My Current "Workbooks"

ploverwing

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There are so many recommendations here on UU with respect to resources & guides & practice manuals etc. I am not making any recommendations here, but I thought I'd outline what I've gone through so far with respect to my learning progress, so other beginners (or others) might have some ideas that could intrigue them into following something that they maybe haven't yet tried.

February 2022: I started with following Lara Markowitz's YT site, then become a patron on her Patreon site. Lara arranges beautiful fingerstyle versions of popular pieces, and if you're a Patron of one of her higher tiers, she shares some of her own compositions and creates medleys from popular pieces. I learned a lot starting with her work.

April 2022: I took a beginner ukulele course through Ruby's Ukes in Vancouver via Zoom, and I found Andy Smith's approach wonderful, great for beginner musicians in general or people new to ukulele. This was all about learning to make basic chord shapes, strum patterns and learning to sing with strumming. May 2022: I also took a Circle of Fifths workshop with Ruby's Ukes Eduardo Garcia, and he crammed so much information into that 90 minutes, in a very approachable, understandable manner, it was amazing. I'm signed up for the next level beginner course in September, and will sign my daughter up for the beginner one (yes, she's still playing and enjoying "my" tenor, which is now fully hers).

June 2022: I briefly followed Stu Fuch's Ukulele Zen on YT and became a patron on his Patreon site. I'm moving away from this style for the moment, but I do like how Stu presents a lot of things, and have learned much from him.

Reentrant resources:

April 2022: I've been learning classical fingerpicking style using Samantha Muir's "The Classical Ukulele Method" and am working through her "12 Progressive Studies for Ukulele" for my reentrant tuned ukulele. I've become a patron of her Patreon site, and am continuing to support her. She provides some lovely pieces, and does a monthly (I believe?) Zoom workshop/class. I also discovered that she had 6 of Sor's studies for guitalele (or whatever you want to call it), which I purchased to practice on my requinto (when my new string set arrives).

July 2022: I have 20 Progressive Fingerstyle Studies for Uke and 20 Easy Fingerstyle Studies for Ukulele by Rob MacKillop. These are very different from Samantha Muir's style, so I'm enjoying figuring these out (slowly!). You also get access to the audio of the pieces for each of these books, which I find immensely helpful.

Thanks to @rainbow21 who generously sent me their spare copy, I also have John King's "The Classical Ukulele", but it's definitely above my pay grade at the moment. I'll get there.

Linear Resources:

May 2022: For my linear-tuned ukulele, I have been using the Ukulele Corner's "Graded Repertoire for Ukulele Classical" and "20 Practice Routines for Fingerstyle Ukulele". I just discovered they have a YT channel that demonstrates (among other things) many of the pieces in the graded repertoire, so I've been really appreciating that, to hear how the pieces should sound.

June 2022: I also acquired "The Baroque Ukuelele", "The Renaissance Ukulele", "The Medieval Ukulele" and "The Yuletide Ukulele" from Robert Vanderzweerde at AncientMusic4Ukulele.com. These are a little hard for me right now, too, but I'm working on them gradually.

Theory:

As discussed in another thread, I've also recently acquired David Shipway's "Music Theory for Ukulele" and "Next Level Ukulele". I'm just working my way through the theory one now, and am finding it very useful.
 
You should be proud of yourself. You are a lot more committed to the uke than I am.

I was about three sheets into the ukulele wind when I got hijacked by the piano a few months ago. Now that I'm back at the uke, I'm feeling a sidewind that wants to take me to classical guitar, where I haven't been since 1961.

By the way, I also found Laura Markowitz great for true beginner stuff and Stu Fuchs a good, inspirational teacher too.

P.S. Have you been able to connect with a real in-person instructor? I have one who teaches both uke and piano, and this has been the best way for me to learn music theory.

Jim
 
Ploverwing,
Here's how I started my workbook. The centerpiece of my workbook is a single piece of graph paper that has all my chord shapes. Here's my methodology:
1. I figured out which chord qualities were important to me. The current version of my graph paper has 12 chord qualities, but I suppose most people would just want major, minor, and 7 chords.

2. for each chord quality, I figured out how to make a moveable shape with the root on the G string, the C string, the E string, and the A string. So for each chord quality I had 4 moveable shapes. That's it. No need to learn 12 different shapes for each chord quality; all you need is to know the 4 moveable shapes and where to put the shape to get the chord you want.

3. Then, as you already mentioned. I just practiced blues progressions in all keys...but I played them all over the neck using the moveable shapes.

4. Then I started learning the fret board by using scales and modes.

Anyway, I don't want to type too much. I just wanted to share how I approached the ukulele and created my music book
 
Have you been able to connect with a real in-person instructor? I have one who teaches both uke and piano, and this has been the best way for me to learn music theory.

Jim
Sadly, no. But I've had an in person jam session so that's lovely. I don't know of any in person ukulele instructors locally, but I'll keep looking!
 
