Easy Ukulele Songs: Five with Five Chords
You’re fluent with 3-Chord Songs. What’s next?
Where do you go from here?
We’ll teach you the following skills.
- How to Read tab
- How to Fingerpick an accompaniment
- Three Fancy Strumming Patterns
- How to improvise over the 12-Bar Blues
We teach you to read tab melodies
Have you ever wondered what all those numbers and lines underneath the regular sheet music mean? Well, they’re there to show you where to play notes on your ukulele. Those are called the tab lines and numbers.
Here’s another picture showing you how to figure out the tab
We show you how to play a C Scale, so you can start to find melody notes on your ukulele.
All songs have Melody Tab
There is melody tab on every song. That way you can learn to play the melody. And you can sing and strum. You have many ways you can play each song.
Fingerpicking Accompaniments
You’ll learn how to read fingerpicked accompaniments. We write out the tab in below the staff, making it easier to figure out what to play. Here is a song with the melody and lyrics on the top staff. It has regular music notation on the second staff. There is tab for a fingerpicked accompaniment on the third staff.
This is a great book for beginners. I never had a music theory lesson and with Jenny and Rebecca’s books, you don’t need it. Fun songs at a great price.
Total ukelele beginner. I enjoyed this work. It takes the skills learned in book 1 to a new level. I enjoyed a couple of the songs, especially “Five Foot Two.” It’s nice to find 1920s style songs because they are so naturally ukelele songs. I also enjoyed “Greensleeves.” because the ukulele sounds more lute-like. The pedagogical learning approach is cool, thoughtful, and systematic. An excellent series. I bought this after reviewing other ukelele learning methods online and trying others from the library.
Three Fancy Strumming Patterns
We teach you some fancy “go-to” strumming patterns. You will learn the “Island Strum,” the “Waltz Strum” and the “Boom Ditty” strum.
Camptown Races uses the Down, Down-up, Down, Down-up Strumming Pattern
Greensleeves uses the Waltz Strum Down, Down-up, Down, strum for ¾ time
Five Foot Two uses the Island Strum
In the book, we have one version of the song with melody tab and another version with the strumming pattern underneath. It helps to see how the strumming pattern fits with the lyrics so you can coordinate the two. You will hear this strum everywhere. Once you know it, you can use it for many, many songs.
“Five Foot Two” is an iconic song from the 1920s
In this song, you are learning the “Circle of 5ths progression,” which is important in music theory. You are also learning “The Island Strum,” which is a go-to strum for many ukulele songs.
We write the strumming pattern beneath the voice part. This makes it a LOT easier to fit the strumming pattern with the lyrics of the song.
How to improvise over the 12-Bar blues
The fifth song, “Lonely Blues,” introduces the 12-Bar Blues. We teach you the basics of the blues chord progression. We also encourage you to improvise or make up your own music.
In this book, you take your playing to the next level with 5 songs. I’m sure you’ll enjoy this book with all these great songs and new skills.
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Songs in Easy Ukulele Songs: Five with Five Chords
Camptown Races
Danny Boy
Greensleeves
Five Foot Two
Lonely Blues