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Oooh, we’re Radiohead. We’re not going to abide by bourgeois constructs like time signatures.

Bastards. Makes this one quite tricky to play.

In case your eye-sight is a bit blurry, the first full chord is a dotted crotchet rather than a quaver. That chord is played with a down strum, the others are played with up strums.

I don’t mind putting up strumming patterns, but the question really demands a permanent solution for people’s strumming woes. So I’ve written a new ebook: How to Play Ukulele Strums. I’ve been promising this one to a lot of people for a long time but I’ve been holding it back until until I was satisfied that it would be able to give everyone a strong understanding of rhythm and more confidence in their strumming.

The problem is that there isn’t anything out there for the ukulele that gives you the ideas behind strumming patterns so you can work out strums for songs and come up with your own. They just give you a few patterns and leave you to get on with it. My aim with this ebook is to give you the knowledge to understand what’s going on behind the strums so you can play along with any song you choose.

How to Play Ukulele Strums

Price: $17 $14 until Wednesday 22nd July

Get Your Timing Right

Knowing that a strumming pattern is down, up, up… is a good start, but you need to know how long each of those strums is supposed to last. So I’ve come up with a ukulele-brand based method that will help you get you strumming at the right time. It’s a case of matching up words to the length of the strums. It’s a simple way of doing it but it works great.

Never Be Stuck for a Strumming Pattern

Of course, I’m not going to neglect the strumming patterns themselves. The ebook contains a whole bunch of basic strumming patterns and some advanced ones in the style of ACDC, Nirvana, James Brown, Bo Diddley, The Specials and Bob Marley. There are mp3s of all the patterns (including slow and fast versions of most of them).

Get Your Technique Down

If you ever have problems with your arm getting tired after strumming, or your playing doesn’t sound bright enough, or your strumming sounds a little raggedy, or you can’t get your chnking down; the ebook will help you sort out your technical gremlins. There are videos of the various techniques including basic strums, chnks, muting and triplets.

Who Is It For?

This one is aimed at beginners and improvers who have learnt the basics but feel like there’s something about strumming that they’re just not getting. If you have trouble taking chord charts and matching them up to the song, or you feel like you’re muddling through and winging it a bit; it’ll increase your knowledge and confidence and improve your playing.

Everything is explained really simply, so you don’t need to have any knowledge of musical theory going into the ebook.

What Do I Get?

You’ll get a pdf file of the ebook and a pdf of a printable version of the file. You’ll also get mp3s files and WMV video files. They’ll all be in zip files (check out the FAQ page for more info).

This one is slightly different to the way I’ve done it in the past. There are so many mp3s and videos that it made it too big for a single download. So you’ll get the pdf files as a single download (the same as my other ebooks) and the mp3s and videos will be a separate download. The links to all of them will be emailed to you automatically as soon as you buy.

Guarantee

If you check out the ebook and you decide it isn’t for you, let me know within 7 days of purchasing and I’ll give you a full refund. Just email me and let me know the email address you bought it with - you don’t need to give me a reason or anything. If the ebook doesn’t make you a better player, I don’t want your money (because swimming around in it, Scrooge McDuck style, is only fun if you’ve earned it).

How Can I Buy It? And How Much Is It?

The ebook is going to be $17, but you early birds can get it for $14 until the end of Wednesday 22nd July. To order it click ‘Add to Basket’.

How to Play Ukulele Strums

Price: $17 $14 until Wednesday 22nd July

If you’re reading this via email, head on over to the blog to get it.

Once you’ve paid, click ‘Complete Purchase’ to be taken to the download page. You’ll also be sent a link to the download page by email. So don’t worry if you miss it.

If you have any questions, leave a comment or send me a message.

Contents

The full contents of the ebook:

Introduction

1 Strumming Basics

1.1 Strumming Hand
1.2 Holding the Ukulele While Strumming
1.3 Where to Strum
1.4 How to Strum

2 Musical Basics

2.1 Tempo
2.2 Bars
2.3 Notation
2.4 Working Out Time Signatures
2.5 Exercises
2.6 Time Signatures and Metronomes

3 First Strumming Patterns

3.1 Down, Down, Down, Down
3.2 Down, Up, Down, Up, Down, Up, Down, Up
3.3 Notating Strums

4 Rhythm Basics

4.1 Foot Tapping and Counting Out
4.2 Mnemonics

5 Strumming Patterns

5.1 Ups and Downs
5.2 First Choice Strumming Pattern
5.3 Strumming Patterns in 4/4
5.4 Chord Changes Within Bars
5.5 Strumming Patterns in 3/4
5.6 Swing Strums
5.7 Strong Strums

