TEN THUMBS PRO UKULELE HOW TO
TEN THUMBS PRO UKULELE PDF

After being inspired to play a tenor uke, I realized that their sound quality is in the sweet spot compared to the treble-heavy concert and the bass-heavy baritone ukuleles. Haven’t you seen the virtuoso, Jake Shimabukuro, wreaking havoc on the fingerboard of a tenor ukulele with his tapping technique in “Dragon?”Īlthough master ukulele players resort to concert ukuleles for casual playing, you’ll always hear the sound of their tenor ukes on stage. In a world where ukuleles are downplayed as unserious instruments, tenor ukuleles come to prominence in the hands of professionals. If you purchase using a link on this site, we may get an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. There’s also a really useful section that focuses on counting strums the easy way (something I wish I had when I was learning to play).Note: Ukulele World is reader supported.

TEN THUMBS PRO UKULELE HOW TO

For just $12 you get an in-depth guide showing you how to play 49 different strums with supporting videos and MP3 files. If you really want to progress your strumming at a rapid rate then I’d highly recommend taking a look at Al Wood’s downloadable ebook How To Play Ukulele Strums.

The exception to this is the intro (just before the singing) where you play the strumming pattern only once per chord. You’ll generally be playing the strumming pattern above twice per chord. It includes all the chord boxes and lyrics.

TEN THUMBS PRO UKULELE PDF

To get the song structure grab the PDF song sheet that I’ve put together as a reference. The same pattern played the same way throughout can get a little boring (for you and your listeners).

As I always say, very it as much as you feel comfortable. There is a subtle shift away from such a rigid pattern towards the second half of the song but it’s mostly just changes in dynamics rather than a change in the actual pattern. Whichever way you go with the strumming pattern, it remains the same pretty much throughout. If you do want to try it with a more consistent pattern it would sound something like… I’d recommend sticking with the pattern above if you’re just learning this one and eventually progressing to include the other strums further down the line. Iz really uses dynamics on this pattern and some of his strums are barely audible at all but they do contribute quite a lot. That would make it more of a TUDUDUDU pattern but this can sound pretty clunky. One thing I will say is that when I listen, certainly at the start I can hear Iz catching the strings straight after the thumb pluck and on the 3rd beat also. The pattern shown above sounds something like this when you play it… It’s pretty clear to hear this when you listen to Iz play it, and although he’s playing low G, it works just as well on a ukulele strung with a high G. Notice that the first beat isn’t actually a strum at all though, what I’m doing is plucking the G string with my thumb at the start of each bar. The pattern I like to play is a slight variation on the good old fashioned D DU UDU and looks something like this… Ok here we go. There are a few ways to interpret the strumming pattern on this one and you can get away with just strumming DUDUDUDU throughout but we’re going to go a little bit beyond that in this lesson. Here are the chord boxes for you to get to grips with… If E minor is causing you problems then you can simply play a G chord and drop your pinkie finger onto the 4th fret of the C string. Probably the most difficult to deal with are the E minor and the E7.

Seven chords will see you through the song (co-incidentally the same number as colours in a rainbow) and whilst that is a few to remember they’re really not that difficult and some of you will be very pleased to hear that there are no barre chords in the mix. Just the 290 million views to date for this one, not too bad at all. At it’s heart it’s a pretty simple song but it’s worth investing some time on really perfecting the strumming pattern to get an authentic sound. The song is so beautifully played and sung that pretty much everyone that owns a ukulele will naturally gravitate towards it at some point. If you’ve ever read my about page I said I wouldn’t do it on Ukulele Go but here I am showing I’m a man with absolutely no principles. Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s beautiful version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow is one of the most popular ukulele songs of all time.

Ten thumbs pro ukulele