When I first learned to strum, my rhythm sounded robotic. There was no groove.
That all changed as I improved and began to feel the timing of the music.
Many casual players – even longtime students of the ukulele – struggle to consistently match their hand to what I call the timing “grid.”
Without this foundation, people struggle to lock in and are left asking “teach me a strumming pattern!” They think that they must be missing the right ukulele strumming pattern when instead what they really need is the grid.
The truth is that one foundational ukulele strumming pattern can be used to play the majority of popular music.
By leveraging this strum technique, I’ve helped students play better rhythm time and time again.
And it must be good because almost every single pro uke player uses some variation on this same exact motion to play world class music.
In Groove Ukulele, I focus on the underlying concept of getting on track with the rhythm. This is the key to everything. And anyone can do it!
I dig the detailed nature of the lessons… have been doing each exercise 80 BPM several times until I can sort of feel the particular groove. Some come easy …some not so.
Anyway… The Skills in GROOVE are well developed and have already improved my playing and teaching. Looking forward to more of your lessons.
-Rick Burke
What You’ll Learn from Groove Ukulele
Despite seeming like a simple trick, the grid is the foundation for so many facets of ukulele strumming that I’ve managed to fill over 70 pages with instruction, diagrams, and how-to photos. There are also videos that demonstrate each concept.
You’ll start by getting up to speed with timing. This is a simple look at how to count and understand rhythm patterns using a ruler as a visual.
Then you’ll learn the fundamentals of ukulele strumming technique and how to lock your down, up motion to a steady eighth note pattern, which is a basis for the rest of the book. You’ll learn to separate actually sounding the strings from a constant hand motion.
Groove Ukulele lays out a sequence of exercises you can practice to become comfortable strumming any rhythm.
Once you can keep a steady motion and emphasis each beat confidently, you’ll dive into the most exciting part of the book: how to figure out the strumming pattern of any song.
In this section I’ve gotten permission from some of my awesome ukulele friends to showcase the strumming patterns from a handful of their songs, including:
- “Heart Shaped Tattoo” by James Hill
- “Sea Swing” by Neal Chin
- “Sunny Day” by Herb Ohta, Jr.
- “Summertime” by Victoria Vox
- “She’s My Girl” by Kris Fuchigami
- “Little Lucky” by Kelly Hyde
You’ll have a chance to use your newly found skills to figure out the strum yourself before looking at the provided pattern diagram.
To take things to the next level, you’ll learn a handful of strum decorations like the chuck/chunk and fan strum/rasqueado, along with how to apply them to any ukulele strum pattern.
Finally, you can test your rhythmic feel with some advanced strum timings by dropping 16th notes and triplets into the grid along with how to manage odd time signatures like 3/4 and 6/8.
All in all, Groove Ukulele is intended to make you the strong, intuitive strummer you’ve always wanted to be.
What You Get with Groove Ukulele
PDF Download
Groove Ukulele’s main component is a 70+ page PDF ebook. This instant download includes easy-to-follow written direction, ukulele strum diagrams, and images to illustrate the movements you need to make for effective strumming.
Low-res sample page
The contents of the PDF contains links to songs you can listen to and also links to the accompanying video lesson for each section.
Intro
Videos
Left or Right Handed
Tuning
Links
The Grid
Basic Units of Timing
A Reference for Time
A Tape Measure for Music
Adding Eighth Notes
Back to the Grid
Strumming
Down Strum
Strum Location
Up Strum
Down and Up Together
Swing vs. Straight Feels
Strumming on the Grid
Fingernails
Using Picks
The X Chord
Basic Strum Patterns
Ghost Strumming
Notating the Grid
Single Strum Per Bar
Emphasis
Strum Patterns. Vegas Style!
Two Strums Per Bar
Three Strums Per Bar
Accents
Four Strums Per Bar
Five Strums Per Bar
Six Strums Per Bar
Seven Strums Per Bar
Double Time & Half Time
Figuring Out Strums
Hearing the Part
Decoding the Strum
“Little Lucky” by Kelly Hyde
“Heart Shaped Tattoo” by James Hill
“Take Your Mind Away” by Brad Bordessa
“Sea Swing” by Neal Chin
Two Bar Strums
“Sunny Day” by Herb Ohta, Jr.
”She’s My Girl” by Kris Fuchigami
“Summertime” by Victoria Vox
Decorative Strums
The Chuck
The Rasqueado
Mastering the Chunk and Rasqueado
Thumb Strum
Beyond the Grid
Time Signatures
Breaking From Eighth Notes
Just Play It!
Conclusion
About the Author
Videos
To supplement the written direction, I’ve created 25 walk-through videos with over three hours of instruction to demonstrate most of the main concepts. You can also refer to them to hear how the strum examples should sound as well as play along in various exercises.
Each of these is shot with two cameras in HD so you can clearly see what I’m doing.
Discussion
A Q&A comments section is provided so you can get your questions answered by me and learn from what others have asked.
FAQs
Is Groove Ukulele for baritone ukulele tuning?
Yes! There is no pitched information in the ebook so you can apply the right hand movements to chords and songs that work in any tuning.
How do I get the videos?
The videos are accessed through your Live Ukulele account. Each video is displayed in order on the Groove Ukulele download page. They are number coded and linked in the PDF for easy access.
What if I don’t like it?
Groove Ukulele has a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. If you don’t find it super awesome and helpful, just email brad@liveukulele.com and I’ll send you a refund.
All in all, Groove Ukulele is a system that will help you learn how to strum and create your own ukulele rhythm patterns. Why learn one strumming pattern when you can learn to make your own, suitable for any song?