Easy-ish songs for female singer?

JosieNutter

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I've got two months to prep some songs for my company's summer BBQ and I was wondering what you guys would recommend (that aren't too difficult for a relative newbie)? Thanks in advance! :)
 
That's pretty impossible to answer without knowing your vocal range. In general terms, look for three- or four-chord songs and transpose to a key to fit your voice. The easiest ukulele keys for a beginner are probably C, G, D, and F - provided they fall in your vocal range.

Songs in C use the C, F, G, and Am chords the most and all of those are easy open chords
Songs in G use G, C, D, and Em chords the most (some people initially have problems with D but it's not that bad and if you play the three finger (leave the G string open) Em it's not bad either).
Songs in D use the D, G, A and Bm chords the most. Bm is the only one that requires a barre.
Songs in F use the F, Bb, C and Dm chords the most. Bb is barred and a little tricky - but learning the barre will come in really handy later.

Good luck,

John
 
My range is pretty big; I usually sing Soprano 2 in the UW Women's Choir because that's my sweet spot, but I fill in for Soprano 1s or Alto 1s when there's a need for it. I can also comfortably hit the top 3/4 or so of the Alto 2 range but the lower ones cause epiglottal scrape, heh.

The crowd I'm singing for is full of gamers, so I'm thinking Jonathan Coulton's Still Alive (Portal) should go over well, but I want to do some non-video game related stuff, too. Something maybe a little more alto-y for volume.
 
Then I would say find songs you like and transpose them to one of the easy ukulele keys. A lot of people make the mistake of deciding to learn what's "traditional" for ukulele (i.e. Hawaiian and old-timey songs). There's nothing wrong with that if that's what you listen to, but if you're learning them only because you have a ukulele you will probably lose interest.

The internet is an amazing resource for finding the chords for songs, and from there you can transpose to a convenient key if needed.

John
 
Welcome to UU,

Please check out ( seattleukulele.org ) and come and join us on Sunday the 10th.

You'll be able to play with about 35-50 of us and you may find a few songs that might fit your bill.

Also, please feel free to check out the links below my signature for instruction (Boot Camp),
or song suggestions (FREE songbook), or MP3 files and corresponding sheet music (pdf files).

hope to see you Sunday at SUPA,

keep uke'in',
 
Son of a Preacher Man never fails.

And where might I find the tabs for this?

I think 9 to 5 is simple enough and could be awesome if you have the pipes for it. Scroll through Ukulele Boogaloo and see if any of those catch your eye. There's a good mix of oldies, classic rock, and more contemporary songs. http://www.alligatorboogaloo.com/uke/tabs.html
 
My range is pretty big; I usually sing Soprano 2 in the UW Women's Choir because that's my sweet spot, but I fill in for Soprano 1s or Alto 1s when there's a need for it. I can also comfortably hit the top 3/4 or so of the Alto 2 range but the lower ones cause epiglottal scrape, heh.

The crowd I'm singing for is full of gamers, so I'm thinking Jonathan Coulton's Still Alive (Portal) should go over well, but I want to do some non-video game related stuff, too. Something maybe a little more alto-y for volume.

Mad props to ya (I love the UW Choirs!)

I'm going to approach this differently.

How long are you going to be playing? This is pretty important since the more time you have, the more songs you might want to play. I tend to stick with 1 song = 5 minute rule like I do with open mics or when I'm playing a show, so if I have 45 minutes to play, I do about 7-9 songs. The more time I have, the more songs I do, but I also take 10-15 minute breaks about every hour.

Are you just music for the background or are you going to be playing on a stage or designated location?

Is your uke going to be plugged in to a PA or will it be mic'ed?

As for song selection, there are a significant number of current pop & rock songs that can easily played on the uke that stick to the same repeated chord pattern as John mentioned earlier. I would recommend thinking of your favorite songs and actually print up the chords with lyrics and use a sheet music stand when you play. You can try to cram in the next two months and do it all by memory, but it definitely doesn't hurt to have your lyrics/sheet music in-front of you as well if you need it.

At my last gig a few weeks ago, I had a 30 minute set and did the following songs. I usually sing second tenor and baritone:

- I Want You Back by The Jackson 5 (Key of G)
- MmmBop by Hanson (Key of E)
- Take On Me by A-HA (Aldrine's version in Bm, but I stuck to the actual bridge chords of C#m & G)
- Twist & Shout by The Beatles (Key of D)
- Footloose by Kenny Loggins (Key of A)

I had about two months before the gig and although I did all of mine by memory, I fumbled a bit on two of the songs lyrically and I would have killed for a lyric cheat sheet.
 
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