Basic Uke Songs for a Beginner

Hey all,

My girlfriend bought me a cheap $30 Ashton ukelele a few weeks ago, really as more of a joke than any sort of serious gift. She thought I'd have a few drinks and smash it like a rockstar one day, and that would be about all the use I got out of it haha. I'm not a particularly musical person, played the sax for a few years as a kid but was never very good. Tried to pick up the guitar once but got bored quick.

On an impulse the other night I decided to try and find some online basic lessons and came across this site. I found the free lessons and really learned heaps in just a few minutes, signed up and have been working through the Uke 101 course and loving it. I play an hour or more every day, though I use the term "play" loosely...

I'm looking to start expanding some of this theory knowledge in to some basic practical songs. I've played "Sunday Morning" so many times I have lost count now. Problem is, all the songs I can think of that I like are not so basic! Hotel California, Under the bridge, Smoke on the water, Stairway to Heaven etc etc.

Does anyone have any songs they recommend with easy strumming patterns and not too complicated with chords?

Thus far all I know is "Sunday Morning", "Mary had a little lamb" and I've been learning to pick out "Rock Lobster" because, let's face it, the B-52s are awesome.

Cheers,
Alex

Welcome to UU!!
A lot of us received or purchased ukes as jokes, and the real joke is that we liked it enough to actually play it!!
Look on my site, and on the right sidebar there are a few links to uke tab. great place to start.
Most bob dylan or beatles stuff is a good start and can be pretty easy.

Hi Alex.. Congrats on your uke.. The UU plus classes are fantastic aren't they? You will learn a ton there.
On you tube check out music teacher mike he has great video lessons for songs.. Also Aldrene does too.
Ukehunt is another great website with lots of music and you can search by difficulty (or as I do easy)
If you want picking instead of strumming Capotasto music has lots of tabs some Back and Happy birthday etc...
Good luck ad let us know how you do..
You can also learn a ton from books.. Ukulele for Dummies has a lot of great music and Iike the Hal Lenoad ukulele method by Lil' Rev.

Huh. Turns out the ukulele is actually a musical instrument ... Who knew?

I know how you feel getting hooked. I'm new to it myself and loving it. Working on some Bowie and Pixies songs.

You may find that a $30 uke needs a little work on the action to improve the playability. That's some advice I got early on and it helped a lot. A better action makes it easier to fret properly and stay in tune. There is a lot of information around here on that.

Next thing you know, you'll be thinking about how you can wrangle a nicer uke for the holidays.

Probably the best advice I can give is to pick out songs you like to listen to and then look for simple arrangements of those. Most pop music is really pretty easy 3-chord stuff and can be played easily if you simply change to a uke-friendly key like C, D, or G.

While there are exceptions to every rule I find that many that start with the "beginner songs" like "Twinkle, twinkle," and "Row, row, row" tend to lose interest fairly quickly if they don't move on to real songs that they like right away.

John

Welcome to UU, Alex. The Albany Ukulele group has a great songbook: http://albanyukulele.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/songbook1_16may20111.pdf

It starts simple and gets progressively harder.

Also if you are looking for a certain song, check out chordie.com. You can display the uke chord diagrams with the "tuning" pull down menu and change the key as well if you don't know those chords.

Have fun, keep it simple and keep us posted.

vanflynn said:

Welcome to UU, Alex. The Albany Ukulele group has a great songbook: http://albanyukulele.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/songbook1_16may20111.pdf

It starts simple and gets progressively harder.

Also if you are looking for a certain song, check out chordie.com. You can display the uke chord diagrams with the "tuning" pull down menu and change the key as well if you don't know those chords.

Have fun, keep it simple and keep us posted.

Click to expand...

Albany Ny? Or MN? Hope I didn't miss it. great song book...

this group is in western Australia. Super book for learners.

vanflynn said:

this group is in western Australia. Super book for learners.

Click to expand...

