You can view all my books, books by Curt Sheller for FREE on-line.

Here are some of the navigation options.

There is also a link to view the pages larger. Here is a PDF page only link for the Fingerpicking for Ukulele - Alternating Thumb Style ➜

Just like an old brick and mortar book store when you could see all of what you would be getting. You can do the same on-line.

Playing by Ear IS the ultimate goal for any musician when playing a musical instrument. It's true whether you're singing, banging a drum, strumming a guitar, or our favorite instrument, the ukulele.

If your fingers can already interpret and follow what your inner ear commands, you’ve obtained your goal and are playing by ear. However, the fact is that it's actually very uncommon for individuals to be able to "play by ear" with no apparent effort.

If you are like most people new or relatively new to learning to play an instrument, you need a plan to train your fingers to follow your ear melodically, harmonically, and rhythmically. This comes from an understanding of the music principles that drive music and lead the ear to direct the fingers so that then, and only then, can you start on the road to Playing by Ear.

Whether performing or practicing, music involves three elements: your mind, your hands, and your ear. When performing music, your ear directs your hands. And if all goes well, your mind is not involved and only gets involved when things don’t go as planned. Getting to this performance goal, whether it’s simply performing for your own enjoyment or on stage takes work and an organized approach to developing an "ear-hand-mind" connection so all will work together.

Common wisdom states that it takes 10,000 hours to master any skill. This is essentially true - it does take hours and hours of dedicated, quality practice and exploration. I've found this to be especially true when learning any musical instrument, even the ukulele, despite its reputation as an easy to learn instrument. Getting really good and getting comfortable in performance and learning to play by ear takes not mindless hours and hours, but an organized, dedicated, systematic approach with distant goals and building blocks to ensure that you reach that ultimate goal.

The Internet is full of debate and examples of people who seem to be able to cheat at this without putting in the time. I regret to inform you that there is NO shortcut, and simply putting in the time alone is also not always enough. A lot of people put in the time. So what makes someone more successful when learning a musical instrument than another? Or, more importantly, how can you set yourself up for success? Tips for Success

Here you go - my tips for success:

Get a coach, advisor or teacher - and not just any coach. Whether you have a coach, advisor, teacher, guide, guru or whatever you call them, they must be successful with a proven track record of helping others obtain their goals - not simply good players. Finding the right coach can take work, trial, and error. Some look to performers of their chosen instrument to become their teachers. This can be good place to start, but not all performers make good teachers. However, they probably had a good teacher. It's sort of like getting past the Academy award-winning actor and finding their most significant teacher - the behind-the-scenes person who played an invaluable role in the actor's success. Early in my development, I found Chuck Anderson. So hopefully you're be as lucky as I was to find a great teacher, coach, or mentor early in your development.

Practice Deliberately - have distinct goals and a plan for each session. Monitor your success, practice specific skills and problem areas, and constantly strive for improvement. If your practice sounds good, you're probably not really practicing but may simply be repeating something you can already do. Work instead on what you really need to improve: work on what you can’t do, or want to do better.

Teach Others - we learn by doing, and learn more and learn better when we teach others what we know. There is nothing like presenting what you know to others to truly understand it yourself. In all my years of teaching, I've found this to be extremely beneficial in my own musical development.

The Mind, the Ear, and the Hand - each one of these needs training, with specific steps to obtain the playing by ear goal. The ear needs to recognize the intervals, chords and rhythm that make up the melody, harmony, and rhythm of a song. But for all of the training needed for the mind and ear, it's largely up to the hands when playing an instrument, that is, they need the most training to successfully execute what the ear wants. So, make a plan, set your goals, find a good teacher, and practice, practice practice!

The series is winding dowm.

If yu have visited the series in previous years, since 2013, the series has been runnning. You might already know that I did not intend to take it past March. There are just way too many chord "shapes" to memorize.

For 2020 I added videos for wach lesson / chord for January, February, and March.

There is now a summary for each months chords on one page for each month.

• January Chord Videos on One Page ⇒
• February Chord Videos on One Page ⇒-
• March Chord Videos on One Page ⇒

Learn a variety of strums and rhythmic patterns in wide range of musical styles.

