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.
Welcome to the forum, Nash Clark! Thanks for joining the conversation, I hope you find lots of useful stuff (as I most certainly have).
