Instruction Book Hal Leonard Easy songs for Ukulele by Lil' Rev

I've been playing about 7 months. I bought this book because my repertroire needs to be padded with easy songs.

You know. Cheap and easy victorys. Songs people like.

I spent a few hours with the first 2 songs 1) Love me tender by Elvis and 2) All My Loving by the Beatles.

THere are lots of songs I don't know but he has a cd I'm gonna listen to right now.

For the songs I don't know, its good music reading testing. We'll see if my interpretation of the music matches the songs.

Anyways, I recommend it.

I have that book too.. Are you doing the finger picking or strumming. Mine didn't come with a cd... I wonder if I can download it?

Are you learning to read music?

Honestly I got very bored in that book, and stopped playing from it, but the way things are going I think I need to go back to it.

Its easy songs.

I fell for the song "blues stay away from me" and went to youtube to listen to how it first was sung great. but ... check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_2ajkYb-5Q&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_2ajkYb-5Q&feature=related

Befor I saw that youtube, I got to noodling around and jazzing and funking that song up. by means of transposing and modulation, turning the melody into 5ths chords and of course messing with the tempo.

I see give it another go and use youtube if you don't have the cd. The cd may be too slow for your experience level so I wouldn't sweat the cd. Its all out there in youtube.

Yes, I'm learning to read music. It helps because I get buy guitar books with standard music and start learning the riffs I like without having the uke melody tabs handy. Its a lot of work and that's why I like the melody music with the uke tabs handy for me to check myself.

Interesting and impressive that you are taking the time and effort to learn music notation along with your tabs. It will pay great rewards down the road as you find many many songs that don't have tabs, but you will be able to pick the melody line. I just can't play from tabs. I have played piano for 65 years, (yes I know longer than most of you are old )and notation is embedded in me, so when I started the uke i just made myself learn the fretboard notes and have played that way from the beginning. It will take some effort but believe me it will pay off. One thing that might help is practice your scales, best chromatically, and make yourself say out loud or even in your mind the note of each fret as you play it. After a while it will become so imprinted in your mind and fingers you will just know what the note and fret is. Do that each day for at least 5-10 minutes and trust me in no time you will be amazed at how well you know your frets and notes. By the way I use the Hal Lenoard teaching books I and II with my grandkids. they are very thorough and take them through graduated, sequential steps that build on previous learnings. Excellent. Good Luck!!! Lozark

Does this book actually have ukulele arrangements in it or is it just strumming chords for sing along?
I stayed away from it because i can already strum chords but if it is solo arrangements I may have to reconsider.

cb56, It has the chord on top of the treble music notation with the lyrics right below and ukulele tabs below the lyrics. So, for me, this presentation is perfect as I too just don't want to be a strummer. I want to know the melody. (and then apply all the fun fingerpickin/improv tricks).

I've been hitting more theory in the last few months and so these easy songs are a breath of fresh air.

Standard music notation is fun to me, not drudgery. I find that my ear hears songs different from the notation and the style I prefer (blues) requires some imagination (swing and triplets preferred) to the music notation.

I am (gulp) gonna try and focus on my timing using an online metronome.

You are right Lozark, the more I learn and apply, the easier it gets because some of the guitar music notation looks daunting to read and apply onto the uke. The songs in this book are very slow and easy/not complex at all.

One good thing about reading music notation is: You will be able to dismiss some uke books with non reentrant tuning. Such as the cowboy western book from Jim Beloff requires low G tuning for a lot of the songs in his book. Same with Don Ho's book. I'll try Low G tuning in a few months but not right now.

SuzukHammer said:

cb56, It has the chord on top of the treble music notation with the lyrics right below and ukulele tabs below the lyrics. So, for me, this presentation is perfect as I too just don't want to be a strummer. I want to know the melody. (and then apply all the fun fingerpickin/improv tricks).

I've been hitting more theory in the last few months and so these easy songs are a breath of fresh air.

Click to expand...

interesting, I may have to check it out then. Thanks

SuzukHammer said:

cb56, It has the chord on top of the treble music notation with the lyrics right below and ukulele tabs below the lyrics. So, for me, this presentation is perfect as I too just don't want to be a strummer. I want to know the melody. (and then apply all the fun fingerpickin/improv tricks).

Click to expand...

