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Learning Ukulele with Curt

New & Updated Site Pages Prior to 2023

Beyond the Lessons, Songs, Books, Lesson Series, and Related Assets that are a big part of theLearning Ukulele with Curt site, there are a lot of pages and reference material related to the ukulele regarding the musicians, teachers, festivals, clubs, gear, strings and on and one that I have collected and posted to LearningUkulele.com.

This is where I – (Curt) will hopefully keep you updated on the pages that have been changed, added, or been edited. For Lessons , Songs , and Books checkout their respective home pages.

2023 Updates

LearningUkulele.com & Learning Ukulele with Curt • 20 Years of `Ukulele greatness

December

Adding Melodies

For songs in the Public Domain LearningUkulele.com is adding the melody, the first phrase in standard music notation, TAB, and an audio sample for the songs as an aide for learning some of the less popular songs.

All Through The Night

C Tuning, Low or Low G
November
  • NEW & UPDATED Instrument Cables pages with Wireless recommendations: Bottom line, get either a Shure BLX14R Wireless Guitar System or the Shure GLXD16 Wireless Guitar Pedal System with Built in tuner.
  • NEW Wake Up Little Susie with Performance Notes and TAB. Play it just like The Everly Brother recording.
  • NEW Eight Days A Week with Performance Notes and TAB. Play it just like George Harrison did.
  • NEW Bye Bye Love with Performance Notes and TAB. Used The Everly Brothers' hit as reference.
  • NEW Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah from the Disney 1946 live action and animated movie Song of the South.
  • NEW Bad, Bad Leroy Brown with Performance Notes, TAB and Audio example accompaniment.
  • UPDATED Brown Eyed Girl in the Key of C as n the Daily Ukulele books and the original key of G.
  • NEW Proud Mary
  • NEW Tonight You Belong to Me
  • more in the works for 2023 …
  • UPDATED Added the Intros and Fills to the Performance Notesfor the Keys of C and G to Brown Eyed Girl . This is one of those songs that you should know, at a minimum in two keys.
  • NEW Added the Intro and 1st and 2nd Endings fills as played by Lyle Ritz to Tonight You Belong To Me . Learn these as Lyle played them on the soundtrack for the Steve Martin movie, The Jerk.
October
  • NEW Added the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night to the Daily Ukulele — 365 Songs for Better Living Harmonic Analysis Series of Lessons. Learn how to simulate the most famous first chord in music.
  • NEW Added the Buddy Holly 1957 No. 1 hit, That'll Be The Day to the Daily Ukulele — 365 Songs for Better Living Harmonic Analysis Series of Lessons. Add the Intro for Ukulele groups to turn this song into a performance and not just strum along.
  • NEW Added The Monkees 1966 first #1 hit, Last Train To Clarksville to the Daily Ukulele — 365 Songs for Better Living Harmonic Analysis Series of Lessons. Add the Intro & Solos to the for Ukulele groups to turn this song into a performance and not just strum along. This song will go great with their 1967 #1 hit, I'm A Believer
  • NEW A PDF Leadsheet in Standard Music Notation and Ukulele TAB of Curt's every evolving original song, Pony Express . An original Bluegrass inspired song. Also posted a video from Curt's Live performance at 2023 NJ Uke Fest.

Added a super close approximation of the Intro from the song, Happy Together by The Turtles's from the original recording transposed F#m to Dm .

Introduction & Verse Accompaniment Riff/Lick/Figure.
Continue for Chords of the Verse: Dm C Bb A .

September
  • NEW Rocky Top , Rock Around The Clock , Under The Boardwalk , Mele Kalimaka added to The Daily Ukulele, a.k.a, Yellow Book Harmonic Analysis Worksheets series of lessons.
  • UPDATED Updates to the Jazz Repertoire and Blues Repertoire . Curt presented two workshop this past weekend on Exploring Jazz and Blues at the 2023 New Jersey Uke Fest — Great to back in NJ. Both drawn right from these pages.
  • 2023 and summer in the Northern Hemisphere is winding down, kids are back to schools, vacations ending. Good time for one to get back into more ukulele and learn a few new songs and in my case (Curt) re-learn a few of my old sons. Update the leadsheets to any tweaks I've made to my arrangements.
  • UPDATED Added the Songs , updates to a lot of the songs. It's about playing songs.
August
July
  • UPDATED — Finally figured out getting the Sidebar Navigation to show and hide depending on the screen size. You can also finally, using the burger menu button to show and hide the Sidebar one mobile (smaller screens).