6 Chnks and Mutes

6.1 Chnks
6.2 Mutes
6.3 Complex Strumming Patterns

7 Working Out Strumming Patterns

8 Advanced Strumming Techniques

8.1 Semi Quavers
8.2 Touch Strums
8.3 Triplet Strums
8.4 Changing Bar Lengths

9 Strumming and Genres

9.1 Blues Strumming
9.2 Bo Diddley Strumming
9.3 Reggae and Ska Strumming
9.4 James Brown Strumming

10 Strumming in Tabs

11 Conclusion

12 Exercise Answers

How to Play Ukulele Strums

Price: $17 $14 until Wednesday 22nd July

Cover photo: New ukulele day! by Monsieur Gordon

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As a companion to the Guitar Riffs for Ukulele series, I thought I’d do a set of ‘Not Guitar Riffs for Ukulele’ - mostly piano/keyboard stuff. And I don’t think I could start anywhere other than this. Sampled from Freddie Scott and made a million times better by Biz Markie.

When you’re playing this one on uke it’s worth adding in a few supporting strums between the notes. Which is what I did when I quoted it at the end of my version of Gossip

Come on, kids, pffff ha, pffff ha.

I’ve had Casey James’s Song Birds and Ghetto Blasters on pretty much constant repeat the last few days. And have spent much of that time dancing like a defective robot with a huge grin on my face. It sounds like Flight of the Conchords parodying a collaboration between Beck and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. Except even better than that.

He has the entire EP up for free download on his website (it’s the one on the right hand side). There are also two other non-uke albums up there.

I Wanna Be Like You (Chords)

This one is a big favourite with ukulele groups (as ably demonstrated by the Hull Ukulele Group). But it could have been written for Hobbit to sing. It’s a perfect fit. Which is a whole lot more than you can say about the Jonas Brothers. I somehow find it hard to believe they spend anguished nights desperately wishing they could rid themselves of their wild instincts and join respectable society.

Although they do have a glint in their eyes which seems to say, “Teach me to destroy so I may be truly respected.”

Suggested Strumming Pattern

d - d u - u d u

Twice for each chord until you get to G7. Just one strum for that. Then the pattern twice for C and A7, once for D7, once for G7.

Next bit is a little tricky timing wise. Strum the pattern once for C. Then down once on C and down three times on G7.

Twiddly Bits

The intro goes like this:

Also on the C and A7 in the chorus Hobbit is switching between the chords and strumming all the strings open.

Buy the original.
Buy Snake Suspenderz stuff.

1920’s Martin 5K? Yes please.

Looks like eBay might be cracking down on annoying sellers who use ‘Martin 5K’ to attract eyeballs. This O.M. Tibbs ukulele, despite being a long way removed from a Martin 5K and having ‘L@@@@K’ in the title, is still worth a glance.

An Aaron Keim made Beansprout ukulele made from a salvaged train trestle and cast-off bits of porch.

This is how I should be spending my summer.

The photographer called her the ‘Hawaiian Butterfly’. The eBay seller was less kind.

Best friend of the blog, Jenny Flame has designed a ukulele t-shirt.

Channel 4 cover the ukulele phenomenon. And with the name ‘Rags Martel’ that guy should really play the uke.

This video is incredibly frustrating. For those of you who don’t know, Cory McAbee is the director and star of American Astronaut (one of my favourite films of all time) and the uke-featuring follow-up Stingray Sam (which I am dying to see).

MP3s: SoTB has Francois Peglau. L’Amour Electronique has a track from Mareva Galanter.

GlabUke is a free piece of ukulele software. It claims to transpose uke tab, but as far as I can tell it can only handle chords.

I’m not too keen on this idea for a ukulele stand.

This photo is tagged ‘ukulele’. I couldn’t make one out, but it’s a great picuter either way.

Snake Suspenderz - Daisy Fraser (Chords)

I think Snake Suspenderz, led by the legendary Howlin’ Hobbit, are a great act. They have some jazzy touches that make their songs interesting but they never stray far away from a hook. And Daisy Fraser, from the A Few Loose Scales EP is one of my favourites.

I’m not quite sure on some of the lyrics. But, by the looks of it, neither is Hobbit.

Buy it on SongSlide on a pay-what-you-like basis. And you can get their CDs on their website.