First Instrument - Learning Music

I might be jumping the gun, since my ukulele hasn't even arrived yet (be soon, be soon, be soon) but I had a question about the learning process. I imagine the answer is subjective so I thought I'd post and ask.

The ukulele is going to be my first foray into music and there seems to be two parts to learning: technique and application ie learning songs. The danger of spending too long on technique is that it can become boring, but is there any danger on focusing on memorizing songs? What kind of balance between the two did you all find worked best for you?

Maybe I'm way off base on what learning is and the question isn't even the right one. I'm curious about what you all think. Mahalo!

Aloha Sharada,
Believe me, there's no worry about being boring...the ukulele's alot of fun...everyone plateau's now and then....
You just gotta motivate and inspire yourself by playing with others or checking out You-Tube for new songs,
techniques to keep you busy....Jus remember...Practice, patience and perserverence= ukulele passion and success!!!
The learning curb may be slow for some but enjoy the journey..Let us know of your progress....and
"Keep strumming them strings" MM Stan...

I too am in the same situation as you Sharada

The uke be my first instrument. And heck, I'm having so much fun with it

THere are lots of techniques and secrets to learn.

practice will be fun as it should be.

Hi, and welcome to UU!

This is my first time playing the ukulele and I haven't played a musical instrument since I was a kid. I just got mine a few days ago, and already playing a song. It's a childrens song, but I needed to start with something easy. I do need a little work on strumming though. I just picked a song and started learning the chords. I've heard that you focus on the song and have fun with it! Don't really worry about strumming, it will come.

Good luck!

Of course people learn in different ways. In trying to get a uke group going in our area, we have had a number of get-togethers at our house where the majority of people who show up have never touched a uke before. We teach everyone 3 chords and work on 2 to 3 songs with those same chords. By the end of the night everyone is able to play along, (to a greater or lesser degree), on those songs.

Try to find a uke group in your area. Form one yourself. Other people in the group don't have to be uke players either. Invite beginning guitar, piano, tuba players over.

Hi Sharada and welcome to UU

The mantra of learning is practice, practice, practice. Why this is so is that it takes a number of skills, strumming, chord formation, rhythm, reading, singing, tempo etc to play an instrument. Why it takes time for these skills to be proficient is that "paths" in the brain need to be formed so that you learn to play with instinct rather than studied thought. I think it is important to practice for a period, 20 -30 minutes then have a rest for a similar period of time, learn something else have a rest. It was amazing to me to get up the following morning and have just that tiny bit of skill seeming to be there. It's slow but steady improvement.

Do take the time to formulate a practice regimen for yourself, and try to avoid learning bad habits, it takes twice the time to unlearn a bad habit as it does to learn a good one. And dont hesitate to ask others on this forum what to do, there is a wealth of experience here for you to learn from.

Cheers, Tony, 47 yo learning his first instrument, lol

This site was very beneficial for me when I started my learning Pineapple Pete

Hi Sharada
I´m new to ukulele playng too. Its a bit over month from my first chord but I thought that maybe I can still help you (even a littlebit is better than nothing, right?!). So first i started with basic chords of a song. I left strumming out completly and focused on chord changes- just one down for every cord. soon i started to practice strumming. Now I try a little fingerpicking. im so sad that I have wery little time for my ukulele- but every chance my 1,5yearold son gives me. Usually it means 10minutes at the time for 10 times per day. Sometimes I wake up early to play some more At night I get usually a half an hour or whole hour.
in these times I do stumming for speed in 10 min. playng older song for 10min, half hour goes usually for a newer song and so on... And what GreatGazukes sayd about next morning- totally true! Thats just great! Today I came up with a great idea- I could take my uke to the playground with us, so I could hide in the bushes and practice some more (out in the open is just not wery kind of me towards the others, hahaa).

And one more thing- if you know someone who plays ukulele too, then by all means, play with that person... i feel so alone here, in Estonia, nobody I know plays ukulele and I have asked around- non of my friends know enyone too... so Im happy to let you know that Im the best ukuleleplayer I have ever seen (IRL) and the best ukuleleplayer my friends know

happy strumming

I highly recommend the Hal Leonard series.

Learn to read music, not tabs. Using tab notation will hurt you in the long run. Why? Let's pretend for a moment you are going to type the word "ukulele". How would you do it? Naturally you'd press the "u" then the "k" then the "u" and so on.....But let's say your keyboard didn't have any letters on it, but you had a guide telling you how to type "ukulele". It would say, "First, press the key in 2nd row from the top, that's 8 keys from the left. Then drop down one row and press the 9th key from the left."

See where I'm going? Using tabs is being told how to play the music, reading music is knowing how to play the music.

Just my 2 bits.

Just learn the four basic easy chords...C, Am, G7 & F. Play these chords slowly and you will be able to play 100's of songs.

