My 1st Major ukulele Goal realized!...

One of my first goals since beginning the ukulele was to someday be able to play (pick) the chords to Jake Shimabukuro's song, "Hula Girl".

Hula Girl, is my favorite uke song of all time and I always dreamed of being able to play it one day.

While practicing everyday for the past 1 1/2 years, I always looked at (but, never attempted to learn) the Hula Girl sheet music tabs and was very intimidated. One day I decided to just try it and memorize one section at a time. It took me a few months before I began to seriously practice this song and on my drive to work, I would listen to Hula Girl on my car stereo at least 10 times in a row.

A few weeks ago while practicing this song, I started from the beginning and picked to the end without looking at the tabs! It was a bit rough but, I had the basics down and could hardly believe it!

I'm getting better everyday on this song now and I even attempted to play along with Jake on my Iphone but, it was still a little too, fast for me.

I played this song for my brother who also, likes this song and after I played it (still kind of rough) he said, "that looked hard"!...

Has anyone else, met a major goal of some kind?

Yes I do, mine is "Blue Roses Falling", and I actually have a story behind -- before anyone says: Oh... another Jake's song.
I started learning the intro this year, and I got several versions of the song in my ipod which I listen every day.
Wish that I will complete the learning curve soon, at least this year.

Congrats! Milestones like that always feel great.

Cheers, mate! I bet that feels good.
I've enjoyed smaller acheivements in my few months of strumming, but nothing like that yet.
Good on you

Congratulations! Now on to the next goal, eh?

congrats! its always a good feeling to learn a new song

and my goal is to learn ode to a frozen boot by james hill

Good for you!
Yeah I'm in the same boat. Back when I was very new to ukulele, I think I saw Seeso do black bird and thought it was awesome. I said to myself that I'm going to learn how do to that one day. Started picking away at it about a month ago and now I can finally do it (although still a little rough). Kinda proud of myself and it gives me a bit more motivation to keep on. Next on my wish list is picking white sandy beach.

That's great. Where did you find the tabs to that song? I love that movie and song!

Aloha GKK,
Congrats on your progress. I too love picking chords while singing, sounds fuller. Are you using a pattern for the whole song? If so, what's your pattern?.......................................BO..................................

A member on this forum posted the tabs. http://ukucafe.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/hula-girls.pdf.

I'm just picking the melody, I'll have to record the background chords so, the song will sound complete.

Congratulations, that's such a great accomplishment. I have a list of "goal" songs that I'm working on, some of which I've been able to nail down (i.e. Malaguena), so of which I'm still working on (i.e. Tamacun, Pianoforte w/ tremolo picking, etc...) and some that are a little further down the road (i.e. Abe's version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, Brittni's Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Jake's Gently Weeps, etc...) and it feels good to make progress against that list. Sometimes I worry that I'm being a little too aggressive but challenging myself is the best way for me to stay interested and engaged while I learn (I throw a few easier songs in there too).

That is so cool! Love it when Uke goals are achieved!

v30 said:

Good for you!
Yeah I'm in the same boat. Back when I was very new to ukulele, I think I saw Seeso do black bird and thought it was awesome. I said to myself that I'm going to learn how do to that one day. Started picking away at it about a month ago and now I can finally do it (although still a little rough). Kinda proud of myself and it gives me a bit more motivation to keep on. Next on my wish list is picking white sandy beach.

Click to expand...

Video, please!

v30 said:

Good for you!
Yeah I'm in the same boat. Back when I was very new to ukulele, I think I saw Seeso do black bird and thought it was awesome. I said to myself that I'm going to learn how do to that one day. Started picking away at it about a month ago and now I can finally do it (although still a little rough). Kinda proud of myself and it gives me a bit more motivation to keep on. Next on my wish list is picking white sandy beach.

Click to expand...

Here you go...http://web.archive.org/web/20081218...te_sandy_beach_of_hawaii__picking_version.txt