Ooh, that'll be a heckuva commute, Crafty!

When I started, my first big hit was "Jamaica Farewell." It's still fun to play. I think I got the chords off the Richard G site but Ukulele Mike does it on YouTube as well. I loved Ukulele Mike's tutorials, and was watching them before I even had my 'ukulele, but since you can't slow them down to a more suitable pace for a beginner, you kind of have to let them "flow over you." I would play whatever chords I could, missing loads, and then try again the next day. If you try this, just enjoy the process and don't get discouraged. (His non-song-specific tutorials may be more valuable for a beginner, and a nice supplement to the lessons here on UU.)

And yes, the B-52s are, indeed, Awesome. :music:

Welcome! Glad you're enjoying your 'uke!
Lily

Hotel California is pretty easy to play as an to accompany yourself singing the lyrics. Richard G has the full song sheet with chords, but the chord progression is Am E7 G D F C Dm E7 x2 for the verse, F C Dm Am F C Dm E7 for the chorus. Lazy strum (I use D.XU.UX. or similar, twice for each chord, where Xs are chunks, and dots are um.. Don't play this strum) after all it's a reggae song, really.not in the original key, but it works on the uke.

pootsie said:

Huh. Turns out the ukulele is actually a musical instrument ... Who knew?

I know how you feel getting hooked. I'm new to it myself and loving it. Working on some Bowie and Pixies songs.

You may find that a $30 uke needs a little work on the action to improve the playability. That's some advice I got early on and it helped a lot. A better action makes it easier to fret properly and stay in tune. There is a lot of information around here on that.

Next thing you know, you'll be thinking about how you can wrangle a nicer uke for the holidays.

Click to expand...

I'm already looking at the action on it, I read something about this while looking up how to make bar chords easier. I think I read the strings should be approx the width of 2x business cards away from the frets. Mine is more like 8x business cards at the first fret, dropping slowly to maybe 6x business cards.

As for the nicer uke... ahead of you there already haha. I ordered a mahogany tenor from mainland based on feedback on this site.

Thanks for all the feedback all. I'll also check out that song book and all the suggestions here. I also found this thread about 2 seconds after posting which is useful:
http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?70895-What-s-your-favorite-3-chords-only-song

The best thing about the UU lessons is they teach you the fundamentals, i.e. how to have the correct action, how to hold the uke. All that stuff that could become a bad habit if you don't learn it early. I'm picking it up relatively quick but I am trying to slow myself down, already up to week 7 and I feel like I need more practise before getting too ahead of myself. Hence the song lookup and request

Now if only I can find a chord sequence for Ben Folds Five - Draw a crowd. New song that I like, though perhaps the language or maturity level is a bit low for some of the older folks

Alex13 said:

Now if only I can find a chord sequence for Ben Folds Five - Draw a crowd.

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Here's one person's take

http://www.thesuburbs.org.uk/Board/index.php?topic=6671.0

hope it helps

vanflynn said:

Here's one person's take

http://www.thesuburbs.org.uk/Board/index.php?topic=6671.0

hope it helps

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Hey,

I found that. I think I even worked out the strumming pattern.

First Verse Section
DUDU.UDU.UDU
Second Section
DUXUDUXU

For the life of me, couldn't figure out where the chord changes though. I must be tone deaf, just don't hear em ;/

Dan Zane's website has a bunch of downloadable songs tabs and chords, most of which are C, D, A, etc. Very easy stuff, and if you like folk songs, kids songs or sea shanties (I am a sucker for the latter) there is a bunch of great material there.

I am not affiliated with Dan, but I am a big fan and met him once at an airport.

"What I Got" by Sublime. Great song and only D and G chord in succession. Strum one 5 times, the other 5, over and over and over again! Good luck mate!

"The Daily Ukulele" by Jim Beloff has 365 songs from a wide range of eras. It's a great resource, and Vol. 2 is due to be released soon as well.