Located in the upper left hand corner of the page.
June
May
  • UPDATED and this Week's Featured Lesson: Major Arpeggios in Five Positions • When it comes to chords, it's important to understand the notes they consist of and their intervals. Each chord is made up of a combination of specific notes, and the intervals between these notes determine the chord's quality and character. By learning the names and intervals of the notes in a chord, you can understand its structure and how it functions within a particular musical context.
  • NEW UPDATED Added Tiny Tim to the Ukulele History Timeline .
  • NEW UPDATED updated ALL festival listings I could and added a few new one.
  • NEW UPDATED and Expanded, 2nd Edition of QuickStart Scale Fingerings for Ukulele, Volume I, C Tuning book. THis is a FREE version for ALL Premium Members. However, anyone can view the entire book online, albeit a smaller version depending on your computer screen.
  • NEW UPDATED leadsheets for the Bobby Timmons's classic, Moanin' . Now includes bot the original key of Fm chart matching the Premium Play-along track and a Ukulele friendly key of Cm leadsheet.
  • NEW Added Ryan's Ukes to the Ukulele Luthiers listing. I, (Curt) meet Ray at the 2023 Allegheny Ukulele Soirée and he builds some amazing ukulele.
  • UPDATED • LESSONSeries Churning through the songs in the the songs in the Daily Ukulele (the Yellow Book) and performing an harmonic analysis on selected songs (70+ done as of May 1st) using the principles from my (Curt) book: Harmonic Analysis for Scale and Chord Selection . Checkout the Daily Ukulele Song Index for the songs that are done. We'll be adding songs as they are done. Let Curt if there are any songs you would like tackled.
April
March
February

We'll let you know the result February 2nd, Ground Hoq Day.

Punxsutawney Phil

(wikiwand) · Punxsutawney Phil is the name given to a groundhog residing in Young Township near Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, who is the central figure in Punxsutawney's annual Groundhog Day celebration. The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in a Celtic and Germanic tradition that says that if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on February 2, the pagan holiday of Imbolc (known among Christians as Candlemas), winter and cold weather will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early. In Germany, the tradition evolved into a myth that if the sun came out on Candlemas, a hedgehog would cast its shadow, predicting snow all the way into May.[9] When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, they transferred the tradition onto local fauna, replacing hedgehogs with groundhogs. Several other towns in the region hold similar Groundhog Day events.

Gobblers-Knob

Gobbler's Knob — Miniature replica at MRRV, Carnegie Science Center , Pittsburg

There are quite a few towns that have their own ground hog seasonal prognosticator: Balzac Billy, Balzac, Alberta, Canada • Milltown Mel, Milltown, New Jersey, USA, General Beauregard Lee, George, USA for Southern USA • Staten Island Chuck, Staten Island, New York City, USA.
January
  • NEW • Added Bonanza Ukuleles to the Instrument Manufactures & Luthiers listings. Couldn't find any place on their site for what state they live in. Do know they are in the USA.
  • UPDATED • Updates to Open Position Chords and Their Movable Forms Series . This is a great companion to the Learn A Chord A Day Series .
  • NEW • Added Triad information to January's Chord a Day chords .
  • NEW • Finally got around to implementing Instant PDF Downloads when buying a PDF (working through getting all PDFs for instant download.) to the site. I no longer have to be sure to catch an email that a PDF has been purchased. You will get an email with a download link right after purchase to download the file.
  • UPDATED • The Learn a New Chord Each Day!!! series has been updated with the common Harmonic Functions of the chords This series was started 2013 and has been added to and updated each year ever since.
  • NEW • Added Root Position piano chords to January's The Learn a New Chord Each Day!!! . This is great for adding a bit of piano to your repertoire. Especially with the ability to do your own home recording. The later great jazz ukulele player, Lyle Ritz , one of the Wrecking Crew session bassists. Did the bass on a his CD, No Frills ukulele CD on a MIDI keyboard direct into a MacBook.

