Live 'Ukulele

Sometimes we appear to run out of things to practice (we won’t ever, but…). Here are some ideas I came up with regarding scales. I will do more “things to practice” posts on other things.

If you have any additions to this list please share them. I plan on making a big page with all of my (and your) ideas on it.

This is in no particular order:

“Practice Scales….”

1. Straight up and down
2. In 3rds (C to E, D to F, etc…)
3. In 4ths (C to F, D to G, etc…)
4. In 5ths (C to G, D to A, etc…)
5. In 6ths (C to A, D to B, etc…)
6. In 7ths (C to B, D to C, etc…)
7. Up or down in groups of 4s (C D E F, D E F G, etc…)
8. Up or down in groups of 5s (C D E F G, D E F G A, etc…)
9. Up or down in other groupings
10. Slow
11. Fast (notice the order there?)
12. Two notes, skip a string, play one note – up and down
13. One note, skip a string, play two notes – up and down
14. With any number of notes on any number of different strings
15. Using 3rd intervals (played together)
16. Using 6th intervals
17. Using all other intervals
18. In a different position
19. In a different octave
20. In a musical fashion (practice is just preparation for real music)
21. Picking with just your thumb
22. Picking with just your fingers
23. Picking with both your thumb and fingers
24. Softly
25. Loudly
26. Using all areas in between
27. In octaves (Wes Montgomery style)
28. As they would pertain to a certain genre (go for a country or rock sound)
29. Up and down one string
30. Up and down two strings
31. Up and down 3 or 4 strings
32. Using only 4 frets
33. Using only [hmm] frets
34. Using staccato
35. Against a pedal tone (a note that stays the same throughout)
36. And avoid a certain note
37. Over a chord progression (with a looper or musician buddy)
38. In you head
39. On paper
40. And memorize their notes

Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder (Part 1)

• Sir Duke tab
• Video lesson (part 2 of 2)
• Get Sir Duke on Herb Ohta Jr.’s album “‘Ukulele Breeze”

One of the first battles you face on the way to being a more competent ‘ukulele player is learning the notes and where they are located on the fingerboard. Not just: [pause] “…there’s F”, but BOOM! Almost instantly you can find the nearest location of that one note you are looking for. It takes time, and you can always be faster, so it is a never ending process.

The notes:

Of course you can’t just be expected to know the notes (but I hope you know the names of the strings by now). It should be a pretty easy concept to get because half of it is the beginning of the alphabet. There are 12 notes in Western music – an octave is divided into 12 pieces. An octave is the distance from one note to the next highest note of the same name (you pass all 12 notes to get to the next note in the next octave). A piano is the easiest way to see this because it is all laid out in a repeating fashion (each time the pattern of keys repeats, you are in a new octave) Different styles of Eastern music (such as Indian music) have many more notes because of the way they divide the octave. But we are playing a Western instrument, so it makes sense to tune it to the Western scale.

There are 7 natural notes:

• A B C D E F G

They are considered natural because they are not altered with sharps or flats. A sharp (pound sign in musical notation – #) raises the pitch of the note a half step. A flat (squashed lower-case “b” in musical notation) lowers the pitch of the note a half step. A half step is one fret on the ‘ukulele. To get from 7 natural notes to 12 total notes, some in-betweens have to be added.

These are called “enharmonics”and each has two names. There are 5 enharmonics:

• A# C# D# F# G#

…or the second name would be (same pitch, just a different name):

• Bb Db Eb Gb Ab

So an enharmonic is just one of the 7 natural notes altered with a sharp or flat (raised or lowered one half step – or fret). You can look at enharmonics from either side – as a sharp or as a flat. Usually in a piece of music only one of the two will be used.

All together, natural notes and enharmonics mingling, your 12 notes are:

• A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/ Ab

Out of these 12 notes, scales are created, and from the scales, chords. For more on both topics check out:

• Building Scales
• Building chords

They will make the most sense if you read them in order.

Learning the fretboard:

Here is a fingerboard chart with the names and locations of the notes:

I suggest starting by learning the natural notes up to the 3rd fret. Since the C major scale is made up of only natural notes, it is a great place to begin. Here is a page with a video and tab of how to play the C major scale: The Scale Files (the first file). That covers the bottom three strings, so all you have to add is the open G string and A on the 2nd fret.

You should be able to see from the chart that notes start to overlap as you move up the fretboard. That should make it easier to make your way up to the next destination: all the natural notes up to the 5th fret. That just adds all the notes on the 5th fret and two on the 4th fret, G and C strings.

Work your way up the fretboard (by frets or by string if you like) and learn the rest of the natural notes.

From there, you just need to fill in the blanks with enharmonics. Because the name of an enharmonic is pretty much a road map right to the location of the note, it’s pretty easy to find them. For example: what’s in between C and D? Hmm… C#/Db. Pretty simple. And C#/Db is in between all Cs and Ds. Any enharmonic is surrounded by it’s two namesakes. You should see how the process goes from here, so learn the location of all enharmonics. Practice is the best for learning this (and anything else) but here are some ideas to hopefully speed up your fingerboard-memorization process:

Scales probably make the most sense for learning the fingerboard because you are learning notes anyways. Just like the C scale familiarizes most people with the natural notes inside the first 3 frets, any other scale can teach you the notes that live in between and higher up the neck. Here is a tab of major scales and a page of video lessons with tab:

• Major Scales tab
• The Scale Files (video and tab)
• (How to read tab)

Just play and think about the notes. Simple, but once you learn a song do you think about the notes or just where your fingers go? If you run through the names of the notes as you play them you can kill two birds with one stone.

