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 had a ukulele band, and Cotton Fields was one of their greatest hits.
How to practice ukulele – tips for beginners
This post is about how to practice the ukulele. It’s aimed at beginners.
Right at the start, if you get a few basic skills locked in, you’ll make much faster progress.
You Are My Sunshine – the story behind the song
You Are My Sunshine is one of the most useful songs you can play on ukulele.
It’s a children’s song, and it’s also popular with the older generation. It’s easy for beginners to play. And everyone knows the chorus.
Keys to transposition
This is a very basic, practical introduction to transposing for the ukulele. In this post I cover what transposition is and why it's useful. I also discuss four tools for transposition: a chord chart, an online transposer tool, a capo and barre chords. Many ukulele...
How I became a ukulele teacher
I knew I was going to be a ukulele teacher at the age of six. My mother, Sue, taught me three chords and three songs, and I was hooked. I thought, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life!” I was having such wonderful fun strumming. I played and sang and...
Three chord magic
This post is about three chord songs and why I love them. Three-chord songs are a beautiful illustration of the abundant creativity of songwriters. Billions of dollars have been made with three chords, a rhythm pattern, a melody and some words. When I’m teaching...
Beginner ukulele toolkit
Are you a beginner ukulele player? Here’s a ukulele startup toolkit. You’ll find most of what you need to get strumming here. Buying a ukulele If you don't yet have a ukulele, here's a link to my post about how to buy a beginner ukulele. How to tune a ukulele Here's a...
Gifts of music
Are you wanting to give meaningful gifts this year? Give the gift of music! Here’s my list of great musical presents, that go beyond the obvious concert tickets, CDs and itunes vouchers. If you have someone in your life who loves making music, these gifts will be...
What else can you do with a ukulele?
When we start playing ukulele a world of unforseen possibilities opens up. I’m not exaggerating! This happened for me, and I’ve seen it working like this for many others. Beyond performing There’s a common attitude that making music is about performing, whether it’s...
Music researchers in the Tron
This week music researchers are heading to my hometown of Hamilton for an international popular music conference. IASPM-ANZ 2018 is hosted by Wintec‘s School of Media Arts, which has a large and lively popular music department. (The full name of the organisation is...