• A Guide to Ukulele Strums ➜

Video For Each Lesson:

• Rock Heavy ➜
• Rock Light ➜
• 12/8 ➜
• Shuffle ➜
• Double Time ➜
• Gallop ➜
• Ska ➜

A strum refers to an accompaniment technique suitable for the singer, singer - songwriter or someone who plays a support role for another instrument.

Strumming requires a specific set of skills: Memorization of chords, The ability to switch chords smoothly, The ability to choose and execute a suitable rhythmic strum

It's this 3rd skill that is our focus in A Guide to Ukulele Strums and Rhythmic Patterns.

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, singer - songwriter or someone who plays a support role for another instrument.

I said I wouldn't offer a sale but – with this virus and everyone practicing social distancing and having to work at home here is a deal: Forever Site Access Memberhip for $149 Get It Today! ➜ • Normally $179.

BONUS for Supporing LearningUkulele.com and Curt • All FOREVER members will receive a FREE one-hour private lesson. @ Email Curt to schedule your FREE lesson.

With our family Funky Frets Music Store ➜ closed due to a Pennslyvania State Mandate that all non-essential businesses remain closed because of the COVID-19 Virus. I have a lot of time to dedicate to this LearningUkulele.com website. Even more than the normal massive amout of time I spend on it. The drawback is I've had to cancel most of my 40+ student's private one-on-one in-store lessons. And, only a handful few have been able to do Skype or Facetime lessons.

So I'm available for more Skype / Facetime Private Lessons ➜. Book a single lesson for one hour, and I can guarantee you'll get several months of material to work on and a real plan for self-learning.

I've been a full-time private music teacher focusing on ukulele and guitar students from beginner to advanced students for the last 20 years or so. I'm not big on tooting my own horn, but people have said some good things about my playing and teaching. And, yes, I can, in-detail if needed, explain on many different levels exactly everything I play or have written.

The site has 600+ lessons, 100+ videos, ALL my, over 40 books, over 100 songs, and a lot of ukulele information. I don't just teach you how to play a song - I show you how to learn songs.

At times I had up to 70 students a week. So, there is a lot of experience here. I took private lessons for 30 years with one of the best teachers around - Chuck Anderson. We covered everything, even how to teach private lessons - he had 100 students a week at times and stated when he was 16. Chuck studied with Dennis Sandole. Look Dennis Sandole up, and you'll see quite a few people you have heard about studied with Dennis. I'm not just now jumping on the bandwagon - this is my career and dedication to helping people learn the ukulele and have a lifetime of joy.

See my Teaching Philosophy ➜ page and the links below for how I approach lessons and students.

• 3 Ways to Study with Curt ➜
• What's Different About LearningUkulele.com? ➜
• Private Lessons ➜
• The Elements of a Successful Music Program ➜
• The Study of Music Today ➜

Lil' Rev wrote an article about me for the 2019 Summer Issue of Ukulele Magazine.

• Don't Get Around Much Anymore: the Muse and Magic of JAZZ UKULELE MAVEN CURT SHELLER by Lil' Rev ➜

Adding new videos daily to lessons.

Here are the lessons that I added videos to over the last several days.

• Movable Chords
• Common Tunings
• Tuning Your `Ukulele
• Basic I VI II V Introduction in Key of C
• I Idim7 II V Introduction in Key of C
• The Hawaiian Turnaround in key C
• Triplet Based Strums - 12/8

Here in the USA were are only a few weeks behind what Italy and now Europe are going throught with COVID-19. Our Sta: Pennslyvana has request that all retail (I own Funky Frets Music Store with my wife and daughter) to close for 2 weeks. Nor retail and not lessons (that's a hit). However beats the alternative and hopefully we can, as they say "Flatten the Curve" and not overwhelm the hospitals and medical community.

With that in mind I'm taking the time to add a lot of videos to the lessons on LearningUkulele.com. I'm starting with the short lessons and we expand from there. We have two weeks but I have a feeling that it will be longer based on the idiots around here that are not taking the guidlines for dealing with this heart for the sake of the wider community.

Most videos will be for paid members as it is a lot of work.

