On 1st January 2025, I declared my intention to write music every day. My daily music writing project is a testimony of my commitment to arranging and composing music for the ukulele so that I will publish and make my work available to a wider audience (not only my students). This blog post explains the motivation behind the project and a table of contents of my daily output with relevant links.
The Project
To get feedback, I share my writing daily through samples (extracts, excerpts), video recording, and sometimes the full work by PDF free for download.
Why daily?
To get good at something, I believe in doing it regularly and frequently. The constancy not only provides a steady pace but also helps build momentum.
Weave it into your daily schedule. Make it routine. Don’t allow time to “think about it” or give excuses. Just do it.
Along with doing it daily, I believe in making many. Don’t spend time perfecting one piece of work. Repeat the process. Recall the parable of the pottery class. Conclusion: quantity leads to quality.
I have personally benefitted from participating in daily projects. The 100 Days of Ukulele in 2022 and 2024 helped improve my playing and video recording / editing. It’s not necessary to participate in an existing project with other people, though doing so gets support (words of encouragement) from members of that group.
You can just declare your intention, like I’m doing now, and buld your own tribe to give support and feedback.
Making time
To open up my schedule for this daily music writing project, I announced to start 3 Chord Thursday thematic song session in Zoom later than usual and to meet only once per month, a total of 12 pre-scheduled Thursdays in the entire year.
How else to make time? I am taking a sabbatical from giving seasonal courses in piano and ukulele. This will be the first time I’m doing so since I started teaching online. This doesn’t mean that I won’t be offering classes and workshops, just not seasonal courses.
The Content
Writing Music
What do I mean by writing music?
When my students request to learn to play a song, I research to find song sheets, lead sheets, scores, video tutorials, covers etc. If I can’t find anything, I have to create the written material from scratch.
If I find something, I adapt it such as transcribing from notation or by ear, transposing to another key, or simplifying to make it possible to play at the skill level required. Often I arrange different versions for different skill levels and show different possibilities.
My students have asked for exercises to prepare to play a particular song. This means composing new music. Some have asked for video recordings but recording takes longer as it requires setting up and editing. I have to choose: write music or record it?
My final goal is to get my work published. Otherwise, only my students will see my arrangements and exercises — for THAT particular ukulele course or workshop.
Chord Switching Exercises
Since publishing my first ukulele book in 2020, I have been producing chord switching exercises (such as the one shown above) to get my students to think outside of the context of any particular song.
Practising such exercises without looking at your fretting hand and fingers will help you
- navigate the ukulele fretboard and learn to trust your fingers
- reduce errors in fingering and switching chords
- increase the speed in fingering and switching chords
- expand your chord vocabulary
- exercise your hands and fingers
- improve motoric coordination between eyes and fingers
My new book “Ukulele Exercises: Finger Fitness for Flexibility” contains 45 progressive chord switching exercises which explore what I call chord choreography.
Chord Representation by Fret Numbers
The numbers below the chord diagrams shown in the above image refer to the frets to press on each string.
Chord representation by fret numbers is an alternative to the visual method by chord diagrams.
The fret numbers are four digit numbers corresponding to the frets to press on the strings of the ukulele in order of G, C, E, A. Read and recite the numbers from the left to right as you are looking at the ukulele fret board.
One way to build your chord vocabulary is by memorizing chords. I have created many puzzles to help with this in my classes and the Ukulele Jeopardy Games in 3 Chord Thursday.
Ukulele Crossword Puzzles can refer to both words and numbers. Here’s an example from my Ukulele Puzzles book, which contains 12 puzzles not all of which are crossword. Some are fill in the blanks.
Access to the Sheet Music
Since my declaration to write music every day, I have posted daily blogs about my music, sometimes multiple versions of the same song in one post, sometimes multiple posts about one song or piece. The sample images in the blog posts will hopefully provide some insight into my work.
- 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.
- Use the ORDER FORM for arrangements, exercises, and other work by Anne Ku.
Notification of New and Updated Work
There is no ONE way to find out. The best way is ALL the ways below — just to be sure.
- Subscribe to this website to get instant notification of these daily tabs. Use the form at the top right hand corner of any webpage.
- 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 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.
- Sign up and participate in my free workshops – 3 Chord Thursday in Zoom, World Ukulele Day in Zoom, in-person in Cohasset, MA and forthcoming classes at the Boston Public Library in Massachusetts.
- Follow me on Facebook. Join 3 Chord Thursday on Facebook.
Catalog of New Work by Anne Ku
also known as Table of Contents of the Daily Music Writing Project.
I will update this page from now on.
| 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 |
| 16 | Can’t Help Falling in Love | C, F | high and low G ukulele | download lead sheet |
| 17 | Friday I’m in Love | F, G | high G ukulele | scores, play along videos |
| 18 | Happy Birthday for ukulele | F | high & low G ukulele | lead sheets, chord melody, score |
| 19 | Happy Birthday for high G ukulele | F, C | high G ukulele | chord melody scores |
| 20 | Body Surfing for easy ukulele | Gm | high and low G ukulele | samples of scores |
| 21 | Daily Music Writing Project | ukulele | chord switching exercise cross fret number puzzle | |
| 22 | Body Surfing for easy ukulele transposed | Am | high G ukulele | sample score, chords |
BONUS
As a test to see who is reading my blog post, here’s a challenge.
Write an exercise for the ukulele with all 12 chords from the puzzle shown above. Can you arrange the twelve chords so that they sound nice? Alternatively, can you order the chords in a progression that’s easy and fun for the fretting fingers? How about both? Can you write an instrumental piece or a song that uses these twelve chords?