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Joined:
July 2004
Posts: 474
Location: Anchorage, Alaska | Well I just dislocated my shoulder a week ago and was told I will be in a sling for at least 6 weeks. I can't reach up the neck of my guitars for at least that long according to the doctor. I guess I ripped up quite a bit of soft tissue around the joint. Anyway there is a toy Uke in the house so I started messing around with it since the neck is short enough to play with my sling. Well to make a longer story shorter, my wife saw what I was doing and surprized me by bringing me home a "real" Uke to play with while my 3 week old Al DiMeola sits in it's case! Where do I go from here? I know nothing about a uke. Hell I don't know much about guitars! Anyone know any easy songs? Maybe Xmas uke stuff? Anything helpful would be nice. Thanks.
Happy Holidays! |
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Joined:
January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Standing Ovation can help you out. I understand that Ukes can be a very habit forming addiction. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | Check Out:
www.theuke.com |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 1614
Location: Converse, Texas | Also check out:
Uke Chords |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 6202
Location: Phoenix AZ | Did someone say UKULELE ???? First of all, AFG sorry to hear about your condition. Hope it happened in some notable way such as sky diving, wrestling aligators, saving a little old lady from being mugged, etc. and not just that you slipped bringing out the trash.
Seems to me there are three general ways to use/play the uke. There is a lot of traditional hawaaian technique and alternate tunings you can learn. Don't use a pick, just strum with the nails on your fingers and up strum with your thumb. A second technique is for very accomplished guitars players (my friend Lou). he is working out detailed finger picked classical tunes on a tenor uke. Sounds amazing but is way over my head. What I would recommend (and pretty much what I do), is just play it like a guitar and strum up/down using your nails. You'll only be playing the highest 4 strings of a "guitar" and the 4th string is unually tuned octave. Go for it. Depending how you tune it will be like a guitar capo'd at 3rd or 5th fret. Just have fun.
I just sent the esteemed Inspector Moody a book of ukulele christmas tunes. If you are real nice maybe Santa P.I. can fax you a few pages.
Good luck with your recovery .. errrr ukulele playing. |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 1614
Location: Converse, Texas | Of course, if you want to keep up on your skills with Beatles music, try this:
Beatles Songs for Ukulele |
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Joined:
September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | I get access to my uke in FOUR days. |
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Joined:
July 2004
Posts: 474
Location: Anchorage, Alaska | I knew I could depend of the OFC to get me going with this. StandingO- To play it "like a guitar" do you use the standard guitar tuning for the four strings (DGBE) or do you tune GCEA like I have seen for tuning uke's? |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 6202
Location: Phoenix AZ | If it's a soprano uke, tune it GCEA. If you are playing "Let It Be" for example and the normal guitar chords are G-D-Em-C etc. then on your uke just finger it as D-A-Bm-G ...
Dave |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | FlyGuy;
Check your e-mail for "TunaUke" . . .
It's a midi file of G-C-E-A (open strings)
(I'm hoping your's is a soprano)
cliff |
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Begining with Uke!