music but I can only find his fingerstyle book in kindle form here in the UK. Has anyone any suggestions of other books that are similar ?

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Aaron Keim's site http://quietamericanmusic.com/storestore?category=Digital+Downloads shows downloads in pdf format, which you can print (or have printed) ... I've purchased several, good value

kypfer said:

Aaron Keim's site http://quietamericanmusic.com/storestore?category=Digital+Downloads shows downloads in pdf format, which you can print (or have printed) ... I've purchased several, good value

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I would also highly recommend Aaron and Nicole Keim's books. I recently bought "10 Old Time Tunes for Baritone Ukulele" and "Fingerstyle Ukulele" from their website (quietamericanmusic.com). Their YouTube channel is also very worthwhile checking out. All the songs in their books have links to instructional videos on their YT channel.

Check out as well "Learn to Play Fingerstyle Solos for Ukulele" by Mark Kailana Nelson--excellent book with online audio links.

And here's a nice freebie from Spencer Gay, "Ukulele Chord Melody Songbook": https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58de964f197aea4cfd35337a/t/5b4d283903ce644e50076b30/1531783233333/Chord+Melody+Songbook+7+114+18+First+Book.pdf

Has anyone any experience with Rob MacKillop's fingerstyle exercises? I like his style and his videos, so I'll probably buy his fingerstyle studies and his Spanish baroque pieces. Any feedback on these?

I have two suggestions.

First of all, I find Daniel Ward's books very good in regards to fingerstyle.

Second of all, make your own music. Regardless of what book you use, you'll find certain patterns like the base drone, pinching strings, the inside-outside or vice-versa. Adapt those things to whatever progession you've been playing. Even something as lame as a C-F-G progression sounds pretty awesome once you fingerstyle it.

With your guitar background, you might like the Kev's Quickstart book "Fingerstyle Ukulele" by Kevin Rones. It gives very short and succinct descriptions of the techniques. Then has some example songs using the techniques. Also includes a CD with sound demo files to reference. He does spend the first 12 pages on Intro, Contents and How to Hold & Tune.

The second volume, Kev's Quickstart book "Fingerstyle Ukulele 2" by Kevin Rones. Is a more in-depth instruction on the techniques and a little theory. It's packed with descriptions of different techniques from picking patterns to banjolele rolls. Online sound files and song examples.

The books go at a little too fast of a pace for me because I have no music background—and my fingers are slow learners. But mixed with a few other books they are a great learning & reference tool. I like to bounce around using several sources as I learn.