2022 Updates

December
November
  • UPDATED Ear Training – Pitch Recognition lesson page updated with a few new songs to use for identifying intervals.
  • UPDATED 2023 Festivals Being Updated • Going through all the listed festivals for 2022 and checking for 2023 dates. If anyone knows of a festival that is missing from LearningUkulele.com, please let me know. We do have the best collection of festival listings on the web . Don't want to miss any festivals, as more are coming back live.
  • UPDATED Going through and adding Open Position Chords to a lot of songs .
  • UPDATED the FREE Open Position Chords lesson.
  • UPDATED added open position chords to the Pink Panther song lesson.
  • NEW Sent out the first Site Newsletter in a long time. Goal is to keep site members better informed.
  • NEW Endless tweaking of the site navigation continues. With sooooooo much available on LearningUkulele.com navigation and organization is an endless battle. Remember that Using Search is always a great option — let the computer do what it is good at doing.
October
September
  • UPDATED My (Curt's) String Recommendations on the Ukulele Strings . My custom set I put together is available now.
  • NEW Added the Fats Waller song Ain't Misbehaven' . This is the song that the Funky Frets Uke Players are performing to open the 2022 Funky Frets Uke Fest , in Boyertown, PA USA October 7, 2022.
  • UPDATED The Latest News page has been updated.
  • UPDATED Glossary of Music Terms
  • NEW • The ukulele is all about community and sharing. And, what better place to develop the LearningUkulele.com community than with its own LearningUkulele.com Discord server Chime in and help grow the LearningUkulele.com community.
  • NEW • Back to School SALE In the Northern Hemisphere this is the Back to School season. Vacations are over and everyone is settling into their new routine. Starting September 1st there is a sale on the Forever Premium Site Membership. and save $80 (USD). This IS a great deal that I don't know how long I'll run it.
  • NEW • Tag any listing as a favorite for later recall. Favorite can be accessed from your User Profile
  • UPDATED • Lots of updated site sections. Getting to updating all the festival site for their dates for 2023 that I run across. I'm visiting previous festivals to see if they are doing 2023. Let me know of any to visit and add or updated on teh site.
August
  • UPDATED • The Copyright Resources & Links .
  • UPDATED • The Ukulele Strings pages.
  • UPDATED • The FAQ page. FAQ pages and GLossary pages are a great resources for information and little tidbits of musical knowledge that can go a long way in enhancing your enjoyment of music and your chose instruments(s).
  • UPDATED • The Blues pages. Added a few blues style descriptions. Will be adding a further analysis of the styles for playing on ukulele. Updated the Repertoire, Improvisation page.
  • UPDATED • July and August has seen massive amounts of work and changes go into LearningUkulele.com / Learning Ukulele with Curt. A NEW site color theme, added more related links to the lessons, books, songs, and workshops.
  • NEW • Added a Tuning page and Metronome page . Get in Tune and Play in Time!

NEW User Profile Access Menu

Members can now access their Favorites, Completed Lessons, Assets & Assignments and if a Private Student their Lesson Notes through a handy dandy dropdown menu by clicking on their profile avatar in the upper right hand corner of the page.
July
  • UPDATED • Lessons — Checkout the Main Lessons Page and view by Last Updated for all the changes and updated lessons..
  • NEW From the Performance Archives — Posted a few songs from previous performances. As typical of most artists and performers we are not always totally, un-conditionally happy with a performance. So, I'm presenting these with musical warts and all.
  • NEW User Profile Menu for accessing their Favorites, Completed Lessons, Assets & Assignments.
  • The Annual Summer Site Cleanup for 2022 and, in the biz, a re-factoring has started. Expect a lot of new goodness around LearningUkulele.com.
June
May
  • Ukulele Festivals pages has been updated with 2022 dates and NEW festivals. As, festivals are getting back to live, in-person festivals. I've slowly been updating and adding new festivals.
April
  • Ukulele Strings page has been updated. Fellow ukulele players are always asking Can I get the strings you use?. Yes, you can — I'm packaging up my custom set that I've been using, for years and making them available thru our family music store, Funky Frets. Look for these over the next couple of weeks.
March

WOW!, I actually keep this up for a year — might actually keep it going.
February
January

2021 Updates

December
November
  • Added my Moanin, Premium play-along Track , Moan', the Bobby Timmons, first recorded by Art Blakey's band on the 1958 album of the same title. The play-along is available to ALL Gold members.
  • Reading Songs & Leadsheets • Playing music, especially the ukulele is all about getting together with others and playing songs. Reading music opens you to a world of music beyond the ukulele. And, It's not as hard as you might think to read chord charts, leadsheets, fake books, and learning your way through a song's roadmap.
  • The Lessons , Series , Books , Songs , Songs , and Songs , search pages have been update with more sorting.
October
September
August
  • NEW lesson added on Voice Leading . Voice Leading is the smooth connection of one chord to another. The concept is pretty simple and only has two (2) principles. This makes the 699 lesson on LearningUkulele.com, Learning Ukulele with Curt. One more to go for 700.
  • NEW Added barre to the Glossary of Music Terms .
  • UPDATED The History of the `Ukulele page. There several great books available on the history, the instruments, and the adventures of the ukulele available and worth checking out. Added the book: The Martin Ukulele: The Little Instrument That Helped Create a Guitar Giant. I have this book it is a really good history of Martin GUitar and the Ukulele.
  • UPDATED The Six Secrets of Ukulele Fingering book. A bunch of the examples have been fixed - especially the Contraction examples. Download the new updated book if you this book and you should have this book t you really want to learn how t=oe navigate the ukulele fingerboard and take advantage of all the possible pathways possible.
July
June
May
  • New Page: • Open Mic Etiquette page. • Here are few tips to joining in on an Open Mic, Jam Session, Kanakapila — virtual or in-person.
April
  • UPDATED • Amplifying Your Ukulele: Pickups page. • "Passive, Active, Electric" – Just what does all that have to do with getting my ukulele louder? This page goes a long way in helping you understand just what is involved in getting your ukulele louder.
  • NEW • Jazz Ukulele: Additional page. • The Jazz Guitar community has a wealth of knowledge and resources that we can draw from. This new page will highlights a few of the better resources that I have come across. My original two web sites that I created that ultimately morphed in LearningUkulele.com where my original guitarresources.com and jazzguitarresources.com.
March

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Forever Access - With Forever Premium Access, you get ALL the benefits of a Premium Access Subscription such as Unlimited 24/7 access to ALL lessons, downloads, songs, play-along jam tracks, videos, email access to Curt, resources, related assets, and ALL books by Curt as FREE downloads. Pretty much everything on the site, and NEVER worry about a subscription or surprise payment again. And jump the queue for responding to any questions.

If you're anything like me (Curt) and getting Subscription overloaded with everything and everybody on-line wanting money from you once a month — I'm with you. For like-minded individuals, this forever plan is a pay once, and you're done.

The price for Unlimited Forever access is right around the cost of a few months of private lessons. I can guarantee there is more than enough material on-line to keep you busy for a long, long time. And, you get all of my books for FREE. That alone is more than the cost of this plan.

Premium Access - This premium gives you Unlimited 24/7 access to ALL lessons, downloads, songs, play-along jam tracks, videos, email access to Curt, resources and related assets. As well as ALL books by Curt Sheller as FREE downloads.

Basic Access - A limited selection of basic lessons — ( currently over 140 ) and 100+ songs for ukulele as well as basic general music reference material — Completely FREE — Simply Register/Signup. HOWEVER - I've been doing ukulele and LearningUkulele.com since 2003 and probably have given too much away already - as reflected in my income from the site in relationship to the time spent on the site. So help support this site and its continued development by signing up for one of the below Premium Access Plans or buy a few of my books. - Thanks, Curt

NOTE: Each higher access level includes ALL the benefits of the lower levels. Private Lessons include all the benefits of a Premium Access Plans as long as you remain a student on the schedule.

Just browsing over both books, they look fantastic! I'm a guitarist and uke player for over 25 years and was thinking about writing a ukulele book but you've already written what I think are the best, most comprehensive and thorough books I've ever seen for the instrument. I just might end up buying every book you've written and I'll be giving my highest recommendation for your books to my friends and students. Thank you so much for taking the time to write such great books! — Peter Rhee

Aloha, Curt, All I can say is WOW! What you have accomplished is simply incredible! All the best — Glen Hirabayashi, The Aloha Boys

Folks, if you haven't stopped by Curt's site, do so right now! ..And get his books, they are fantastic. This guy knows his stuff and is able to pass it along too. — Alan Johnson Proprietor, The 4th Peg

I can highly recommend Curt's Uke books — I have four of them and they are excellent. — fatveg — Portland

Want to drop LearningUkulele.com & Learning Ukulele with Curt a nice comment . We always like to know how we are and you are doing. We'll post any comment, quotes throughout the site and you can help spread the word .

Thanks for visiting and checking out the site!

curtieAnim.gif rw.vg.gif

Original Curtie Animation from 1987 for my first web site on a Macintosh II, 37 years ago. Man, does time fly.

“Built for myself (Curt), and sharing with the `Ukulele community!”

LearningUkulele.com has one of the largest collections of lessons, songs, and TABS, Luthiers, ukulele builders, ukulele festival and club information, and, ukulele links on the web. Curt has been on the ®Internet since the early 1990's and This site just never stops growing!!!

Content is added and updated daily — so check back often. I really do need to get out more ;-)

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