Ukulele Binder

joe_coffee · Jun 20, 2013

First off I'm not entirely sure if this should be in this forum or in Tips and Tricks. It is relevant to beginner's because I'm a beginner and it's about that type of material, but it is also relevant to tips and tricks.

Anywho,
I recently bought my first ukulele, and have been playing around with it everyday. I decided to make a binder to compile all of my ukulele related items I found that would benefit my practicing, learning, playing and knowledge of ukulele.

I currently have a two page printed version of all of the chords, a practice schedule, and several songs with chords listed in the book.
I was wondering what you would recommend to print out and put in this book. It can be anything uke related, pictures, stories, songs, practice tips, drills, inspirational quotes, etc.

-coffee

vanflynn · Jun 20, 2013

Here’s a good songbook that starts easy and gets harder

http://albanyukulele.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/songbook15.pdf

Uncle Rod’s Ukulele bootcamp has lots of good stuff

http://files.meetup.com/2287271/ukulele boot camp rev[2].pdf

and for chord progressions, Howlin’ Hobbit

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1125378/ukulele docs/uke_chord_progressions.pdf

Hope this helps

ukemunga · Jun 20, 2013

Then go to Chordie.com and pick a few songs to learn. If you're not familiar with it you can change the chord diagrams to ukulele in the right sidebar.

joe_coffee · Jun 20, 2013

bobO G said:
Aloha ! For starts you want to go to Uncle rod's site and print away . Then go to ukuleles of Paradise site and there's a bunch of stuff there . Good luck !

vanflynn said:
Here’s a good songbook that starts easy and gets harder

http://albanyukulele.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/songbook15.pdf

Uncle Rod’s Ukulele bootcamp has lots of good stuff

http://files.meetup.com/2287271/ukulele boot camp rev[2].pdf

and for chord progressions, Howlin’ Hobbit

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1125378/ukulele docs/uke_chord_progressions.pdf

Hope this helps

ukemunga said:
Then go to Chordie.com and pick a few songs to learn. If you're not familiar with it you can change the chord diagrams to ukulele in the right sidebar.

Thanks! I have Uncle Rod's bootcamp written down and inserted in the binder, That's my goal as of now.
When I get out of work I can't wait to download the songbook, and use the other resources you guys have listed!
-coffee

bobO G · Jun 20, 2013

Good stuff guys , need to load more paper in the printer and get another binder .

Newportlocal · Jun 20, 2013

You have gotten lots of great advice. Here are some song sites I like. Hope it helps.
http://www.scorpexuke.com/songlist.html
http://www.muffin.net.nz/muffin/Uke_Tab.html
http://dominator.ukeland.com/index2.shtml

-Emma- · Jun 22, 2013

Have you learnt how to play from tabs?

http://ukulelehunt.com/how-to-read-ukulele-tab/

joe_coffee · Jun 25, 2013

Newportlocal said:
You have gotten lots of great advice. Here are some song sites I like. Hope it helps.
http://www.scorpexuke.com/songlist.html
http://www.muffin.net.nz/muffin/Uke_Tab.html
http://dominator.ukeland.com/index2.shtml

Thanks! I can't wait to start trying to learn some of these songs. There are so many haha

-Emma- said:
Have you learnt how to play from tabs

http://ukulelehunt.com/how-to-read-ukulele-tab/

Thanks! I completely forgot about printing out info on tabs. Right now they completely confuse me

Lime · Jun 25, 2013

This thread describes my binder.

kkimura · Jun 25, 2013

joe_coffee said:
First off I'm not entirely sure if this should be in this forum or in Tips and Tricks. It is relevant to beginner's because I'm a beginner and it's about that type of material, but it is also relevant to tips and tricks.

Anywho,
I recently bought my first ukulele, and have been playing around with it everyday. I decided to make a binder to compile all of my ukulele related items I found that would benefit my practicing, learning, playing and knowledge of ukulele.

I currently have a two page printed version of all of the chords, a practice schedule, and several songs with chords listed in the book.
I was wondering what you would recommend to print out and put in this book. It can be anything uke related, pictures, stories, songs, practice tips, drills, inspirational quotes, etc.

-coffee

What a great idea Coffee. It sure beats what I've been doing (lots of loose sheets stuffed randomly into a "Ukulele for Dummies" book). What size binder did you go for? I'm leaning toward small rings for easier handling.

joe_coffee · Jun 25, 2013

I had a normal sized binder, I believe 1 inch capacity, so not super big, laying around and just threw some stuff in after hole punching it. I get ocd-ish about binder orginization so now I'm trying to hammer down the best set up for everything in it.

It currently goes,
Practice Itinerary
Chords,
Tabs (not added yet but will be added after work)
Theory Stuff (not printed out yet)
Songs (currently I've been working on the railroad, ring of fire, hakuna matata, happy birthday, get lucky, love story, and 22)
Practice notes.