Ploverwing,
Here's how I started my workbook. The centerpiece of my workbook is a single piece of graph paper that has all my chord shapes. Here's my methodology:
1. I figured out which chord qualities were important to me. The current version of my graph paper has 12 chord qualities, but I suppose most people would just want major, minor, and 7 chords.

2. for each chord quality, I figured out how to make a moveable shape with the root on the G string, the C string, the E string, and the A string. So for each chord quality I had 4 moveable shapes. That's it. No need to learn 12 different shapes for each chord quality; all you need is to know the 4 moveable shapes and where to put the shape to get the chord you want.

3. Then, as you already mentioned. I just practiced blues progressions in all keys...but I played them all over the neck using the moveable shapes.

4. Then I started learning the fret board by using scales and modes.

Anyway, I don't want to type too much. I just wanted to share how I approached the ukulele and created my music book
I love this, but it's completely Greek to me. I kind of understand a little bit of what you mean, but not much. My music theory is somewhat meh (but I'm working on it). I will revisit this comment as I get to understand more, because I really feel that this has something valuable to me in it.
 
I love this, but it's completely Greek to me. I kind of understand a little bit of what you mean, but not much. My music theory is somewhat meh (but I'm working on it). I will revisit this comment as I get to understand more, because I really feel that this has something valuable to me in it.
that's cool. all I was saying is that instead of learning 12 discrete shapes for the major chord in all keys and then 12 more for all the minor, you can just learn moveable chord shapes and move up and down the fretboard to key the chord you want. That's how I have been able to fit all the chords in all keys for 12 different chord types on one sheet of paper.
 
Wow, looks like you’re going deep into a lot of excellent resources! Out of all of those the only ones I’ve used are Stu Fuchs YT videos and the book music theory for ukulele.

The ones that have helped me a lot are the books ukulele aerobics, ukulele for dummies (2nd edition by Al Wood), and James Hill’s ukulele way online course.

Ive heard of Ruby‘s ukes since I also live in BC. I’d be very excited to go to a seminar when they start doing them in person again 😊
 
Ive heard of Ruby‘s ukes since I also live in BC. I’d be very excited to go to a seminar when they start doing them in person again 😊
They've just posted their September offerings and there are in person classes, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have some in person workshops/seminars soon, too!
 
Have you been able to connect with a real in-person instructor? I have one who teaches both uke and piano, and this has been the best way for me to learn music theory.
YES! I'm getting my first in-person lesson at the end of August. We'll see how that goes, but I'm pretty excited!
 
Open invitation: any other noobs on here that want to share what they're working on/starting with as far as workbooks (or websites/YT)? I know there are other threads with this information, but if you haven't yet contributed something to the conversation about this kind of topic, feel free to pitch in here :)
 
Open invitation: any other noobs on here that want to share what they're working on/starting with as far as workbooks (or websites/YT)? I know there are other threads with this information, but if you haven't yet contributed something to the conversation about this kind of topic, feel free to pitch in here :)
Thanks for sharing your experience! I enjoy hearing about other people's processes and learnings. I'm definitely going to check out Lara Markowitz - hadn't heard of her.

I've been winging it since I picked the uke back up in February after a hiatus of several years. A few years before that I had followed a few of Cynthia Lin's tutorials and learned a couple of basic songs. I realized that learning songs I can sing is my biggest motivator (it's actually the whole reason I picked up the ukulele in the first place), so I started perusing youtube to find some that were easy-ish to play. That was good for a while, but then I wanted to expand and decided to focus on learning chords (via songs). I jump around a lot to keep myself from getting bored, so have given myself a few practice choices for songs, chords, fingerstyle, etc. I need more than rote practice every day, which is a major reason I've struggled with playing musical instruments in the past.

You could also say that I have been a bit averse to music books - mainly because the ones I've seen and dealt with in the past had a bunch of songs I didn't care about, and frustrating "lessons" that I found difficult to follow. I'm a social/kinesthetic learner and learn best from watching other people do it and doing it myself. Guidance helps a lot too, so at some point I will take some lessons, but I haven't found a teacher I like yet. I also need to feel resonance with the songs I'm singing.

So...I made my own practice book to organize and make my playing goals more tangible. I made two spotify playlists - one for now and one for future, and as I feel inspired by songs, I stick them in there. I printed out a bunch of chords for a lot of the songs as well. Then I sorted through them; the ones that are suitable for me right now went into a folder that has those little metal things to hold paper like a book. The first page is what I'm practicing right now; specific chord changes for specific songs, and specific fingerstyle patterns. It also holds my chord charts, then the songs in order of difficulty. On the top of each song page I've written what I'm working on with that song, so it's easy to find when I feel inspired to practice a specific chord or pattern. All of the other songs went into a binder for later as my learning expands. Each time I realize a thing I want to learn that isn't accounted for, I do a search for it and it goes into the book.

I am aware that soon I will need to learn music theory...again. I took it a million years ago in college, but studying things in textbooks never really made anything stick for me. Haven't found a good source for that yet, other than youtube searches. I'm starting to wonder if I need a book for that one, but there's so many choices out there.
 
