Most beginner books I've seen are focused on chord shapes and tabs, with little attention paid to note reading. The best one I've found is the Essential Elements book by Marty Gross but that's still pretty limited. Can anyone recommend something else?
Best book for learning to read music on ukulele
- Thread starter surfinboy
- Start date
Arcy
Strummin' in the Rain
I don't have a specific book recommendation, but I can recommend a class of books.
Once you have the basics down and know how to map a note from the staff to the fretboard it's all practice from there. If you play enough you'll learn them. What I've done is to go to my local library and checked out a stack of fake books to find the melodies of songs that I enjoy and then played them. One is specifically a "Ukulele Fake Book" (by Hal Leonard), but since standard notation is universal it doesn't need to be Ukulele specific.
A linked skill is to learn your scales: tunes will generally fall within a scale, so if you know the scale patterns for the scale your song is in then you've drastically narrowed down the options. This is also really helpful for ear training since knowing the scale narrows down the likely options for a note that you're trying to figure out.
--Rob
Once you have the basics down and know how to map a note from the staff to the fretboard it's all practice from there. If you play enough you'll learn them. What I've done is to go to my local library and checked out a stack of fake books to find the melodies of songs that I enjoy and then played them. One is specifically a "Ukulele Fake Book" (by Hal Leonard), but since standard notation is universal it doesn't need to be Ukulele specific.
A linked skill is to learn your scales: tunes will generally fall within a scale, so if you know the scale patterns for the scale your song is in then you've drastically narrowed down the options. This is also really helpful for ear training since knowing the scale narrows down the likely options for a note that you're trying to figure out.
--Rob
Graham Greenbag
Well-known member
I’m not sure how available it is but consider looking out The Musical Ukulele by Colin Tribe - he knows a bit about Ukes and music. It is published by Lindsay Music; IIRC they are quite a small publisher but they do have a website and an agent in the USA.
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Jerryc41
Well-known member
johnnysmash
Well-known member
To learn to read music for free, go to u-tube. Learn all you can for free about scales, chords, and notes on the score and where located on the instrument.
Anthroterra
Well-known member
The Ukulele Way books (or online subscription if you prefer) by James Hill is highly geared towards reading "real" music. They don't even contain tab, and even chords are shown how they appear on sheet music. There are some free parts to the website if you want to explore.
joekulele
Well-known member
Terry Carter from Uke Like the Pros has a book available on Amazon called Beginning Music Reading for Ukulele. Worth a look and it’s on sale right now.
+1 for the Ukulele Way and/or Ukulele in the Classroom books & videos, by James Hill. He makes learning to read music very easy.
Absolutely the best and quickest is the Curt Sheller reading primer. It’s geared for high G but you can easily teach yourself the low G, A and B and the notes in between.
Only took me a couple weeks following his exercises and it teaches you to read the timing of the notes. It’s cheap. $15 or so. Then just pick up anything with standard notation like the Daily Ukulele Book and start playing the songs you know. You get faster and faster with practice. It really helped me.
To go further, to read chords, then take a basic music theory class like one on Udemy and you can start seeing how chords are built out of thirds. One you can recognize thirds you just look at the bottom note which you learned from Sheller and knowing the key, you know if it’s major, minor or diminished or you see a seventh added to the basic triad.
When you get to inversions it’s a little more complicated as are more complicated chords. Start with Sheller. It really helped me quickly.
P.S. If you or anyone else wants to become a better musician as well as a better ukulele player and you’re really serious, then it’s time to start studying piano. Piano for All by Robin Hall is a great course focusing on chord accompaniment and rhythm and learning to read treble and bass clef. Also, don’t be shy about taking a good ear training course or two. Enough said.
Only took me a couple weeks following his exercises and it teaches you to read the timing of the notes. It’s cheap. $15 or so. Then just pick up anything with standard notation like the Daily Ukulele Book and start playing the songs you know. You get faster and faster with practice. It really helped me.
To go further, to read chords, then take a basic music theory class like one on Udemy and you can start seeing how chords are built out of thirds. One you can recognize thirds you just look at the bottom note which you learned from Sheller and knowing the key, you know if it’s major, minor or diminished or you see a seventh added to the basic triad.
When you get to inversions it’s a little more complicated as are more complicated chords. Start with Sheller. It really helped me quickly.
P.S. If you or anyone else wants to become a better musician as well as a better ukulele player and you’re really serious, then it’s time to start studying piano. Piano for All by Robin Hall is a great course focusing on chord accompaniment and rhythm and learning to read treble and bass clef. Also, don’t be shy about taking a good ear training course or two. Enough said.
Just almost any song book with chords, "fake books wtf"?
I suggest restricting to a one octave range from C4 to C5 and sometimes, but very seldom to D and E on the A string. A re-entrant uke range without upper positions.
So a very limited range and more like being able to transpose notes lower and higher to that range. To know the note names in there too, but mainly to concentrate in the flow of reading.
I suggest restricting to a one octave range from C4 to C5 and sometimes, but very seldom to D and E on the A string. A re-entrant uke range without upper positions.
So a very limited range and more like being able to transpose notes lower and higher to that range. To know the note names in there too, but mainly to concentrate in the flow of reading.
Perhaps you have a teacher friend or friend who plays the ukulele? Different students choose a different way of learning and unfortunately many do not learn musical notation, but simply learn chords.
Hello, maybe this question is no longer relevant, now I started studying uk after the guitar. Indeed, if you have a friend of a music teacher, you can consult, and he will select the best educational literature. Once I even wanted to create a selection of manuals based on educational literature. With the help of the plagiarism checker https://fixgerald.com/, I planned to avoid problems with content copyright holders. But I have not yet agreed with well-known teachers. So I put this idea aside and now I just want to find a good selection of beginners' tutorials. Maybe later I will make my own training site.
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Luke Plays Uke
Well-known member
Alfred’s Ukulele for Kids
Jerryc41
Well-known member
Yes, Kurt is good. He runs "Funky Frets TV" at his music store on YouTube Wednesday night, 7:30, I think. He's an amazing player and a very nice guy. His family runs the excellent Funky Frets Uke Fest every October
