Hi, I’m Alice. I can’t wait to see you making music!

I’m a musician, ukulele teacher, and music mentor.

I love playing ukulele – and I’d love to help you learn to play.

Music making is fun, exciting, transformative, empowering, connecting, celebratory and healing.

Playing ukulele is the fastest, funnest way into music making that I’ve ever found. It’s magic.

Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi – the story of a song

This post is about Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi, one of New Zealand’s beloved waiata. (If you’re not a New Zealander, waiata is the Maori word for a song.) It’s such a great song. It has beautiful, inspiring, meaningful lyrics. “Stand up together, people.” It’s short, so it’s...

Singing with the ukulele

I’m a ukulele teacher. I’m not a singing teacher. But singing is central to the way I teach and play ukulele. For me, the whole purpose of playing the ukulele is to sing songs. Singing is one of the great routes to joy. And singing songs that you love makes it even...

Ukulele practice tips 2 – How to practice a song

Here are some tips on how to practice a song, for beginner ukulele players. Because playing songs is where the fun really kicks in. (Click here to read the first post in my Ukulele practice tips series.) When you learn a new song, don’t just start at the beginning and...

How to play Cotton Fields on ukulele

Cotton Fields is a great song for beginner ukulele players. It only has three chords and an easy strum. Some boys at my primary school in Papua New Guinea had a ukulele band, and Cotton Fields was one of their most popular songs. I used to watch these local musical...

How to practice ukulele – tips for beginners

This is a post about how to practice the ukulele. It’s especially aimed at beginners. Right at the start, if you get a few basic skills locked in, you’ll make much faster progress. This isn't about how to practice ukulele technique. That’s a whole other topic. Apart...

You Are My Sunshine – the story behind the song

You Are My Sunshine is absolutely one of the most useful songs you can play on ukulele. It’s a children’s song, and it’s also very popular with the older generation. It’s easy enough for beginners to play. Everyone knows the chorus. And it has an interesting...

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