I was curious to know if this included actual fingerpicking arrangements or just the melody in tab. It's the latter. Found a sample page:

http://www.musicroom.com/Images/Catalogue/samples/HL00695904.jpg

I just got the same book last week and LOVE it! I too fell in love with "Love Me Tender". It has great presntation and seems to organize the material very nicely.

Hello,

Been learning Uke since I retired the 1st of January. Been using Hal Leonard's "Ukulele Method Book" and "Absolute Beginners Ukulele" written by Steve Sproat. The Uke Method book starts more with playing notes and the Absolute Beginners book starts with with Chords and strumming. I alternate between the two, each twice a day for 45 minutes or so each session, then surf the internet some in between sessions for any additional help I can get. Don't know if I am wasting time using both. Perhaps I would be better doing the in sequence? I've completed around 50% of each and but feel that for someone with no experience I've come a long way. I notice some improvement most every day in both books, somedays only seems to happen with one. (Okay, I will admit this too: I practice Formby style struming too)

Learn music or use Tabs? What are Tabs? Just kidding but really not much with them, trying to learn fingering, notes, chords, etc. reading the music. I figure once I learn playing that way, the Tabs could just be a shortcut to playing later on.(?) Perhaps I am thinking backwards?

I am enjoying trying to learn very much even though I am a little scared once in a while when I have a "senior moment" and it takes a while to remember something that I had known as well as the back of my hand.

I have been practicing on a $25.00 Uke I purchased locally. I would tell what it is but I don't remember plus the fact that it has no identifying markings. I just ordered a GT Banjolele (std.). Should have it by end of this week. We'll see how that goes! Only practice will tell!

Tom
NMB, SC

Uncle Tom I agree with your method. I figure start with the basics so that you have that as a foundation. This doesn't come naturally to so babysteps and I figure there is no hurry.
Roxhum

@ Uncle Tom: WARNING!

Well not really

Getting a better instrument to practice on will only make you play more and be more addicted to it. I also did the same thing, got a 25$ Uke when my daughter picked up guitar to play with her. Fell in love with it. Then I spent a little bit more and got a decent entry level instrument (150$ price range) and the sound difference is amazing! I always want to play now.

Btw, my daughter picked up the 25$ Uke and is only playing this now. The guitar is feeling lonely...

Have fun! Pics of your new instrument when you get it would be cool too

I bought this book last week and it arrived yesterday. I can already read music, so I don't need the tabs, but I do appreciate the chord diagrams. I had been hoping for something with more picking and specific arrangements, but that's not what this book has. Mine didn't come with a CD.

What I'd like to do with the book is play a song a day. Yesterday was only Love Me Tender, and the key it's in (F major) is perfect for me. I had not thought to much of the song once I realized it and the folk song "Aura Lee" were actually the same song. (Learned Aura Lee on beginning guitar, of course.) But I just thought it so charming yesterday with my ukulele.

So I am thinking... one song a day with a review day at least once a week, perhaps every 3 days on and 1 day off, and get some songs under my belt. It would be fun to record myself doing some of them and throw them up on YouTube. Even if I don't do YouTube, I do have a friend who is willing to do sing-alongs with me, and she can play guitar and piano (and other stuff).

As a beginner, this book has been great for me - I don't sing much, so learning the play the melody and trying to figure out how to embellish it has been a lot fun.
--G

I played Love Me Tender this morning. I loved it.

Later today, I'll play some of All My Loving.

I actuaully enjoy the strumming chord parts now. but only because I feel good I can then play the melody too.

I really enjoyed Love Me Tender, as well! I thought the chord changes were pretty. I've been enjoying making up my own parts, too. I started doing one song a day, and then having every 4th day as a "practice everything day", but I did get off track. My C string unraveled! (From itself, not the bridge or tuning pegs) So now that I've fixed that, I can get back to it.

Wouldn't it be great to learn a song a day. I keep relearning the songs - hoping to let go the leash of looking back at the notes; but it takes me a long time to memorize just one song.

Victoria Vox has a 2011 project to learn a cover song once a week; but she makes her songs sound like magic.

The one thing I'm really surprised about is that the Beatles songs seem to have surprising chord progressions. The easy chord progressions are nice but its eye opening to see how what looks like progressions with no rhyme or reason can be real catchy.