Welcome to the December-January 2011-2012 edition of Mel Bay’s Ukulele Sessions®! This time new columnist Gerald Ross shows you some more great swing chords. Beth Mead shows us how to accompany ourselves with pretty finger style picking on the holiday favorite, Silent Night. Marcy Marxer takes us on a “C” cruise. Joe Mendel shares another [...]
Read the full story »by Gerald Ross Hello fellow ukulele players! Gerald Ross here. I hope you enjoy my Swing ukulele instructional videos. These videos will give you an introduction to closed position ukulele chord shapes. Using these shapes and the right hand rhythms I demonstrate will help transform your ukulele playing into a more Swingy, Bluesy and Jazzy [...]
Joe Mendel Tony Graziano has been building instruments since the 1970s, He became interested in ukuleles in 1978 and built them along with guitars until 1995 when he switched to almost exclusively building ukes. He find ukuleles to be very happy instruments that bring joy to players and listeners alike, and they travel well, too. [...]
by Beth Mead Fingerpicking is a great way to accompany yourself when singing! Try it out with this simple pattern that can be used to play Silent Night, a traditional Christmas Carol in 3/4 time. This means that there are three beats in each measure, like a waltz. 1-2-3, 1-2-3… I have shown the [...]
by Joe Mendel While looking for a builder to interview for this edition, I came across the Hive Ukulele website and was taken with the elegance of the ukes pictured there: http://www.hiveukuleles.com/ Jake Maclay was a name that I was not familiar with, I am very glad that I am now. Jake’s background is in art, [...]