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Ukulele Exercises for Dummies
Take your ukulele playing to the next level - fast! - with hundreds of fun exercises, drills and practice tunes
You have a ukulele, you know just enough to be dangerous, and now you're ready to do something with it. You're in luck: Ukulele Exercises For Dummies helps you become a better player. This practice-based book focuses on the skills that entry-level players often find challenging and provides tips, tricks and plenty of cool exercises that will have you creating music in no time that include:
- Creating rock-steady strumming patterns and rhythms
- Becoming a better fingerpicker with patterns, arpeggio exercises, and solo fingerpicking pieces
- Expanding your fretboard knowledge and crafting your own rock, blues and jazz riffs and solos
- Playing actual songs on the ukulele - everything from the classic ukulele tunes to the 12 bar blues!
- Downloadable audio files of the exercises found in the book, providing you with a self-contained practice package
No matter if you're a beginning ukulele player or you're wanting to stretch and improve your chops, Ukulele Exercises For Dummies puts you on your way to becoming a ukulele extraordinaire!
You have a ukulele, you know just enough to be dangerous, and now you're ready to do something with it. You're in luck: Ukulele Exercises For Dummies helps you become a better player. This practice-based book focuses on the skills that entry-level players often find challenging and provides tips, tricks and plenty of cool exercises that will have you creating music in no time that include:
- Creating rock-steady strumming patterns and rhythms
- Becoming a better fingerpicker with patterns, arpeggio exercises, and solo fingerpicking pieces
- Expanding your fretboard knowledge and crafting your own rock, blues and jazz riffs and solos
- Playing actual songs on the ukulele - everything from the classic ukulele tunes to the 12 bar blues!
- Downloadable audio files of the exercises found in the book, providing you with a self-contained practice package
No matter if you're a beginning ukulele player or you're wanting to stretch and improve your chops, Ukulele Exercises For Dummies puts you on your way to becoming a ukulele extraordinaire!
- GenresMusicReferenceNonfiction
264 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2013
109 people are currently reading
139 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 17, 2013
Disappointing. From the descriptor text and the cover I was expecting a lot of skills and drills for the beginner and then some tips on how to create songs for the uke. Instead, there was a lot of basic music theory (which I already know)and advanced picking techniques and rhythms poorly presented and mishmashed with a precious few practice chord progressions. I barely made it part way through before hitting a wall as a beginner ukulele player with no guitar experience (Tabs! Argh!) despite being a competent musician. I recommend that instead you read the playing by ear section of something like Alfred's Learn to Play Ukulele and look up Uncle Rod's Ukulele Boot Camp (a free document floating around online) for chord practice.
September 7, 2013
I'm currently working my way through this book. I like it very much and think this book will probably be my main source of ukulele learning over the next twelve months.
This book is mainly aimed at intermediate ukulele players, who want to progress beyond strumming chords to songs.
The book looks at various techniques and then gives the reader a range of exercises to practice with. These exercises are not just aimed at demonstrating these skills but helping the reader learn them - permanently. There are a lot of exercises!
The book comes with lots of audio samples, demonstrating these new skills. People who bought the electronic version of this book can download the audio samples from the publisher's web site.
The skills include: different strums designed to make the music sound more interesting, arpeggio finger-picking (a kind of rhythmic finger-picking that can replace strumming), and finger-picking melodies.
This book is very learner-oriented. It mentions the difficulties a learner is likely to experience, and gives hints on how to overcome them.
Would this book suit an absolute beginner? Probably not - but only just! This type of knowledge would probably overwhelm them while they are still trying to pick up the basics of chord strumming and what the ukulele is all about. But they could be ready not long after picking up that.
So overall, a real winner!
This book is mainly aimed at intermediate ukulele players, who want to progress beyond strumming chords to songs.
The book looks at various techniques and then gives the reader a range of exercises to practice with. These exercises are not just aimed at demonstrating these skills but helping the reader learn them - permanently. There are a lot of exercises!
The book comes with lots of audio samples, demonstrating these new skills. People who bought the electronic version of this book can download the audio samples from the publisher's web site.
The skills include: different strums designed to make the music sound more interesting, arpeggio finger-picking (a kind of rhythmic finger-picking that can replace strumming), and finger-picking melodies.
This book is very learner-oriented. It mentions the difficulties a learner is likely to experience, and gives hints on how to overcome them.
Would this book suit an absolute beginner? Probably not - but only just! This type of knowledge would probably overwhelm them while they are still trying to pick up the basics of chord strumming and what the ukulele is all about. But they could be ready not long after picking up that.
So overall, a real winner!
December 11, 2019
I will probably never be able to finish this book, I am trying to really learn all of it. I bought this for my Kindle, oh my, so tiny. A year later I bought the real book. It is great, really is helping be a better player! Brett McQueen teaches online courses, too. The best I have come across!
May 31, 2013
I've been playing the uke on and off for a few years now. I'm a strummer, and was looking for ways to learn how to fingerpick properly. I heard of this book through the Ukulele Underground forum, and bought it after reading a review there. Really glad I did. What a gem of a book.
There are three major sections: strumming, fingerpicking and mastering the fretboard. Because of my goal, I am currently concentrating on the second section, and just by doing the arpeggio exercises alone, I can already see the improvements in my skills.
The only con I have for this book is the binding. Wish it was spiral-bound and can lay flat. It is in a large format, so it lays better on a desk than the usual Dummies book.
This is one of the most useful books I've ever had. Thank you, Brett McQueen, for writing this book.
P.S. I honestly think this book is great even for beginners. The exercises are not intimidating, and the explanations are clear. The audio on the Dummies website is also great to have, so you can hear how the exercises are supposed to sound like.
There are three major sections: strumming, fingerpicking and mastering the fretboard. Because of my goal, I am currently concentrating on the second section, and just by doing the arpeggio exercises alone, I can already see the improvements in my skills.
The only con I have for this book is the binding. Wish it was spiral-bound and can lay flat. It is in a large format, so it lays better on a desk than the usual Dummies book.
This is one of the most useful books I've ever had. Thank you, Brett McQueen, for writing this book.
P.S. I honestly think this book is great even for beginners. The exercises are not intimidating, and the explanations are clear. The audio on the Dummies website is also great to have, so you can hear how the exercises are supposed to sound like.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews