4-6 Week Group Beginners' Lesson Plan?

TikiCam

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I'm considering putting together a 4-6 Week Group Beginners' music class using the ukulele. This would be mostly for kids, but not necessarily exclusive. My vision is for it to be mostly an introduction to the concept of making music. It would leverage the uke because it's such a great way to make music and has a relatively low learning curve (for simple music). Would anyone who's done this be willing to offer suggestions or even a peak at the kind of lesson plan you used to structure the sessions?

Mahalo!
 
I don't believe you can go wrong with "Ukulele In the Classroom", by James Hill.
If you go the complete course you can get student books a teaching guide and all the songs on cd.
If you want something simpler his "Anybody can play Ukulele" (yellow book) is a great start.
Both will give lessons in reading music, melody, chords and singing.
Good Luck.
 
If the true goal is to be an introduction to music, as stated, then I really have to recommend the recorder. (He says while donning flame-proof underwear...)

Melody and rhythm are the first components that should be approached in an introduction to music and that is most easily done with a very simple monophonic (one note at a time) instrument like the recorder. The recorder is also quite inexpensive, even compared to ukes, and requires even less motor-skills than learning C-F-G chords on the ukulele. There are reasons that recorder has usually been the instrument of choice for introducing very young students, especially, to music. I fondly remember my recorder sessions in 1st or 2nd grade and I'm sure they went a long way toward instilling in me a lifelong interest in the making of music, even though I didn't really start doing much about it until my thirties.

You might do a six-week introduction to music on the recorder, then follow it up with a six-to-twelve-week introduction to accompaniment on ukulele where you can begin to introduce the concept of harmony, instrumentation as the foundation for vocals to build on, and so on.

John
 
May I suggest Uncle Rod's Ukulele Boot Camp with 5 Practice Sheets? The Practice Sheets may be modified depending on the age and dexterity of the students (as in leaving out line 2) :).

Work through Practice Sheet 1 (Key of C) for lesson 1. For the next lesson (2), you could have one or more simple songs in the Key of C then work on Practice Sheet 2 (Key of F).

This way, at the end of 5 of the 6 weeks, each student should be relatively comfortable with some of the more common chords in the Keys of C, F, G, A, and D.

For week 6, you could compile a Songbook of the songs introduced during the lessons along with additional, more challeging songs, say up to 25 to 40, [or uke the Ukulele Boot Camp Songbook] and you could do a Song Circle for week 6.

Just a suggestion :)

keep uke'in',

PS Ukulele Boot Camp and the UBC Songbook links are in my signature below :)
 
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I don't believe you can go wrong with "Ukulele In the Classroom", by James Hill.
If you go the complete course you can get student books a teaching guide and all the songs on cd.
If you want something simpler his "Anybody can play Ukulele" (yellow book) is a great start.
Both will give lessons in reading music, melody, chords and singing.
Good Luck.

:agree: I have one for Seniors, but I get into a lot of stuff you may not cover with kids. There's enough free stuff for beginners online to write your own if you have the time. All my stuff in on my old hard drive, sitting in my old dead computer.
 
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John - I hear what you're saying about the recorder. All true. This would "hopefully" be a step beyond that since the ukulele opens the door to playing chords and rhythm in addition to melody. Plus, recorder is taught in the elementary schools here where I live (2nd grade, I believe) so this need not duplicate that.

Thanks all for the great info you're offering. Much appreciated!!


If the true goal is to be an introduction to music, as stated, then I really have to recommend the recorder. (He says while donning flame-proof underwear...)

Melody and rhythm are the first components that should be approached in an introduction to music and that is most easily done with a very simple monophonic (one note at a time) instrument like the recorder. The recorder is also quite inexpensive, even compared to ukes, and requires even less motor-skills than learning C-F-G chords on the ukulele. There are reasons that recorder has usually been the instrument of choice for introducing very young students, especially, to music. I fondly remember my recorder sessions in 1st or 2nd grade and I'm sure they went a long way toward instilling in me a lifelong interest in the making of music, even though I didn't really start doing much about it until my thirties.

You might do a six-week introduction to music on the recorder, then follow it up with a six-to-twelve-week introduction to accompaniment on ukulele where you can begin to introduce the concept of harmony, instrumentation as the foundation for vocals to build on, and so on.

John
 
I offer a 4 session beginner course for our uke club. My goal is to get folks to learn the major, minor and 7ths of the most frequently played chords. I start with some two chords songs, then increase the number of chords per song until at the end of the four sessions, we are playing songs like "I'll Follow the Sun". I touch a little on movable chords, chord shapes and strums. I hand out the ukulele fretboard and make available several chord diagram sheets, but since I've never had a music lesson in my life, I don't go near any music theory. Mention "pentatonic" and my eyes glaze over.
 
Tonya's got some good stuff that I hadn't seen. good resource.
 
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