This thread too

http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?36025-Do-you-love-your-ukulele-(a-challenge)

Lots of good advice out there, but you really need to avoid the "blind dog in a meathouse" approach regarding all the material currently available for uke self-study. If you can't work with a good teacher, work with a good book to get started. "Ukulele in the Classroom" by Hill and Doane, or "Ten Steps to Learn Ukulele" by Preston will get you started in the right direction with learning music and the uke. Practice, practice is good, but should be focused on what will best advance the skill of a beginner - not on things that will have to be re-learned the "right" way later. You shouldn't be guessing what the right things are when an expert is available in the form of a good beginner book for about ten bucks.

Thanks for the replies and thoughts everyone, lots of stuff to mull over. Going to fire off some thoughts from the hip and hope it doesnt sound pretentious for being a music noob!

Glad to know that practicing technique can be so fun and fulfilling. I didnt pick up the Uke to learn a certain song, so I dont mind taking the time with just basic fundamentals. In the future though, I hope to find a few favorites to apply them to, both to measure progress and have fun. Perhaps there's nice songs which can be played with variable complexity? I think it would be gratifying to be able to apply not just improved, but new abilities to personal touchstone songs and hear yourself get better and better, while also learning new songs for future growth. Youtube seems to be a great resource for the latter, as well as a source of 'oooh' inspiration. Though gathering all the info out there into a coherent form of study does seem a bit daunting.

And I agree with Doug, everyone does learn differently. I'm sort of a stiff where I like to read the manual before I touch the game, haha. Probably why I'm already posting and fishing for info before even touching a string (MGM shipped the KA-S today though so that'll change soon, woot). So I'm glad for Ikdumas' post and recs, I was looking for a good beginner book to get a nice structured beginning and hopefully avoid the bad habits Gazukes mentioned. I've seen alot of recommendations for intermediate books which I intend to snap up as well (ala Fretboard Roadmaps, Mel Bay's Fingerstyle/Solo&Duets), but most beginner books were brushed off as being oversimplistic. There's also been some nice recommendations for ebook/tutorials to start with that I'll check out, but to be honest I've found it hard to focus on them when I dont have an uke to apply them to yet.

Anyways! I'm trying not to worry too much about 'the right thing to do' while waiting for the Uke. Point is to have fun, no?

Hope Mr Postman arrives soon and relieves you of the waiting waiting waiting game!

Best wishes for your new adventure, it's a great ride.

Cheers, Tony

Sharada said:

The danger of spending too long on technique is that it can become boring, but is there any danger on focusing on memorizing songs? What kind of balance between the two did you all find worked best for you?!

Click to expand...

You risk confining yourself to one genre, one strum, one feel, one fingerpicking pattern... etc.

i'm also completely new to the ukulele - & music in general - my prob is not knowing where to start - i wish there were lessons available starting from the beginning which gradually progress - very frustrating - i'll steal molokinirum's advice & begin w/ learning 4 easy chords

Ah, thank you for the warning Seeso.

@mplozzer There were recommendations for Uncle Rod's Boot Camp in other threads. To quote the author: "Attempting to play songs on the 'ukulele is NOT the same as preparing yourself to use the 'ukulele to make music. When you attempt to play songs without prior preparation you're doing it the hard way because you do not yet know what the chords are, how to form them, or how to change from chord to chord smoothly"

Sort of a "give a man a fish, teach a man to fish" take on learning, which struck a chord (ha. ha.) at least with me.

"Very simply, playing the 'ukulele is about learning chords by name & forming them accurately then moving from chord to chord smoothly while strumming the string in time with the music." The boot camp presents exercises to do the underlined portions, leaving strumming and rhythm for later. It also explains it in a way that a person completely new to music like me could understand, though I'm still not sure what 'in the key of' means. The direct link to download the boot camp document is http://www.4shared.com/file/RJISsOhb/Ukulele_Boot_Camp_rev.html. If you dont have the version of MS Word that can read it, you can also click on the 'More from Free Booklet' link to the right of that and download the pdf version. Hope that helps!

lkdumas said:

Lots of good advice out there, but you really need to avoid the "blind dog in a meathouse" approach regarding all the material currently available for uke self-study. If you can't work with a good teacher, work with a good book to get started. "Ukulele in the Classroom" by Hill and Doane, or "Ten Steps to Learn Ukulele" by Preston will get you started in the right direction with learning music and the uke. Practice, practice is good, but should be focused on what will best advance the skill of a beginner - not on things that will have to be re-learned the "right" way later. You shouldn't be guessing what the right things are when an expert is available in the form of a good beginner book for about ten bucks.

Click to expand...

Thanks, running blindly is what I have been doing. So its time to slow down and REALLY get learning. ABCś first

I have been doing uncle Rods boot camp... I too am not overly concerned with playing lots of songs right now, although I can play (poorly) a handful of songs not by memory.
I have also been using Hal Leonards method and I like it because it is also teaching me to read music. I like that. I can do it a little because of my kids and all their music lessons. I have the fretboard roadmaps book but I haven't started it yet...