Typical Beginner's Songs to Learn

Hello all!

(Sorry for the dumb mistake in the title. I should be SONGS, of course)

I've had my uke for two weeks now and I only seem to be getting so far - I can play a couple of different strumming techniques, I know the basics of scales and so on, but what I am really crying out for are some simple songs to play that beginners often start with and I am likely to find videos of. The books I have bought so far are way more difficult than I expected with lots of difficult chord progressions in them. (I can't remember their names but there is a Blue book and a Yellow Book.)


I would seek out a local ukulele player to meet up with and get some help from but I'm disabled and housebound so that won't work.

So what's your beginner recommendations?

Thanks for your help!

Hazy

Have you taken a look through Seeso's list of songs? Ring of Fire is in the list and it has only two easy chords - C and G. It was one of the first songs that we learned.

http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?8458-Clickable-List-of-Tabs-and-Chords

Blowin in the wind is my first song i've played after buying the ukulele. Chords are here;

http://www.doctoruke.com/blowininthewindccomb.pdf

Hey Hazy, Are you in the US? I have a collection of 20 beginner to intermediate songs with chord positions stamped on them. I put this book together for friends. I'd be happy to snail mail you a set if you PM me your address. (I know I should PDF them but that's way over my head.)
Sally

"Blowing In The Wind" is a great song for beginners because it's primarily three basic chords in the key of C -- the C, F, and G7 chords, all of which are relatively easy to finger. A number of other early Dylan songs are similar.

I began with this series of video tutorials on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MusicTeacher2009#p/c/8F7E813A5F6657A4

The lessons are numbered and it's probably wise to follow them in order. The first few videos cover basics like tuning, and then he shows you the chords for some simple songs. Be advised that these videos can be a little frustrating until you lean chords by name. While most of the videos provide little diagrams of the chords, the diagrams aren't posted while he's playing the song itself, and sometimes the chord changes aren't posted far enough in advance to anticipate them. My solution to this problem was to keep a piece of paper nearby and copy the chord diagrams so I could refer to them while playing along with the video. I got the most out of videos for which sheet music was available (check the poster's comments section for a link to a mediafire web page). I would save the sheet music to my computer and look at it while the video was playing. I also found myself stopping the video frequently to try to keep up.

If you do a search on YouTube for "ukulele tutorial" you should find a number of other YouTube videos geared toward beginners.

Also, I understand that people sometimes meet online to play. If you have access to a telecommunications service like skype, you could actually meet people to play with in cyberspace. I believe there's even some sort of cyberspace community jam at UU.

Good luck!

Check out the Ukulele Resources thread . . . lots of links there.

salukulady said:

Hey Hazy, Are you in the US? I have a collection of 20 beginner to intermediate songs with chord positions stamped on them. I put this book together for friends. I'd be happy to snail mail you a set if you PM me your address. (I know I should PDF them but that's way over my head.)
Sally

Click to expand...

I'd be happy to convert them to PDF for you. I'll PM you my address.

Hazy, there's a thread in the forums on songs with only two chords that might be useful:

http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?9873-2-Chord-songs

There are also the infamous four chords, with which you can play an amazing number of pop songs: C G Am F (technically it's a I V vi IV progression, in this case for the key of C). Here's a video (with guitar) that shows 44 such songs in one medley:



There are a ton of videos on YouTube with similar medleys, including ones done with the ukulele. I picked this one because it shows how it can be done with a simple strum and the chords he's using are easy to play on the uke for beginners. If you're interested, here's the comedy group that started the whole four-chord medley craze:

this is a great thread! I'm also finding it very helpful

cpatch said:

Hazy, there's a thread in the forums on songs with only two chords that might be useful:

http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/search.php?searchid=102988

Click to expand...

im definitely interested in the thread you have linked here, but it appears to be broken.

cupcake said:

im definitely interested in the thread you have linked here, but it appears to be broken.

Click to expand...

Sorry about that...I fixed it in my original post.

Thank you so much for so many great resources! Lots to look at but the Youtube Channel of MusicTeacher2009 looks perfect to help me learn. I've also notices in some of the other videos I've ended up watching through these links that people often listen to the song with one earphone while they are playing and singing.

I'm super enthusiastic again! I was feeling like it was all going to be a bit difficult but it's fine! Can't wait until I am at the standard to contribute videos.

Salukulady - Thank you for the offer but I live in the UK. If you ever work out the pdf, I'd love to have it.