Learn to play the ukelele

I’ve been making quite a bit of progress over the past week; I can now play 7 songs! I’ve tried my hand at a lot more, but the following came up easiest or most fun:

1. Dance Tonight – Paul McCartney – This is originally payed on a mandoline (so a ukelele sounds closer to it than a guitar) and I was addicted to the song last summer, so thats how it came to be the first one I tried

2. Ruby Tuesday – Rolling Stones – I was picking out songs for my new band and had enough of just one song on the ukelele so I tried this one; It’s a lot of fun to play, but as it’s such a slow song it’s easy to over-do it.

3. All Along the Watch Tower – Bob Dylan – just 3 chords in the entire song? I couldn’t resist… It’s also a good song for experimenting with different rythms and pauses.

4. Drops of Jupiter – Train – Another one that’s quite easy and it just sound really good

5. Sure Pinocchio – John Hiatt – I was originally going for “child of the wild blue yonder” but it was a bit too hard, so I looked at some other John Hiatt songs (The ones that were covered by dutch singer Ilse DeLange on her album ‘Dear John’) and this one just came up. It’s a bit quirky and a lot of fun to play and sing

6. The Back of my mind – John Hiatt – another one that came up, but this one’s slow and emotional the way Ilse plays it. It’s rather hard to sing and, again: mind your rythm – don’t go too fast or too much (pauses sound nice as well)

7. House of the rising sun – the Animals / Bob Dylan – So what if it’s corny? It’s really cool and the animals’ version is brilliant to sing!

I got my ukelele last december, because I happened to mention to my mum that it would be fun to paint a guitar… how’s that related, you ask? well, I like to think out loud and my reasoning went along the following lines:
“It would be awesome to paint a design on a guitar! I don’t suppose you would lend me your guitar for it? no, I thought so… well, I could buy one, but it’s a rather expensive joke. of course, I could start out with a ukelele! they’re cheaper at least – and hey, I might even actually play it…”

So she got it into her head I really wanted a ukelele and turns out she was right! I love it.
I could never much get the hang of guitar; it has too many strings – 4 strings is my thing (I’m a bass player) so the uke is perfect. plus the chord schemes for a ukelele are a lot easier, so I thought I could handle it.

Last week I got started on some songs and it’s going pretty well. I dare say my bass guitar is feeling neglected.

I want to learn to play the ukelele because my hands are small and it is difficult to learn to play the guitar. I bought a baritone uke off of eBay, but have yet to learn to play it. I want to entertain children with goofy, fun songs.

Choosing the color is the hard part :)

I want to be able to sing and play at the same time to entertain the kiddies I work with.

does this ukelele make me look fat

I was completely mesmerised after watching Jens Lekman’s Toronto show a year ago. He gave a 2 hour-long uke concert and had the entire crowd spell-bound for the entire time. Pure magic… Does anyone know if uke is much easier than guitar?

sigh

I saw a crazy video of this guy playing the ukelele on youtube. He was so good. Then I listened to a band that I like and discovered they have the ukele in some of their songs. It sounds so good just in the background and when its the main thing.