My progreess so far and some questions

Hey guys!

So, I spent one week and a half with my first uke (remember my Mahalo 320T?) and its already a lot of fun. I still cant play a whole song without stuttering a little bit and I surely cant play and sing at the same time, but hey, who cares? I bought my uke mostly for my own amusement and I feel rewarded already. If I get anything beside that, its a huge bonus.

I've been watching lots of videos, reading lots of advices and bookmarking lots of songs I want to learn (and trying a feel with moderate success). I know it sounds a little bit pretentious for a beginner, but I also like to play my own things, to create some pieces even if they are no exactly the best thing around (just for fun, actually).

So (as I'm definitly not a "real" composer or musician) what I do is to pick the chord chart and try a few in sequence, choose the ones that sound good. I started with the easier ones (like F, C and G) and now I'm pushing into the ones I find a little bit harder (like Bm and E). Doing that I think I can improve the way I change chords and at the same time memorize all that.

Funny thing is that I tried to learn accoustic guitar and guitar several years ago but I thought that wouldnt make any difference when I started to learn how to play the uke. I was wrong. The few things I learned before are helping me alot right now.

That said, do you guys think my method its good enough or should I look for any book (or ebook) and follow a more formal way of learning (maybe you can recommend me some)? Maybe some music theory?

At some point I would like to go in the direction of blues, so I also wanted to know what I can do to start to learn that as a beginner.

Sorry about the long message, about my mistakes writing in english and thanks for all the help you already gave me even without knowing it.

Hi JM, sounds like you're off to a good start. I'm sure you'll be bombarded with helpful suggestions. There alot of good musicians and teachers here. I would say continue on your current path at the very least. Sounds like you're making good progress. On the other hand if you can put in the time and can find a practice/lesson structure that suits your life style then more uke is always better. Blues, good choice. Ukulele Mike has a good play along blues strumming /picking video on his site. That's one of many good blue tutorials on the web. Good luck, I'm looking forward to your progress...please post your jams when you are ready
DAP

It sounds like you have a good solid plan and your treating it in the right way, to have fun and amuze yourself..
What i would say you have a few song you say bookmarked that you would like to learn, have little play about with them and see if any are either easier to play than you imagined or you just get into trying to strum and have a little bash at those..
Its all experimental. I learnt by using this forum and youtube for insperation, then finding something that tickled me fancy and having a go at it just to see if i could and how easy it was to play..
Your be surprised by messing about trying things out how quick (sometimes and somethings) will come to you.. The thing is not to get to frustrated (there are always people out there better than you, by that i mean better than me too) but if your enjoying it and having fun, slowly but surely you get better and better.. Well thats what i hope anyways..
Iv'e been playing since april this year and i use that for myself and hey i'm no jake Shimabukuro and proberbly never will be half as good, but do i care ? No i enjoy it to much..
Keep at it and keep on strummin..

You're learning the same way I learned. Keep at it bro. Biggest thing in the beginning is just to keep looking up tabs/chord sheets for your favorite songs, and play them. Remember you can use the chords on ultimate-guitar.com because chords are just chords no matter the instrument.

Keep at it bro, it only gets more and more fun with the more you learn.

Aloha JM,
If you want a head start on blues ..type in and google in YouTube ukulele blues tutorials ...and you'll find alot of video tutorials....I hope it helps, Good Luck!!!!MM Stan...

Hi JM

two great DVD's for learning blues I can recommend:

(i) "Learn To Play Blues UKulele" by Rigk Sauer, and
(ii) "Blue Uke" by Del Ray

both fantastic, but I'd lean more towards the first one if you're just starting with the blues...very comprehensive, easy to understand and well worth getting!

eugene ukulele said:

Hi JM

two great DVD's for learning blues I can recommend:

(i) "Learn To Play Blues UKulele" by Rigk Sauer, and
(ii) "Blue Uke" by Del Ray

both fantastic, but I'd lean more towards the first one if you're just starting with the blues...very comprehensive, easy to understand and well worth getting!

Click to expand...

Yeah, Rigk has a couple of sample lessons on youtube. He's great. I'm not familiar with Del Ray, I'll check him myself too. DAP

Sounds like a plan!

Keep at it. Experimentation teaches a lot, bot what works and what might not work... for now.

There are a couple of links below my signature that might be helpful to you.

Keep uke'in',