2007-11-29
Ukulele Revival
There seems to be a bit of a revival in the Ukulele lately. The mainstream press has been picking up articles on it. The San Francisco Chronicle recently had a great article about the 'Jumping Flea' as well.
YouTube has a lot of ukulele related content. Browsing through there you'll see lots of different Ukulele styles. Some of my favorite uke resources are:
- ezFolk.com. Ukulele specific forums and lots of tutorials, tabs, and other helpful tips.
- Ukulele Hunt. The series of guitar riffs converted to work on the ukulele is excellent.
- How to Play Ukulele. The ebooks here helped me a lot and are well worth it. Especially the one on chords. There's also a free series of lessons on fingerpicking.
- Ukulele Blues Workshop. A 'teaser' video teaching a blues chord progression. The author has a DVD with more content.
- Dominator's Ukulele Tabs. I've been learning the Staten Island Slide from there.
- Beatles songs on the Ukulele. This is a well done site. It has a flash application showing the chords on the ukulele as it plays the midi.
There's a lot of other resources on internet about the ukulele. It's a fun instrument to play, only four strings. Even when you play it badly like me you can have fun! Kids especially seem to enjoy the Ukulele sound. My 2 and a half year old nephew likes to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while I play the melody on the Uke and he seems to enjoy making sounds on his own one as well :-)
