OH HAVE FUN!!!! Ken's work is amazing!!
Fingerpicking tunes is what I most enjoy about the ukulele (cause I can't sing!!!!). I am going to pass along some things that have helped me:
1. Strive to practice slowly and accurately. Speed will come... Even Jake says this!
2. My 'go -to' finger picking book is " Fingerstyle Solos for Ukulele' by Mark Kailana Nelson. There is a range of difficulty that has kept me interested for three years. The book also comes with a CD of the songs which is tremendously helpful. See point #3
3. I bought an app called 'Anytune Pro'. It allows me to play any song in my music library at any speed without changing the pitch. You can slow a song down to 20% if you like and still play along. This was a big help in improving my timing.
4. The second app I bought is a metronome 'Frozen Ape'. Craig Brandau suggested this and I really didn't see why until I got it -It is like playing with a perfectionist band - there is no room for error!!! Again, you can set the temp to really really slow when you start to play a song and speed up as you become more proficient.
5. When I pick a song to learn, in addition to looking at the TAB I make a chord diagram under the notes. This helps with learning my hand positions and helps me 'see' smoother hand transitions.
6. John King's Classical Uke book is also marvelous and something I think I will learn from for years. He makes a lot of notations about finger positions for each song that are very helpful and taught me some discipline about fingering.
7. Finally, I would recommend Pekelo's Hawaiian Ukulele Method Books 1 and 2. It is a very well organized self- teaching ste-by-step music course that combines fingerpicking with learning music theory, has CDs to play along with. For me it was great as I had no music background when I started playing ukulele. He sells it off his website.
Good luck on your fingerpicking path!!!
ME