60 Chord a Day Videos Down and 30+ To Go

Into March and have recorded 60 plus views for the Learn A New Chord A Day series of lessons. After March done wil be recording lessons for the Alternating Thumb Fingerpicking book, the Second Edition. This will be a masses series of lessons for members with Premium Site Access.

Checkout the Chord A Day Series and learn more than you need to know for each chord n the series.

Been hot on the trail of updatings lessons, songs and the site in general. Be sure to checkout the New and Updated Lessons, New and Updated Songs pages.

Have shot and edited 60 videos so far for the Chord A Day Series and a few other lessons.

Checkout the Learning the Ukulele Fingerboard - C Tuning, Key Frets lessons and get a jump on finally learning the ukulele fingereboard.

Started the Alternating Thumb Series of lessons. And, will continuer with the Fingerboard series and throw in a few songs. Let me kno if you would like a particular lessons or song as the subject of a video.

January 2020 has been very busy around LearngingUkulele.com.

Computer died and had to get a new iMac after 7 years. Really did need a new one after all. Transfer was easy as I do pretty throught backups off-site everyday with MEGASync and Backblaze. As well as Apple's built-in TimeMachine. So,hopefully all is covered.

Lessons

Finally, finally started shooting videos for lessons. Started with some easy and fast ones for the Chord A Day Series. January done and Feburary started.

Books

ALL of my (Curt Sheller) books are viewable on-line, every page. Just like a book store you can read it in the syore / on-line if you like and never actually pay for it - not nice but OK. I fou like it send some money as it help cover the costs of running, hosting, editing, creating content for all this.

If you would like to get FULL access and download all my books simple sing up for an all acces site plan.

Member Features

Added the abaility for me to assign lessons, songs, books that will show up on your member page. I use this for on-line and private students. You can actually assign yourself any of these. Along with favorites and completed lesson you should be able to track what you are working on.

A lot more coming in 2020.

I've used the site to catalog all my material and make it avalable to the on-line ukulele community and learn some new coding stuff as I'm it feeds my appetite for learngin new stuff.

January videos are in the can and shooting February videos for the Chord a Day Series.

A lot of videos coming on 2020.

What is the best way to make a decision on whether to buy one of my books?

The answer is to get to view/test drive the entire contents of the book just like you would at a book store - remember them. It then becomes easy to make a decision to buy it.

You can now do just that with ALL of my books that are available on-line, only available on'line here on LearngingUkulelel.com

Checkout my new book: Fingerpicking for Ukulele - Alternating Thumb Style. You can view/test drive the entire book online before deciding to buy and support the site and my efforts.

For 2020 I'm no longer allowing FREE downloads for any of my books to non, paid site members.

All my books can be viewed on-line for FREE to help make your decision before downloading or buyiny. That's the waw it should be - just like when you visit a book store. You can see what you are getting and whether it is of value.

I just can not justify the amount of effort and cost that goes into FREE material for non paid members.

The the books that where free are now either $1 or $3 or pay more if you like.

The Learn a New Chord Each Day!!! series, first publish in 2013 is getting a video for each chord for 2020. There are actually a few up already with more to come.

Start with the Chord a Day, January 1st - C, the infamous C chord - the first chord most players first learn.

The first week of January's videos are up and available.

God Bless the Child is a song written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr. in 1939. It was first recorded on May 9, 1941 and released by the Okeh Records in 1942.

There is a leadsheet and playalong track now available.

Here is a great fingering for that pesky open position D chord.

This is fingering follows effecient fingering principles of playing notes right behind the frets.

Sprinkling the site with links to gear goodies that I use and recommend. Buying through these links help support the site.

I guess I just announced it. I'm running a $199 Forever Membership sale until the end of the year (2019).

If your like me you might not a big fan of all the subscription offers. I understand the reason for a steady revenue stream. The problem is keeping track of the subscriptions that I have bought and when they hit my account.

So - just pay once and be done with it. ALL Forever members are Premium / Gold site members and get access to all of my books, lessons, songs, etc... That alone is worth the one time cost. Forever members also get to jump the queue when I respond to emails and inquires.