All About Learning Ukulele with Curt
All Available Workshops
Ukulele Clinics and Workshops can be presented at your club event, festival, music store or social event. Curt has presented these and other workshops at various ukulele festivals, clubs, and events across the country ( since 2004 ).
31 December 2025
Current Workshops Selection
Click on any title for a full description below.
- Navigating the C Major Scale • NEW
- Bass for Ukulele Players • NEW
- Getting Started - A Recipe for Success
- Rhythm - Avoid at Your Own Peril • NEW
- Exploring Fingerstyle on Ukulele
- Chord Melody - Introduction to Crafting Solo Ukulele Melody and Chord Arrangements
- Playing by Ear - Common Chord Progressions and Remembering Songs • NEW
- The Principles of Music
- Essential Strums for Ukulele - A Guide to Ukulele Strums
- Exploring Jazz Chords on Ukulele
- Triads - You Already Know More Than You Think
- Introduction to Scales and Soloing on Ukulele
- Building Left Hand Technique
- Building Right Hand Technique
- Exploring the Blues for Ukulele
- Reading Music on the Ukulele - Primer
- Learning the Ukulele Fingerboard
- Ukulele for Guitar Players
Contact Curt or Kelly to have anyone of these workshops presented to your club, at your ukulele event or jam, festival. Or, ask about creating that custom workshop you always wanted to attend.
Getting Started - A Recipe for Success
BEGINNER - INTERMEDIATE
Where Do I Start
This is a common question and this workshop addresses that very question.
Getting Started - A Recipe for Success covers ukulele tunings, learning the ukulele fingerboard, basic chords and strums. This workshop gets you rolling on having some fun playing the ukulele and we throw in a bit of ukulele history and fun facts as we explore the ukulele.
Getting Started - A Recipe for Success is only available for download for Gold members.
Sign-in
or upgrade your membership
to download the Getting Started - A Recipe for Success workshop handout.
Introduction to Creating Chord Melody
Arrangements
BEGINNER - INTERMEDIATE
Creating a solo ukulele chord arrangement is as simple as harmonizing a melody by playing a chord or partial chord with the melody note as the top note of the chord. This style of playing is called “Chord Melody” or “Melody and Chord’”. The hard part comes with – what chord voicing? When should I play a chord? When are single notes OK? And a few other issues usually pop up, especially with only having only three, two, one and somestimes no string to harmonize a melody.
Luckily we don’t have to wait for monster chops, a massive chord vocabulary or endless hours of practicing scales and chords to play melody and chords at the same time on the ukulele. Although practice is a good idea and never hurts, all we need are a few chords and single notes to have hours of ukulele fun creating your own arrangements. What you already know can get you started and a lot further along thatn you might think.
We'll learn how to read basic melodies in the open position and along strings one and two - simple and not as scary as you might think.
Playing by Ear
ANY UKULELE PLAYER
Want to jam without sheet music or songbooks?
Common Chord Progressions and Remembering Songs
This workshop goes over common chord progressions and chord sequences that show up a lot in popular music played at jams and festivals.
We'll cover:
- Three Chord Progressions
- Four Chord Pop Progressions
- Fifties (1950s) Chord Progressions
- The Andalusian Chord Progression
- Blues Chord Progressions
- Backdoor Chord Progressions
Remembering a song is lot like remembering the directions for a road trip. There are the turn-by-turn directions, road maps, signs and landmarks that will get you to where you are going. Turn here, turn there, remember this and remember that landmark. With a songs it's the chords, the melody, style, the harmonic cells, the form, etc that are part of the song that you want to remember.
With a few music tools and an understanding of the basic principles of how chords and chord progressions—the songs work. You can start unraveling what's going on in any song.
The Principles of Music
EVERYONE
Music Theory • The word theory or in theory
is sometimes used erroneously by people to explain something which they individually did not experience or test before. In those instances, semantically, it is being substituted for another concept, a hypothesis. The Principles of Music, a.k.a. Music Theory is the fundamentals of how music works.
Understanding the fundamentals of how music works. How Harmony, Melody and Rhythm work goes a long way in increasing your enjoyment of music and learning the `Ukulele. It's NOT magic i it's how it all goes together. It's just the study of the practices and possibilities of music.
This workshops gets you off to a good start in building a foundation of how it all ties together.