Find a note in all locations. If you have metronome, put it going slowly, if not, just practice this evenly (and slowly) by counting in your head or tapping your foot. Choose a note and locate it on any string. Once you find the note, play it on a click (metronome or virtual – “1 2 3 4…”). Find the note on the next string and play it on the next click (I said go slowly right?). And the next and the next until your cover all the strings. There are some strings (depending on how many frets you have to work with) that will have two note locations. I suggest you practice playing those too. Then pick another note to find the locations of. Try doing this with all the different notes (enharmonics too!). For example, if I do this exercise with the G note it would look like this:

1. Open G string – “click/pick”
2. 12th fret, G string – “click/pick”
3. 7th fret, C string – “click/pick”
4. 3rd fret, E string – “click/pick”
5. 15th fret, E string – “click/pick”
6. 10th fret, A string – “click/pick”

Write it out. Print out some copies of a blank fingerboard chart and fill in the blanks using whatever order you like (natural notes first, string by string, fret by fret, etc…).

• Blank fingerboard chart

Use your head. “No waste time!” as Keoki Kahumoku likes to say. Practice the fretboard in your head when you are bored. Try any of the above exercises mentally.

I just created a new page for blank resource sheets such as chord charts and tab. I’ve had some blank sheets floating around the site for a while but I also added a fretboard chart with note names and one without. You can use the one with note names to find new chords – circle all the notes of a chord on the chart and then look for ways to finger it. This can be done right on your ‘ukulele but I find that having the options on a piece of paper lets me see different possibilities. The blank fretboard chart can be used for chords as well as for documenting scales across the whole fretboard.

• Fretboard Chart (with note names)
• Blank Fretboard Chart

Hi Everybody,

I’ve been busy the past few weeks so there hasn’t been much new content showing up here. Hopefully I can get some new lesson videos together shortly. I haven’t been totally unproductive though! There are some updates and new additions to the levels pages:

• Beginner
• Intermediate
• Advanced

I also have been compiling all of the “scale files” on one page.

One last thing is the new Meebo bar at the bottom of your browser window. You can use this to share pages, videos, and pictures from Live ‘Ukulele with your friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, and Yahoo. To share a page just click “share page” on the bar and then choose where you’d like it to go. To share a picture (this is really cool) just drag and drop it onto one of the sharing options that pop up (once you start moving the picture). It’s the same idea for embedded videos, but you have to hover over the video and look for the “drag and drop” handle and click that instead of the whole video. There is also a Youtube button on the bar that pulls up all of Live ‘Ukulele’s uploaded videos.

As always, recommendations and requests are welcome. Shoots,

Brad

It’s lined up to be the best yet!

The workshop is put on by Keoki Kahumoku and for the past 4 years he has been bringing together Hawai’i's best musicians to teach at the week-long camp. The event is held at the Pahala Plantation House on the island of Hawai’i – about 20 miles south-west of Kilauea volcano. This year has the biggest teaching lineup to date with: Keoki Kahumoku, George Kahumoku, Jr., Rev. Dennis Kamakahi, David Kamakahi, Ledward Ka’apana, Moses Kahumoku, Herb Ohta, Jr., John and Hope Keawe, Sonny Lim, Diana Aki, Danny Akaka, Buddy & Sammi Fo, Brittni Paiva, Konabob Stoffer, Aka Pule Dooley, Darci Baker, Jeff Peterson, James Hill, Aunty Ka’iwi Perkins, and more.

November 6th-13th, 2010 in Pahala, HI. To register, go to Konaweb.com/keoki

I cannot speak highly enough of the workshop; it has changed my life and is by far the best thing that I get to do every year. The learning is the bomb, the food is the bomb, and the people are the bomb. Hope to see you there!

A |---------0-1-3-5-
E |---0-1-3---------
C |-2---------------
G |-----------------

A |----7-8-10-12-13-15-17-
E |-10--------------------
C |-----------------------
G |-----------------------

If you’re on Oahu and are looking for some competition, Duke’s Waikiki is hosting their annual ‘ukulele playing contest at the Outrigger Waikiki hotel. Auditions will be held Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 10am. It is open to non-professional ‘ukulele players and includes four age categories: 6-10, 11-15, 16-18, and 19+. Participation is free. It looks like there should be a contest application form up on the Duke’s website shortly.

The contest itself will be on October 10th from 10am – noon at the Outrigger Waikiki. The first place winner of each category will receive a Kamaka ‘ukulele.

A |-------0-2-3-5-7-
E |-0-2-3-----------
C |-----------------
G |-----------------A |---------------7-
E |---------7-8-10--
C |---6-7-9---------
G |-9---------------

A |-0-2-3-5-7-8-10-12-
E |--------------------
C |--------------------
G |--------------------

A |---------------0-
E |---------0-2-3---
C |-----0-2---------
G |-2-4-------------

A |----------7-8-10-12-
E |---7-8-10-----------
C |-9------------------
G |--------------------

A |-----0-1-3-5-7-8-
E |-1-3-------------
C |-----------------
G |-----------------

A |-----------5-7-8-
E |-----5-6-8-------
C |-5-7-------------
G |-----------------

A |---0-2-3-5-7-9-10-
E |-3----------------
C |------------------
G |------------------

A |-----------------
E |-----------0-2-3-
C |-------0-2-------
G |-0-2-4-----------