Ukulele Fall 2024 Course

The six-week Ukulele Course this season gives the option of online participation in Zoom as well as in-person in Boston, Massachusetts. This hybrid course begins in the third week of October with weekly 80-minute class sessions, ending in November 2024, with two additional optional classes pending agreement (just before Thanksgiving and 18th December, no extra charge).

As usual, every class session will be recorded for replay and review. The tuition includes all instructional material and videos; and membership in 3 Chord Thursday; with additional practice/rehearsal opportunities outside of class. Active participation in 3 Chord Thursday is highly encouraged.

Class Dates & Topics

Actual Schedule

• 10/16 Moon Over Ruined Castle – a famous Japanese song in a minor key
• 10/23 Autumn Leaves in a minor key; ukulele duet; chord melody (instrumental solo)
• 10/30 Halloween: Tubular Bells; Theme from Halloween; Addams Family Theme (campanella style)
• 11/6 Simple Gifts in a major key with MANY chords
• 11/13 harmonized C major exercises, cadences, common chord progressions, America the Beautiful
• 11/20  Silent Night
• 11/27 – For the Beauty of the Earth; optional (before Thanksgiving TBD)
• 12/18 – optional

Describe Yourself

Are you a vocalist (someone who can sing in tune and likes to sing) who would like to accompany yourself? Are you an instrumentalist, preferring not to sing but to focus on improving your playing? Are you both? Do you prefer to play by yourself (soloist) or with others (collaborator)? Do you aspire to perform in front of others or do recording?

Skill Level: advanced beginner to intermediate

Do you consider yourself a complete beginner (someone who just started playing the ukulele), an intermediate beginner (not a complete beginner anymore), or an advanced beginner — about to graduate to intermediate?

An intermediate player can read any chord diagram and mirror it on the ukulele. There are many strum patterns, especially the Calypso strum (also known as the Island strum) at your disposal. You can strum with different fingers and different sides of the fingers, producing different textures and dynamics (volume), including muting with left and right hands/fingers. You can pretty much play from any song sheet but you’re not yet able to create chord melody arrangements (instrumental solos) on the fly or from a lead sheet (lyrics, melody, and chords).

Skills Diagnostic (Assessment)

The following skills will be taught in this course. The answer may be “it depends,” such as in playing barre chords: Bb or E ? Is there something that’s obvious but not listed?

Class Schedule

Bespoke exercises will be assigned (extracted) from the forthcoming book “Ukulele Exercises: Cadences and Common Chord Progressions” for each class session as relevant to the themes. While this is a ukulele course, focussed on playing the ukulele, terminology and concepts from music theory will be introduced.

Pre-course pre-schedule

1st Class: Moon Over Ruined Castle in A minor; the most famous minor common chord progression; ways to “fill” a song; effective approach to learning new songs (creating an introduction, instrumental interlude, outro) and appropriate accompaniment

2nd Class: chromaticism in melodies, diminished chords, left hand technique to scare and spook, riffs (for Halloween)

3rd Class: different versions of a famous song in a minor key; high G vs low G; melody picking; accompaniment possibilities;

4th Class: two chords to many chords; harmonization and reharmonization; common chord progressions, exemplified in songs (but where in the song? verse? chorus / refrain? bridge?)

5th Class: harmonizaed C major scale exercises for high G ukulele (Campanella Style); cadences, hymns and holiday songs, modulate to extend and vary a piece (keep interesting)

6th Class: parallel major and minor for effect; deceptive cadence; Picardy third, as examplified in select songs;

7th Class (optional): requests and review of previous material

Learning Objectives

• build chord vocabulary
• improve sightreading of chords, tablature, and fretboard navigation
• apply effective approach to learning new pieces (songs)
• create a medley of songs based on a common chord progression
• take one song and include a modulation (change of key)
• expand library of accompaniment patterns (strum, fingerpicking, combination)

Testimonials

Ukulele Exercises (taster workshops) October 2024

Very well organized, engaging style, logical progression between topics. Headline would be UKULELE FOR GROWNUPS!

Anne always has such helpful class work for the ukulele. Whenever I take a class there is something new to learn and it is always fun.  There is class interaction as well as the new presentations by Anne.  Never a dull class because of all the information that is presented in a progressive way, from easy to more difficult. I would recommend Anne’s class to anyone wanting to learn the ukulele.

The workshop was an interesting introduction to several concepts that will help improve your ukulele playing – finger warm-ups, fingerstyle practice pieces, and a way to learn to harmonize with a melody. Led by an experienced ukulele teacher and musician.

The workshop was fun, enjoyable and educational. It made me think of the things I am/could do on an uke.

Very helpful workshop that helped me determine what to work on next to improve my ukulele playing skills.

I enjoyed Anne’s passionate teaching style.

Good brief introduction to what is available in her books.

The workshop opens the door to enhance your uke skills and get beyond the beginner levels.

I attended in person and benefitted from pre-workshop warm up activities such as how to position the right hand fingers to strum effectively for dynamic range. During class we had a chance to practice exercises with a partner. The tab puzzle with chords as clues and fret numbers as answers made it fun to reenforce where the left hand fingers go. I especially enjoyed the chord change exercise using one or two fingers as anchor to help the other finger(s) more to the right fret.

Ukulele Riffs & More! (Spring & Summer 2024)

This was an excellent course that helped the learner to play the riffs in famous pieces. It involved fingerstyle and chord melody, which I personally wanted to learn. It also made room for master-class style instruction as well as for group playing. I learned a lot!

Uke Riffs and More was a 3 session course, one hour each, to learn and practice fingerpicking and some strumming of well known pop songs. We learned several intro variations as well. Anne provided her usual good class instruction, helpful handouts, and friendly support.

Focusing in on a few select examples of riffs and runs on the ukulele definitely supported my skill development and equipped me to strengthen the use of more than just my thumb in plucking individual notes which had become my default way of playing notes. I am now more situated to get more out of my individual practice on the instrument. Being in a class with others was so much more productive on my own and the instructor was very responsive to the needs of the group. Very informative and enjoyable!

Additional testimonials from previous seasons

Registration

Register via the Google Form.

Other information

Order forthcoming books in the Ukulele Exercise Series (PDFs only)

Workshops, classes, courses, course descriptions, Fall 2024 Schedule