Plinky Plonky Pete

Here’s another number from my recent landmark birthday party. I’m on bass and vocals as we perform our version of Prince’s “Kiss”.

The title of this post is quite true. It’s quite amazing that there are lots of songs, if not hundreds of songs, that you can play by just using four chords on your ukulele. So I expect that you’re wondering just what are those special chords. In fact, they are the four chords mentioned in a previous post (C, Am, F and G7).

If you try strumming through those chords a few times you’ll start to recognise the chord progression of some well-known songs. Then if you change the order slightly you’ll recognise even more songs. This is because the combination chords work well together, so much so that musicians keep coming back to this progression time and time again.

Continue reading ““Quick Start” Guide 6 – playing lots of songs with just 4 chords”

At my recent landmark birthday party I set up a photo booth where the guests were invited to take a photo as a souvenir of the party. It was designed for taking mug shots with various signs being  held up in front of a height chart which was stuck on the wall. Here’s one of me wearing my new sweater with its logo after being charged by the Music Police for playing the ukulele in the wrong key.

Once you’ve mastered playing one chord, you’ll be eager to learn some more chords. As mentioned in a previous post, a chord is essentially a group of notes that are sounded together. Chords which sound good together are grouped into chord families. Such chords are grouped together because each chord is made up of notes from the same scale. For example, the C family of chords are all made up of notes in the C major scale and this is a good place to start. Then once you’re confident with this chord family, you can expand your chord vocabulary by learning a few more chords every week.

Continue reading ““Quick Start” Guide 5 – playing some more chords”

I celebrated a landmark birthday at the weekend and we held a party which included a performance from one of my ukulele bands (The Ukunauts of Stone). We did a set of six songs together and here’s a video of our opening number “Bad Moon Rising” on which I played bass ukulele. I also performed a couple of solo numbers on my tenor ukulele and I’ll post these videos at a later date. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and our set was well received by the guests.

I’ve just returned from seeing Joe Brown in concert at Stafford Gatehouse. He’s an absolute mega musical talent and a very skilled ukulele player. He was great friends with the late George Harrison with whom he used to jam on their ukuleles. Joe ended the show with “I’ll See You In My Dreams”, a song which he also played at the Concert for George Harrison.  Continue reading “Joe Brown concert”

Chords are essentially a group of notes sounded together that are played on separate strings. There are many tutor books available which include charts of where to put your fingers when playing particular chords. These chord charts show graphically the first few frets of the neck of the ukulele together with where to place your fingers to make a particular chord.

Continue reading ““Quick Start” Guide 4 – playing your first chord”

As mentioned in my last post it had been a busy weekend. During the evening of the previous day I was with the Ukunauts who are a ukulele group based in Stone, Staffordshire. We were asked to provide some background music whilst the guests arrived at a social function held in a local school. Here’s video of one of the songs from our set – it’s “The Letter” originally recorded by The Boxtops in 1967. I’m on the back row  playing bass ukulele and having to concentrate as it’s my fretless bass. Please note that we were performing whilst people were arriving at the function, so there’s a certain amount of background noise on this video.

Some of the best times happen quite spontaneously.

It had been a busy weekend and I’d already played with a couple of ukulele bands on Saturday at different venues. My friend Paul, a percussionist who plays the cajon, invited me to join him for an informal session at a local pub (the Borehole in Stone, Staffordshire). During the evening one of the regulars who plays the spoons joined us for a couple of numbers. I don’t think anyone has performed “Rockin’ All Over The World” with an accompaniment on the spoons before. Great fun, we really enjoyed performing and the locals were all joining in. Rock on!

Being a relatively small instrument, the ukulele has a smaller sound when compared with other larger instruments such as the guitar. With it’s bright and distinctive tone the ukulele is ideal to play rhythmically when singing along with friends.

Continue reading ““Quick Start” Guide 3 – strumming your ukulele”