Uke Praise and Worship

So does anyone know of any books I can buy specifically for Praise and Worship Uke songs? I went to a Barnes and Noble and they have some books (2 in the whole store) that might have had a few songs that were Praise and Worship, but nothing specifically set aside for that.

Anyone on here know of any, or where I can get it?

I'm not talking just a website or chord charts, I'd like a book so I could take to church and the piano players can play the music in the book while I play the chords.

Thanks in advance!

My wifes favorite book to play from is "Jumpin' Jims Ukulele Spirit"- It is hyms, gospel tunes and other tunes that are surprisingly easy to play. Great little tune book

Thanks! Anyone else have any others? Like more contemporary music instead of the old hymns? Old hymns are great too, but I was hoping for some contemporary stuff as well.

You actually don't need a praise n worship book specifically written for ukes.
Just get a songbook containing contemporary christian music sheet music and chords.

Chords and sheet music are universal to instruments.

Ken Middleton has an eBook of arrangements of Hymns - not P & W but still very cool.

+1 on regular guitar sources. A C chord is a C chord is a C chord - no matter what you're playing it on. Most P&W music is done in a band setting where the most important thing is that you be able to mesh together as a band to get the overall sound the worship pastor is looking for. Because of that you're probably never going to find a lot of resources for specific uke solos or anything.

BTW, arpeggiated uke works pretty good to fill in some top end on some of the "airy" introductions on a lot of Chris Thomlin songs, for example. For that sort of thing you don't need any uke-specific resources, just an accurate chord chart and nimble fingers. (We're fortunate enough to have a very good acoustic guitarist, and I'm on bass anyway, but I imagine if you had a mediocre acoustic guitarist who couldn't do much more than "scrub" the chords then a uker arpeggiating the chords an octave up could probably really strengthen that band.)

John

You don't really need a praise and worship chord book created for the ukulele. I would just look up chords of your favorite worship songs online. As John said, a C chord is a C chord, and a G chord is a G chord.

awesome! I'm glad I read this. A guy in guitar center told me that a little earlier, but it seemed a little strange that a guitar book could help me on the uke. Then I went to a Christian book store and found some great books there, then I checked this while I was in there and felt more comfortable about buying a book meant for guitars. One was called "The Easy Worship Fake Book." It's a ton of praise and worship songs in the key of C. I checked out the chords and they look very easy, like the ones I've already learned.

Thanks for all the help!

I just wanted to say Welcome. I am a bona fide P&W junkie.... can't get enough of great music!!!! I play the piano and use the same sheets that I've made. I sing pretty high so usually have to transpose but it works for me.

What everyone is saying about not needing sheet music/music books to be able to play chords on a ukulele is correct.

I used to play bass at our church. In a praise and worship band format with a lead and rhythm guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums, usually just individual sheets with words and chords are handed out.

When I first started we would hand out cassettes, then CDs, with the songs and individual sheets and everyone just learned their parts. Sometimes someone would work out the chords and riffs if it was a song the person really wanted the band to learn. Since no one cares about bass players, except when the lead guitarist went off on a tangent and then the band cared (lol), I always had to work out my own bass lines.

However, in a more orchestrated format, there can be music charts with numbered measure bars. If the piano player needs sheet music… the left hand-right hand/bass-treble clef stuff, then you will have to find sheet music; not for you but for the piano player. If not, just get the chords and music free off the internet, maybe paste it into Microsoft Word and go with it. You can buy ukulele chord stamps if you want to know the shape to play and put them in the margin.

Here is a site that may help to understand different formats…

http://www.praisecharts.com/

I’m kind of a praise and worship junkie like seoulsister, but what I really want to do is to learn to play instrumental praise and worship along the lines of what Jake Shimabukuro does with secular music. If anyone is doing this I would love to know about it.

John

allUkedup said:

awesome! I'm glad I read this. A guy in guitar center told me that a little earlier, but it seemed a little strange that a guitar book could help me on the uke. Then I went to a Christian book store and found some great books there, then I checked this while I was in there and felt more comfortable about buying a book meant for guitars. One was called "The Easy Worship Fake Book." It's a ton of praise and worship songs in the key of C. I checked out the chords and they look very easy, like the ones I've already learned.

Thanks for all the help!

Click to expand...

Why is it called a "Fake book"? :s

kissing said:

Why is it called a "Fake book"? :s

Click to expand...

Because all that's included in a fake book are the melody and chords. You aren't getting the exact transcription of what's being played, you're just "faking it."

Dominator has some tabs you can download, among other great songs and tabs!

I have that fake book and it is really very good. I also use a Mel Bay book,'Three Chord Hymn and Gospel Songs', that is also good.

Great! Really cool stuff. Didn't realize I had other P&W fans on here too! Good to know.

There is also THE PRAISE & WORSHIP FAKE BOOK, which has "over 400 songs." Hal Leonard is the publisher. I got mine from Amazon.

Like most have said, I just find the chords for a song and "uke-ify" it. I play my ukes in Church on a fairly regular basis. Everybody's favorite was when I played a wailing lead on "God of Wonders" through a distortion pedal ;-)

Another place to look is, and I'm totally going to blow you away with this one: CHURCH!

I tried looking around for stuff from the regular publishers (such as Hal Leonard) and found the best resources are the ones are the publishers making the hymns. I got to a Methodist church and most of our stuff comes from Cokesbury. In fact, we just purchased three volumes of a "best of" for P&W music. I'll be playing a couple songs from it for our Welcome On Wednesdays (WOW) service this week.

A little secret when using hymnals is to not pay attention to the old melody. Just find a rhythm that you like and just saying the words to that rhythm. Once you get a groove going, start trying to sing the words. Eventually, you'll get a new sound to an old hymn that you can teach as P&W music. A lot of what I've heard is basically done that way.

~DB

One outfit publishes an annual book of twenty five or thirty of the most popular P & W songs of the year. Can't think of it off the top of my head but you can usually find the last three or four years at Christian book stores.

John

Just as easily, you can just type the name of the song + chords (eg: "Shout to the Lord chords") on Google.
Most songs will come up with chords and lyrics

yeah, the only problem with me is, I'm not musically inclined AT ALL. This is the first instrument I'm trying to learn to play, unless you count playing the trombone in the 6th grade band.

I've tried singing (which isn't pleasant) and playing at the same time and it is VERY difficult. Hopefully over time and practice I'll be able to keep a good rhythm while I attempt to sing.