Book feedback: Pekelo's Hawaiian Ukulele Method

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achim203

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Just want to give a quick feedback to those books.
I live in Germany and bought Level 1 and Level 2 books from this website: http://www.pekelosbooks.com/
The books arrived well packaged in perfect condition after 14 days. Each of the books holds a CD with all the excercises to play along. Contact to the publisher was excellent. He answered all mails on the same day.
I was looking for some teaching material with dedicated excercises to train fingerpicking and fingercoordination for some time. And i found exactly what i was looking for in these books. They are easy to understand and to follow through. Playing the excercises is fun, even if i have to repeat them a lot until they are fluent. And that is due to the CD coming with each book. To most of the excercises there are two tracks on the CD, one in really slow tempo and one close to the original tempo of the tune often with a second Ukulele or Bass in the background. A click track is present, so it is easy to get and keep the timing right. It is just so enjoyable to practise to a play-along instead of a pure metronome or counting for yourself.
And furthermore there are some really beautiful hawaiian arrangements in these books, i have never heard before.
To make a long story short: very good value for the money and some of the best teaching material for beginning fingerpickers i found so far. Would i buy them again?: I surely would.
Edit: the excercises are supposed to be played on a Low-G Ukulele, but i think it is also possible to do it on high-g, except it sounds different.

*as English is not my native language please be gentle with comments to my vocabulary ;-) *
 
Last edited:
Hawaiian Ukulele method

Achim - Mahalo nui loa /Danke shon -for the nice feedback!
Its been a short while since visiting in - There's been a number of UU folks
here that have made orders. If there might be more folks who would like
to leave any feedback, that would be much appreciated:D

The site is at www.pekelosbooks.com
& the books feature CDs to listen to & play along with
All exersizes and arrangements are based on Hawaiian melodies but the basic
technique can be adapted to any other style also.

I enjoy playing pop, some jazz styles & folk songs & these fingerpicking
techniques applies to these styles also.
Enjoy/aloha
pekelo
 
I have the Level 1 book and while I'm not spending as much time in it at this stage as I'd like (need to step up my dedication), I'd highly recommend it to other complete beginners such as myself. The content is well-explained and there's some great text that relates standard music notation to tab. Again, great for someone like me who has no previous musical knowledge. I admit it was a bit daunting at first but I've now become more willing to learn music notation. And the CD to play along with is something that should be standard with any lesson text. I also have been practicing with my high-G tuning and I don't find it to be a problem. I'll be ordering the Level 2 book eventually.

@achim: Your English is fantastic! No need for the disclaimer.
 
The exercises are for low g tuning?
 
Yes - the exercises are for low- g
but I address the hi -g tuning & playing along in the front part of the book
Maui no ka oi!! I got my Mele tenor from Mele- there in Kahului :)
pekelo
 
pekelo said:
Yes - the exercises are for low- g
but I address the hi -g tuning & playing along in the front part of the book
Maui no ka oi!! I got my Mele tenor from Mele- there in Kahului :)
pekelo
Click to expand...

Aloha Pekelo! I was searching UU for low G instructional materials and am happy to say I found yours :) Just placed my order for both books - I'd call myself more intermediate rather than beginner, but it looks like your books cover a lot and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can learn. Mahalo!
 
I just received my copy of Level 1 today, I'm up to page 30 and really enjoying it. I've been doing it with my high g uke and it's sounding OK, but I'm going to get a low g string .... ok, let's be honest ... another uke ... so I can rock it like the CD (I'm also doing some jazz material that's better on low g). I'm a beginner, I've had my uke for about a month and a half now and so far the exercises seem to be right where they need to be for me. Not easy, but hard enough to keep me challenged and interested. Looking forward to the other volumes.

As for using a high g uke - a lot of the exercises so far haven't done to much on the 4th string so it's probably still worth a go even if you're not all that interested in a low g setup. You'll still learn plenty of skills. Here is a recording of me doing "Green Rose Hula" from the book - one note is supposed to be the low g but it's high. If you don't know what note it is you probably couldn't pick it out anyway :)

-Scott
 
sbarron said:
I just received my copy of Level 1 today, I'm up to page 30 and really enjoying it. I've been doing it with my high g uke and it's sounding OK, but I'm going to get a low g string .... ok, let's be honest ... another uke ... so I can rock it like the CD (I'm also doing some jazz material that's better on low g). I'm a beginner, I've had my uke for about a month and a half now and so far the exercises seem to be right where they need to be for me. Not easy, but hard enough to keep me challenged and interested. Looking forward to the other volumes.

As for using a high g uke - a lot of the exercises so far haven't done to much on the 4th string so it's probably still worth a go even if you're not all that interested in a low g setup. You'll still learn plenty of skills. Here is a recording of me doing "Green Rose Hula" from the book - one note is supposed to be the low g but it's high. If you don't know what note it is you probably couldn't pick it out anyway :)

-Scott
Click to expand...

You've only been playing for a month and a half? Well done! And no, I don't think I could pick out the one note in question.

I've had one of my ukes strung low G for some time now, but to me it only sounds good when I'm playing arrangements that were written for low G in the first place - and as I'm not much of an arranger yet, I have to rely on the kindness of my uke instructors for that! So, I'm looking forward to getting these books just to try something new.
 
Achim, as someone that enjoys language I must say that your review was written as well as any native speaker as far as I can tell. Great job!

achim203 said:
Just want to give a quick feedback to those books.
I live in Germany and bought Level 1 and Level 2 books from this website: http://www.pekelosbooks.com/
The books arrived well packaged in perfect condition after 14 days. Each of the books holds a CD with all the excercises to play along. Contact to the publisher was excellent. He answered all mails on the same day.
I was looking for some teaching material with dedicated excercises to train fingerpicking and fingercoordination for some time. And i found exactly what i was looking for in these books. They are easy to understand and to follow through. Playing the excercises is fun, even if i have to repeat them a lot until they are fluent. And that is due to the CD coming with each book. To most of the excercises there are two tracks on the CD, one in really slow tempo and one close to the original tempo of the tune often with a second Ukulele or Bass in the background. A click track is present, so it is easy to get and keep the timing right. It is just so enjoyable to practise to a play-along instead of a pure metronome or counting for yourself.
And furthermore there are some really beautiful hawaiian arrangements in these books, i have never heard before.
To make a long story short: very good value for the money and some of the best teaching material for beginning fingerpickers i found so far. Would i buy them again?: I surely would.
Edit: the excercises are supposed to be played on a Low-G Ukulele, but i think it is also possible to do it on high-g, except it sounds different.

*as English is not my native language please be gentle with comments to my vocabulary ;-) *
Click to expand...
 
I would just like to throw my 2 cents in and give support to this fantastic collection of educational books. No matter what style of finger style ukulele you play, you should really get this one. I bought it for the hawaiian style playing but it has moved me forward faster than any other book I have (and I had to build a bookcase to hold them all, mostly jazz and hawaiian). The exercises on rhythm are absolutely the best. The chord patterns are wonderful. The books are so rich with information I have it on my music stand all of the time and review the songs and exercises daily. The songs are beautifully composed and I love playing them over and over.
I don't want to make it sound like a dry academic lesson book because as I say, the songs are beautifully composed. There aren't a lot of Hawaiian lesson books for the intermediate (I flatter myself) or advanced player. This is one of them if not THE ONE.
I can't hardly wait for Book 3. Mahalo Pekelo!
 
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