Recommend 1 book, with these requirements

Down Up Dick said:

I really like the Dummies books. Ha! Maybe that says somethin’ about me! Ha! Anyway, I have ones for Banjo, Mandolin, Ukulele and Ukulele Exercises, flute, Singing Exercises, and Music Theory. I also have The Complete Idiots Guide to Playing the Ukulele (very good). As you can see, I’m a Dummies believer.

However, I’m also a BIG believer in playing by ear. It’s just more handy and easy going. My eyes are gittin’ old too. ld:

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Good I came and read this. I will be just in time to return Ukulele Exercises for Dummies into library without getting overtime fine. I must say I have not used it a lot as I have renewed it online maximum times. But it is ok and some songs in chapter finishes I could have made copies, except for being lazy. Or knowing that I will never bother to learn them by heart.

Main complain I have for Dummies books is that notation is TINY! Not being anymore nearsighted and able to read close enough. Especially the tab numbers are so ridiculously tiny.

Jarmo_S said:

Good I came and read this. I will be just in time to return Ukulele Exercises for Dummies into library without getting overtime fine. I must say I have not used it a lot as I have renewed it online maximum times. But it is ok and some songs in chapter finishes I could have made copies, except for being lazy. Or knowing that I will never bother to learn them by heart.

Main complain I have for Dummies books is that notation is TINY! Not being anymore nearsighted and able to read close enough. Especially the tab numbers are so ridiculously tiny.

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Geez. It’s an informational book aboutl playing the ukulele not a book of songs. You can get free music on the internet once you learn how to do it.
ld:

Agreed, I have the bass version of dummies and use it more as a reference guide to read up on theory and such. Also have the Idiot's Guide for similar reasons.

I bought a Classic NES so decided I will annoy my girlfriend by learning the Super Mario Bros theme

Down Up Dick said:

Geez. It’s an informational book aboutl playing the ukulele not a book of songs. You can get free music on the internet once you learn how to do it.
ld:

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Whatever kind of books can have some good material.

I think what you just did was boasting of using illegal means and also going off topic in this thread. If any of you readers have ever wondered why it is so difficult/impossible to find sheet music/tabs in internet for more recent music free, it is because the rights owners must be payed by the distributor.

There are good songbooks, I have 2, which are more than enough for me btw. No need for me to turn into illlegal torrent/dark web activities to get for free. Usually it also is not too expensive to pay for a separate song's sheet music, legally.
Also a site like ultimateguitar can be used together with the music (youtube etc.) to learn the chords for many songs free. It pays for the rights owners.

My point that you missed obviously in my post was that the notation size in Dummies books is so very small.

Yeah, okay. ld:

Well, the Jazz Ukulele book should arrive today - a colleague ordered it for me along with some music items he wanted. I am going to a concert with that same colleague so won't be able to actually try any exercises until tomorrow evening at best. Sadly, the last couple of days have seen very little uke action, due to lack of time. With bass being my primary instrument and some gigs coming up shortly, what little spare time I had has been devoted to said instrument. I had planned on practising some uke yesterday, but traffic jams ate into my free time ...

I have had the Jazz Uke book for about a year and it's ok but there are some issues with it. For starters the chord diagrams are all for first position but you will want to play other shapes in order for things to flow smoothly so don't only go by them. Trouble is, the book doesn't teach you any of them so if you are a beginner you will need another resource for that. Some of the diagrams are also incorrect, at one point showing playing an Fmin7 at the third instead of fourth fret. It also lists a chord as an E7(b9) but shows a diagram for an Eb7. I'm not sure how he got that since it has neither an E nor the flat 9th. Again, if you know the uke you can work around that and find a voicing that works better, I do that for most of the stuff in there actually. I haven't listened to all the audio tracks but I can say that during the 'chord tone' solo example he plays a B over an Amin7 which is for sure not a chord tone. That's not to say you won't learn a lot from the book, I use it daily for getting ideas to practice but I think it shows the limitations of learning jazz from a book, or at least one with this wide range of sub topics where lots is covered but nothing in enough detail. I learned so much more from my teacher with just a few chord voicings and a fake book.

John

Hi John, thanks for your feedback re: this particular book! A few pages in I was already wondering about a particular diagram - turns out I was wrong, though

I fully understand that "learning from a book" has - severe - limitations, and my main goal is to use it as course material, i.e. learn from it but not exclusively. As many have stated, I do intend to pick up some songs and use other material (i.e. Uke Aerobics) but some of the theory and lessons etc in the book should prove useful as a starting point.

Don't have a teacher - yet - but I did enrol for a 10-lesson course which will start in January 2019. It'll likely focus on anything but jazz, but I am more than OK with that

The book will help with laying down the foundations and providing direction in the absence of a teacher. One thing I would do is ignore the long list of chords in the beginning. You don't need to memorize them. For jazz all you need to learn are the shapes for the major 7, minor 7, and dominant 7 chords along with which note is the root, third, fifth and seventh. Once you know that you can easily create chords like a minor 7 flat 5 anywhere on the fretboard. There are fakebooks online in pdf that you can download, get a couple. That way you'll have hundreds of songs to learn and even if you don't want to learn the melody you can work on the chords, though many will have a lot of 7th flat 9 or sharp 13 chords that we really can't play though the book covers that a little. If it fits with the progression the easiest is to always drop the root and play the other 4.

As for the course, anything you learn can help you with jazz and anything you learn in jazz can help you with the rest

John

Good call re: the list of chords at the beginning. I was really wondering about those, and how useful it would be to learn them and THEN proceed. Mind you, progress is slow right now: my focus is on the diatonic chords (yes, quite near the beginning) and memorizing / internalising them. The Bdim chords is seriously throwing me off, but I am in no hurry.

The book has triggered me in a way that Uke Aerobics did not: I want to pick up the uke and play. Next step will be to learn the notes on the fretboard and the treble staff, and dissect the various chords I know / can play. Again, taking things very slowly. In a way it is frustrating because I am fairly competent on the bass, but really nowhere when it comes to uke. Then I remind myself I have a 20-year head start on the former