When a musician dies, we hear and play his or her music. When I learned of Peter Yarrow‘s passing this morning, I immediately heard “Puff the Magic Dragon.” Travis picking on the chord progression, which is very similar to that of Pachelbel’s famous canon, makes a lot more sense than the chords I chose in my previous blog post on travis picking exercises.
The fingerpicking motions for high and low G ukuleles are exactly the same though the sounds produced are different.
As we near the end of the year of the dragon, I am reminded of fond memories of playing “Puff the Magic Dragon” in our 3 Chord Thursday sessions in Zoom as well as in person. I included a segment of this song in my medley based on Pachelbel’s Canon.
Practice suggestions
Don’t immediately jump into using pima fingers (four fingers of right hand). Try using just the thumb and index. Then thumb, index, and middle. Repeat each section until fluid and fluent.
Can you come up with your own variation on Travis Picking?
Access to the sheet music
- There are 7 variations of 8-bar exercises, on three pages. One set for low G ukulele. One set for high G ukulele.
- The pdfs will be e-mailed to all those who registered and paid for the 8-week Ukulele Winter 2025 course. See the Classes Webpage for further details.
- Annual subscribers to 3 Chord Thursday 2025 may request and receive these new arrangements as part of their package, for supporting the thematic song sessions for 2025.
- In due course, these arrangements will be available for purchase.
Notification of new and updated work
There is no ONE way to find out. The best way is ALL the ways.
- Sign up for the celebrated Ukulele Enthusiast e-blast (newsletter) to get on the mailing list for notification of such new arrangements. Use the Google Form.
- Subscribe to this website to get instant notification of these daily tabs. Use the form at the top right hand corner of any webpage.
- Subscribe to the YouTube Channel to get notification of new livestreams and uploads. It’s my intention to record my new work within a week of publishing on this website.
Catalog of new music by Anne Ku
Below is what I know and have done so far and what I plan to do for this week. Each piece is followed by exercises to prepare and support that piece. The “day” column refers to the day in the project, starting on the 1st day of 2025. As you can see, I am several days ahead.
| Day | Title / Topic | Keys | Type | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Greensleeves / What Child Is This | Em, Fm, Gm, Am | Lead Sheet Chord Melody | sample score, video |
| 2 | Andalusian Cadence | Am, Gm | Arpeggio Accompaniment | sample score |
| 3 | Auld Lang Syne for high G ukulele | F, G | Lead Sheet Chord Melody | sample score, playalong video |
| 4 | Left Hand Techniques | G | Lead Sheet | definition, sample score |
| 5 | On Top of Spaghetti | C | Chord Melody | playalong video |
| 6 | Auld Lang Syne in F for low G ukulele | F, C | Chord Melody | playalong video |
| 7 | Feed the Birds | Em, Am | Lead Sheet, Chord Melody | sample scores |
| 8 | Accompaniment in 3/4 Time | Am | High G ukulele | sample scores |
| 9 | Accompaniment exercises in 3/4 Time | Am | Low G ukulele | sample scores |
| 10 | Strum & Fingerpick Exercise in 3/4 Time | C | high or low G ukulele | sample scores |
| 11 | Exercise for Waltz Accompaniment | C | high or low G ukulele | sample scores |
| 12 | Oh Susanna! | C | high or low G ukulele | sample scores |
| 13 | Travis Picking exercises | C | high and low G ukulele | sample scores |
| 14 | Puff the Magic Dragon 7 Travis Picking variations | C | high and low G ukulele | sample scores |
| 15 | We Shall Overcome | C | high and low G ukulele | sample scores |