Playing by Ear

Learning to play by ear is the ultimate goal when learning any musicial instrument. This series of lessons is designed to get you to that goal. Whether it's melodies or chords, it can be done.

Understanding Intervals

An interval is the distance between two notes. An interval has a name and a type. Intervals can be played one note (melodic) or two notes (harmonic) at a time, ascending or descending.

Simple and Compound Intervals are taken from a major scale.

Chromatic Intervals are NOT taken from a major scale. They are derived from the diatonic intervals.

This series is all about understanding intervals.

Getting Started Series of `Ukulele Lessons

This series of lessons is intended to take a beginning ukulele player, just Getting Started through the basics. Your goal, as well as mine, is to help you create a solid foundation for future learning and development with this fun, cool instrument - the `ukulele. This series of lessons are also a great refresher for all players who've been playing for awhile or are in a position to offer assistance or advice to fellow players.

Spend at least one week, if not more on the material presented in each lesson. Each one builds on the previous series of lessons. Take as much time as needed with each task. Skipping or rushing through will only come back to haunt you later down the road. You miss a lot when taking shortcuts or skipping around.

Suggesting and recommending lessons to visitors and players that haven’t had the benefit of a one-on-one personal evaluation with me is a bit of a challenge. Just as any one book does not address anyone player and their needs, a series of lessons has to be somewhat generic and cover a lot of material. Think of each set of lessons as a menu of choices.

They're over 600 currently available lessons online and counting for ukulele that I’ve created over the years. If you don’t see a particular topic or specific task you’re looking for I probably have something here or can create a lesson to address your needs.

Reading Music on Ukulele - Primer

There are a few things in music that students and players avoid. These are things like learning to read and knowing the notes of their own instrument. It is hard on guitar - but not so hard on ukulele. With the right guidance and plan of attack. IT IS EASY.

It is really quite easy on a uke. Starting with natural notes in in the open position you can finally check off the Reading Music to do item.

Learning to read standard music notation is really, really easy.