@VioletLotus thank so much for adding your experiences! I hated learning theory when I was a kid, it was presented a lot like times tables were: just learn it, you don't need to really understand the application of it. I have found David Shipway's "Music Theory for Ukulele" has expanded my understanding of many concepts that get floated around on here and YT etc. when discussing (ukulele) music. There were SO many questions I had: why that chord there?! was the biggest when looking at song sheets. His book answers that. A lot of the beginning is assuming you know zero about theory, so it's a bit simplistic, and I find the presentation overly simplified overall, but the answers that I've gleaned from it were exactly what I was looking for, in a manner that I was ready to absorb. This book may be a little basic for you, since you took theory at the college level, but if you can get your hands on it to at least look through what's on offer, maybe it'd be useful?

Good luck with your journey! Keep us posted of new milestones or interesting things you might run across. I'm so glad you shared, thank you.
 
...
I am aware that soon I will need to learn music theory...again. I took it a million years ago in college, but studying things in textbooks never really made anything stick for me. Haven't found a good source for that yet ...
As I mentioned to ploverwing earlier, having a teacher who could blend music theory in with uke (and piano) lessons was a key to me. It made the theory part more relevant. So my advice is keep looking for the right teacher.

Jim
 
April 2022: I've been learning classical fingerpicking style using Samantha Muir's "The Classical Ukulele Method" and am working through her "12 Progressive Studies for Ukulele" for my reentrant tuned ukulele. I've become a patron of her Patreon site, and am continuing to support her. She provides some lovely pieces, and does a monthly (I believe?) Zoom workshop/class. I also discovered that she had 6 of Sor's studies for guitalele (or whatever you want to call it), which I purchased to practice on my requinto (when my new string set arrives).
Thanks for these recommendations. I'm thinking of buying Samantha Muir's Classical Ukulele Method. Do you reckon it'd be suitable for a (pretty much) complete beginner to fingerstyle?
 
Thanks for these recommendations. I'm thinking of buying Samantha Muir's Classical Ukulele Method. Do you reckon it'd be suitable for a (pretty much) complete beginner to fingerstyle?
If you have a reentrant ukulele and have an interest in learning a classical style of playing then yes, this book starts very basic and takes it slowly. I also like practicing from her 12 Progressive Studies book once I got a little bit of experience from her method book. But worth starting with just the method book.
 
If you have a reentrant ukulele and have an interest in learning a classical style of playing then yes, this book starts very basic and takes it slowly. I also like practicing from her 12 Progressive Studies book once I got a little bit of experience from her method book. But worth starting with just the method book.
Great, thanks again!
 
Open invitation: any other noobs on here that want to share what they're working on/starting with as far as workbooks (or websites/YT)? I know there are other threads with this information, but if you haven't yet contributed something to the conversation about this kind of topic, feel free to pitch in here :)
I think I've posted this before but IMO it bears repeating.

The most valuable tool I found is the book "First Learn to Practice." What a difference it has made, and I keep wondering "what if" with regards to having had it for the obligatory piano lessons as a child.

Second on my list is Ukulele Boot Camp. One of the folks in my uke group commented that I came up to speed faster than most beginners and I think UBC had a lot to do with it.

Third, and not really a resource, is regular practice, even if only 5-10 minutes a day. When I once tried guitar with an instructor he told me that I would never "get anywhere" if I only practiced an hour a day. Studies have shown that regular short practice sessions are more beneficial than intermittent long sessions, and from what I've seen on YT and read on the www many instructors are now singing the praises of practice sessions measured in minutes, not hours.
 
Something that helped me in upping my practice time and my engagement with theory was playing my own music. I found playing other people's music very boring. Even something complicated like a campanella piece is just paint-by-numbers and play it measure for measure until you inevitably get it. I didn't find that very motivating. However once I put myself in the driver's seat and was making all the choices, I had to learn a little theory here and a little there to support my decision-making. Nowadays I pretty consistently play an hour a day and it goes by like it was 5 minutes. for me it is very absorbing to practice techniques or nailing the time of a passage that lead me to being happy with a bit of music. Obviously this isn't the path for everyone, but I'm just throwing it out there as a possibility when you start out and begin to compile your workbooks.
 
Ploverwing,
Here's how I started my workbook. The centerpiece of my workbook is a single piece of graph paper that has all my chord shapes. Here's my methodology:
1. I figured out which chord qualities were important to me. The current version of my graph paper has 12 chord qualities, but I suppose most people would just want major, minor, and 7 chords.

2. for each chord quality, I figured out how to make a moveable shape with the root on the G string, the C string, the E string, and the A string. So for each chord quality I had 4 moveable shapes. That's it. No need to learn 12 different shapes for each chord quality; all you need is to know the 4 moveable shapes and where to put the shape to get the chord you want.

3. Then, as you already mentioned. I just practiced blues progressions in all keys...but I played them all over the neck using the moveable shapes.

4. Then I started learning the fret board by using scales and modes.

Anyway, I don't want to type too much. I just wanted to share how I approached the ukulele and created my music book
Ripock,

Thank you for outlining your approach.
That's very helpful. I'm going to try that myself.
 
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