by Beth Mead It is Spring and in the Spring a young persons fancy turns to thoughts of baseball…   Jack Norworth, who while riding a subway train, was inspired by a sign that said “Baseball Today — Polo Grounds”. The words were set to music by Albert Von Tilzer, (Norworth and Von Tilzer finally [...]

by Joe Mendel  Outside forces affect the choices all of us make in our lives, sometimes those choices have a greater impact on our lives than we could possibly imagine. Jay Lichty has been a lifelong musician and ran a successful home building business. When Jay’s love of music and the poor economy collided, he [...]

by Gerald Ross In this lesson we will learn how to accent the chord progression using open-strings. This will give us a more syncopated feel to our rhythm. I hope you are enjoying these Swing ukulele lessons. Please comment on this page, and please jot down a few words in the comments section of the [...]

Here is another Ukulele Standard from the turn of the century. This one was written in 1910. The song has some quick chord changes that are not difficult to play if you plan ahead. The first line consists of a group of chords played with a count of 1-2-3-4. Two strokes of G followed by [...]

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 [...]

Sailing Through Seven Cs by Marcy Marxer Moving from The Root The C major scale contains the notes C D E F G A B C.   We use numbers to represent the scale tones.  The numbers are called intervals.  An interval is the distance between two notes.       The C chord is [...]

by Beth Mead Yes Sir, That’s my Baby 1902 by Blenkhorn and Entwisle Yes Sir, That’s my Baby has become a standard that has been recorded by over 100 artists in genres from jazz to rock, marimba and country. And now you can play it too! These chord shapes flow very easily from one to [...]

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, [...]