Transitioning from beginner to intermediate.

Hello all!

I have been playing the ukulele casually for around 6 months now. Although I have been progressing decently for the most part, I find that recently I have reached a plateau. So far I have just been learning chords, and learning different tabs from various websites. This has been good up until this point, but I find that the songs don't prove too difficult now. I want to start attempting more difficult songs, and learning more advanced techniques, but I haven't had much luck finding the resources to do so! I was wondering if anyone could help steer me in the right direction. By the way this is my first post, and I really like the forums!

Thanks so much!

Aloha and welcome to UU. Glad you joined us.

In my case learning barre chords helped open up a new level of playing. You can then ascend from a C to a G or descend from a C to a G. Start with the barre shape for C, A, and F.

Hope this helps, enjoy and keep us posted

I learned most ofthe basic chords from "The Daily Ukulele" book. When I had mastered most of the chords there, I purchased "The Daily Ukulele, the Leap Year Addition" There are more advanced chords in that book. Also, if you go to youtube and type in advance ukulele tutorials you will find many videos that will keep you busy for quite a while. Good luck.

Find people to play with. Joining an uke club helped me more than anything else.

If you are looking for instrumental tabs, check out our favorite links page.
http://www.westsideukes.com/favorite-ukulele-web-links/

The John King books are very good... get the ones with the audio CD included. Famous Solos and Duets for the Ukulele is a little easier than The Classical Ukulele.
Have fun exploring all the possibilities.

–Lori

Thanks for all the replies! One thing I find that is making a lot of songs I am playing sound the same is I am most often using a down, down, up, up, down, up strum pattern. I am often not sure what other patterns to use, or how to mix up patterns during a song. Does anyone have any advice on how to help this?

Check out the UU song library, every month Aldrine teaches a different song and explains the strumming pattern. This could help you learn more strumming patterns. Then take an easy chord progression (like C, F, Am, G) using that new strumming pattern to get muscle memory.
If you don't have an ukulele club near you, or a teacher, you can always look up the internet, many tutorials propose different strumming patterns, or check out the book "Ukulele Exercises for Dummies" it has tons of tips, exercises and examples for strumming patterns. Will also help with fingerpicking if you want to go that way.
Do you know how to chunk, roll, pinky mute...? The techniques help make strumming different...

But the strumming patterns that are given are only a suggestion; it's up to you and your ear to see how you feel the song and how you would strum it.
Good luck.

Oh and btw, a very warm welcome to UU!!!!!!!
The people here are just amazing and really nice, you'll have a blast!

tooting my own horn... just sayin'

please check out ( ukulelebootcamp.weebly.com ) the website is still under construction
with hardly any work done on it for months, but what's there might prove helpful to you.

The Ukulele Boot Camp consists of 3 parts or modules:

1. The Ukulele Boot Camp proper which describes the general concepts/philosophy and provides Practice Sheets.

2. a Set-Up Test for Ukulele Proficiency - for Self-Examination to see how far you've come or need to go for the next level.

3. The Ukulele Boot Camp (UBC) Songbook which applies the UBC methodology to learning the songs you want to play.

The next steps might be to a) learn chords in their 2nd and 3rd positions (Inversions), b) learning to Transpose to different keys, c) learning and using barre chords, etc.

keep uke'in',

Uncle Rod Higuchi said:

tooting my own horn... just sayin'

please check out ( ukulelebootcamp.weebly.com ) the website is still under construction
with hardly any work done on it for months, but what's there might prove helpful to you.

The Ukulele Boot Camp consists of 3 parts or modules:

1. The Ukulele Boot Camp proper which describes the general concepts/philosophy and provides Practice Sheets.

2. a Set-Up Test for Ukulele Proficiency - for Self-Examination to see how far you've come or need to go for the next level.

3. The Ukulele Boot Camp (UBC) Songbook which applies the UBC methodology to learning the songs you want to play.

The next steps might be to a) learn chords in their 2nd and 3rd positions (Inversions), b) learning to Transpose to different keys, c) learning and using barre chords, etc.

keep uke'in',

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You should toot your own horn! Your resources have been a most valuable tool. Thank you