The Fundamentals of Music include: Pitch, Scales and Modes, Consonance and Dissonance, Rhythm, Melody, Chords, Harmony, Dynamics, Articulation, Form, Notation, Analysis, ...
In this workshop we'll pick and choose what is most beneficial when learning to make music with the ukulele.
- Notes, Pitch, Tempo,and Direction in Music
- Scales, Intervals, Arpeggios, Sequences
- Chords — Names, building and where do they actually come from.
- Rhythm — And how it relates to strums
Essential Strums for Ukulele - A Guide to Ukulele Strums
BEGINNER - INTERMEDIATE
Don't know what to play or tired of playing the same old down-up-down-up strums?
One of the first skills a ukulele player learns is the art and craft of strumming, playing rhythm. This refers to an accompaniment technique suitable for the singer - songwriter or someone who plays a support role for another instrument.
Strumming requires a specific set of skills. They are: 1) Memorization of chords. 2). The ability to switch chords smoothly and 3) The ability to choose and execute a suitable rhythmic strum. It is this 3rd skill that is our focus in A Guide to Ukulele Strums.
Though strumming looks natural to the casual observer, it is anything but natural to the beginning ukulele player. Even experienced players have difficulty in identifying and executing certain strums. Though this is one of those topics that is typically taken for granted, there is much to learn about rhythmic feels, accents, dynamics, strum direction, feel, percussive accents, idiomatic styles and tempo variation.
Learn These Essential Strums and a lot more:
- Quarter Note Strum
- Sustain Strum
- Rock Strum
- Light Rock Strum 1
- 12/8 Strum
- Shuffle Strum
- Power Shuffle Strum
- Double Time Strum
- Gallop Strum
- Flowing 3/4 Strum
- Ska Strum
- Bass Note Strum Patterns
- 3/4 Strum
- Reggae Strum
- Broken Patterns
Exploring Fingerstyle on Ukulele
ALL LEVELS
Exploring Basic Fingerstyle on Ukulele. Classical and Alternating Thumb style fingerstyle techniques applied to ukulele.
This workshop will focus on the Alternating Thumb Style on Ukulele and walk you through various patters and explore the possibilities.
Exploring Jazz Chords on Ukulele
BEGINNER - INTERMEDIATE
Exploring contemporary 4-part, a.k.a. "Jazz" chord on ukulele all start with the Big Six, Core Chords. You most likely know the open position chords they're based on.
From the Six core chords that are the Big Six and the principles of chord construction along with learning the notes of the ukulele fingerboard, you WILL be able to create ANY chord you come across just from the name.
These jazz chords are simply 4-part contemporary chords that find their way in a lot of music - not just jazz.
The Big Six Core Chords are: Seventh, Minor Seventh, Major Seventh, Diminished Seventh, Half-Diminished Seventh, Augmented Seventh
From these six chords you'll never be at a loss looking for that individual chord you need.
Triads—You Already Know More Than You Think
ALL LEVELS
At the heart of just about every chord is a *triad*. This workshop explores these powerful harmonic and melodic music gems.
We'll explore traditional and contemporary triads, starting with the triads you already know but don't know you already know. Finally learning what a sus2, sus4, add 2, add9 chord is. And, how to use them.
Triads can be used for everything from creating melodies and improvisation with single notes and chords all the way to creating contemporary songs.
Introduction to Scales and Soloing on Ukulele
BEGINNER - INTERMEDIATE
Don't know what to play or Tired of playing the same old songs and licks?
Here is a workshop for any level ukulele player on creating fun stuff to play. Making you own music, taking what you already know and creating music.
From a few SIMPLE chords and a few single notes you can create music and entertain yourself for hours.
You actually know more than you think!!!
This is my road to “Hours of Ukulele Fun” workshop.
Navigating the C Major Scale
BEGINNER - MASTER
Where Do I Start
This is a common question and this workshop addresses that very question.
Navigating the C Major Scale — The C Major Scale is typically the first Full Diatonic major scale that most players learn. It's the first scale to learn when stating to explore music theory - the principles of music.
Building Left Hand Technique
INTERMEDIATE - ADVANCED
Building Left Hand Technique explores what it takes to build killer left hand chops on the ukulele.
Single string left hand technique, open string, repeated notes, variations, intervals, double stops, triple stops, chord switching, rhythmic variations, skipping strings, legato and staccato technique.