I stole my practice itinerary from a blog i stumbled across and it goes like
1. tune instrument
2. play a song i know a couple of times (twinkle twinkle little star right now)
3. left hand work
4. right hand work
5. theory
6. new songs
7. play around
8. uke journal (looseleaf that I don't use much right now

)

And that's my binder set up currently
I want to take better notes on my practice sessions I just don't seem to be able to document what I work on very well.

Newportlocal · Jun 25, 2013

joe_coffee said:
Thanks! I can't wait to start trying to learn some of these songs. There are so many haha

Your welcome!

Yes, there are so many. Once you learn a few chords. Many times popular songs will be on sites like ultimate guitar. I just play my uke chords with it. Most of all have fun!!!

kkimura · Jun 25, 2013

Nice organization. The 1" ring size sounds about right too.

I think I'll try making my music pages face each other so I don't have to turn pages as much. When I first got on UU (not long a go) someone suggested I get a music stand. Didn't click then but now looking at the mess of pages all over, I understand.

RyanMFT · Jun 25, 2013

All good suggestions...

I recommend getting alphabetical dividers, so that you can put your printed songs in the binder, and have them organized by the first letter of the name of the song. It gets really annoying to be searching through 50 or 60 sheets of paper to find a song you are looking for, especially if you are playing with others and you all want to play a song together.

Something like this....http://www.officedepot.com/a/produc...-Office_Supplies+Binders_Accessories-_-408852

joe_coffee · Jun 25, 2013

I played trumpet shortly when I was in 4th and 5th grade so I know I have a music stand in my house somewhere it just comes down to finding it, which might be a whole new hobby in itself, spelunking in the basement

ukemunga · Jun 25, 2013

RyanMFT said:
All good suggestions...

I recommend getting alphabetical dividers, so that you can put your printed songs in the binder, and have them organized by the first letter of the name of the song. It gets really annoying to be searching through 50 or 60 sheets of paper to find a song you are looking for, especially if you are playing with others and you all want to play a song together.

Something like this....http://www.officedepot.com/a/produc...-Office_Supplies+Binders_Accessories-_-408852

I tried this initially but am using the plastic sheet protectors which render the index tabs relatively useless. The "tabs" don't protrude. I do still put my song charts in alphabetical order though.

-Emma- · Jun 26, 2013

joe_coffee said:
Thanks! I can't wait to start trying to learn some of these songs. There are so many haha

Thanks! I completely forgot about printing out info on tabs. Right now they completely confuse me

There are some different tabs here:

Some are beginner tabs, and others have different grades:
http://pdfminstrel.wordpress.com/2-standard-high-g-ukulele-pdfs/

Some very basic tabs

:
http://capotastomusic.com/ukulele-sheet-music/tabs.htm
http://capotastomusic.com/ukulele-sheet-music/christmas.htm

I started out practising things like children's songs and christmas songs because you'll know straight away if you're stuffing them up! Then went on to try songs like "Aura Lee" http://pdfminstrel.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/aura_lee1.pdf

This is also a good collection of Tabs...it is in German, but I the first song in there is Brahms lullaby and that is a good beginner song

.
http://ukulelehunt.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/solobuch1.pdf

Manalishi · Jun 26, 2013

My songs are in plastic sleeves inside a binder,
with one song on each side of the sheet.I
have them on my pc as jpgs and however
the pc stacks them alphabetically,that's how
I stack them in the binder.
One person in our group has numbered his pages
and printed an index;trouble is,it takes him longer
to find a song we are doing that it does anyone
else! I just flick through alphabetically and can find
a given song in seconds.

Shastastan · Jun 27, 2013

I know what you mean about papers all over the place. I have all my stuff in an expandable folder, but it's not organized. Now, I'm using folders on the computer. One is on the desktop and has folders in it for chords, songs, etc.. Seems faster for me to find stuff and I can use Search. I have another Uke folder in Bookmarks. Whenever I find a site that I like/need, I save that bookmark. One thing that has helped me a lot with different forums is using Print Screen. I have a little pgm for it that's free called prtscr, but I think you can already do the same thing within Win 7. When I come across a post with info that I need/want, I make a screen shot of it and put it in the Uke folder on the desktop. That folder also has downloads from such places as Dr. Uke. I can just put the song on the screen and practice from there. I don't mean for any of these comments to be critical of using a binder in any way. If that's what works/helps you, go for it. Even though I'm old, I've become addicted to tech stuff so I'm trying to eliminate as much "paper" as possible.

Manalishi · Jun 27, 2013

Shastastan,I don't think anyone would object to
trying to save paper,but for ukulele clubs and such
most members carry a printed paper folder/binder
with the songs in!
At our group,about half have gone over to tablet
devices and ipads,whilst the poorer of us still use
our printed paper versions!

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