You'll never be better than you what you can actually pull off what you want with your hands. And, luckily our left hand - ALL of our fingers can be trained to a pretty high level allowing you to pull off what you would like to do.
Right Hand Ukulele Technique
ALL LEVELS
With this workshop will cover and explore the many possible ways to get the strings moving with the Right Hand. From using the thumb for a mellow picking and strumming style to using felt and plastic picks and we'll explore traditional and alternating thumb fingerpicking.
Exploring the Blues for Ukulele
BEGINNER - INTERMEDIATE
Exploring the Chords, Notes, Scales and Feel of the Blues on `Ukulele.
A Guide to Blues Chord Progressions for Ukulele from A to Z explores the “Blues” chord progressions. The Blues are at the heart of all American music. It has influenced Country, Rock, Folk, Jazz, Bluegrass and just about every form of American music we listen to today.
Understanding Blues Chord Progressions for Ukulele takes you through what makes a blues progression a blues progression.
Reading Music on Ukulele - Primer
EVERYONE
It's lot easier than you think.
Reading Music on the Ukulele - Learning to read standard music notation. It's a lot easier on the ukulele than most other stringed instruments.
Learn the basics of music notation, a song's the road map and reading single notes in open position on ukulele.
Reading music is not hard. It may be new and unfamiliar to you but is not hard when you have a proper plan of attack.
Learning the Ukulele Fingerboard
EVERYONE
Memorizing The Notes Of The Ukulele Fingerboard Is Not As Hard As One Would Think.
Learning the Ukulele Fingerboard — It is astonishing that on any other instrument it would be silly and not accepted to not know the names of the notes and where they are on your own instrument. But - on the ukulele, guitar and most fretted instruments their players do not know the names intuitively - they can figure them out but that takes way too long. Granted it's not as easy as the piano where higher and lower notes move in one direction only, are color coded and even at different heights. Anyone after the first or second lesson can instantly name any key on the piano.
On ukulele as well as the guitar there are duplicate notes - the same note on different strings and music can mover horizontally along a string as well as vertically across the strings. Make for a lot of flexibility for note choices and there in lies the problem - the choices.
This workshop is guaranteed to take the mystery out of the ukulele fingerboard and have you a lot closer to actually knowing the name of every note on the fingerboard and instantly recall it.
Memorizing the notes of the ukulele fingerboard is not as hard as one would think. Although there doesn't seem to be any pattern and the same letter can be found on every string. There is a systematic approach that can be used to help remember the notes.
You'll get more out of actually knowing the names of the notes of the fingerboard than most things you have to memorize. It will actually cut out the number of shapes you have to memorize.
Bass for Ukulele Players
ANY UKULELE PLAYER
Really “Bass” for Non-Bass Players
Bass
—the bottom, the low end. In music, this is one essential musician, always in demand and in short supply.
Every musicians should be able to play a bit of bass.
This workshop gets you started with being a bass player and the minimum requirement musically to start and fulfill the bass player role. It's a lot easier than you think.
Ukulele for Guitar Players
ANY GUITAR-PLAYER
You might already know more than you think!
Ukulele for Guitar Players is a guide to transferring the accumulated experience and knowledge gained as a guitar player to the ukulele.
Covers chords, scales, reading and the three most common ukulele tunings.
Ukulele for Guitar Players is for current and former guitar players discovering the ukulele for the first time or returning to the instrument.
Ukulele for Guitar Players is a guide to transferring the accumulated experience and knowledge gained as a guitar played to the ukulele. Or exploring the possibilities that the ukulele offer. Covers chords, scale and an introduction to reading standard music notation on ukulele.
The ukulele is both a different instrument than the guitar and at the same time a lot like the guitar.
Guitar players that also play the ukulele find that it gives them a different and fresh look at how they also approach the guitar.
Ukulele for Guitar Players is only available for download for Gold members.
Sign-in
or upgrade your membership
to download the Ukulele for Guitar Players workshop handout.
Rhythm–Avoid At You Own Peril
ALL LEVELS
The often neglected and taken for granted subject of Rhythm. Music is Melody, Harmony and Rhythm. We are drawn, initially to music by melody at a very early age, with the instrument of our voice. With ukulele you typically learn chords - the harmony and never really dive into learning rhythm. Unless you're a drummer we take rhythm for granted.
Finally dive into actually understanding and learning rhythm.