How to Learn Ukulele in 2024
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
2M ago
Will this be the year you finally learn ukulele? It can be… by focusing on the right things! No, you don’t need to memorize hundreds of ukulele chords to start playing actual music. It’s better to take a different approach. In this video, I cover the four things you need to do this year to learn how to play your ukulele proficiently and teach you to play an easy song. Tap Here to Get the 1-Page Printout Don’t let another year go by without learning ukulele! Here’s the four things you need to do to learn ukulele in 2024. #1: It’s All About the Strumming Forget about memorizing a gazillion chor ..read more
Visit website
How Often Should I Practice My Ukulele?
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
10M ago
Making the decision to learn a musical instrument like the ukulele is exciting, however as a beginner, you might be wondering: “How often should I practice?” How you answer this question lays the foundation for your ability to make the music you love! Let’s look at the optimal practice frequency for ukulele players at different skill levels – beginner, intermediate, and advanced. How Often Beginner Ukulele Players Should Practice When you first start playing, consistency is the most important thing. A beginner ukulele player should practice daily for at least 15 minutes. Avoid long multi ..read more
Visit website
3 Strumming Exercises to Improve Your Feel For Rhythm
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
10M ago
How do you “feel” the rhythm? Finding the groove when strumming your ukulele can be difficult but there is a way to improve. It starts with building what I like to call a “Strumming Vocabulary” where you practice simple strumming rhythm exercises – trust me, any level ukulele player can learn these with a little effort and improve their rhythm! With that vocab, you acquire the muscle memory to be able to just “feel” the beat. It all starts with playing some fun strumming pattern exercises. In this video lesson, I teach you three exercises to play on your ukulele that will help you: Get the fe ..read more
Visit website
5 Health Benefits of Learning Ukulele Backed by Science
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
11M ago
Being able to make music is a fulfilling and enriching endeavor regardless of age. But if you’re thinking about learning an instrument later in life, it’s important to know that engaging in this creative pursuit isn’t just about checking “Make Music” off from your bucket list, but rather, it’s something that can offer remarkable health benefits. From cognition to emotional well-being, let’s explore five ways backed by research in which learning ukulele can enhance your health and overall quality of life! 1. Boost Your Brain Power As we age, it becomes increasingly important to keep our minds ..read more
Visit website
The Most Important Things to Practice If You’re a Beginning Ukulele Player
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
11M ago
Learning to play an instrument as an adult shouldn’t be the same as when you were a kid. If you learned music as a kid, there was probably a big focus on traditional music education. You know what I’m talking about… scales, classical music, rote memorization, theory, ticking metronomes, rulers smacking your knuckles if you mess up, and all that fun stuff! And a big reason for the “traditional” approach is, when you’re a kid, time is on your side… you have time to follow through the “twelve grades of playing piano” over the next 12 years. But as an adult, you don’t want to spend 12 years… you w ..read more
Visit website
Best Ukulele Strumming Pattern to Learn a New Song
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
1y ago
Strumming patterns are the bread and butter of playing ukulele. And they can also make or break you. “If only I could figure out the strumming pattern to this song.” What if I told you there isn’t a magic strumming pattern for a song? What if the best pattern is the one you come up with? In order to come up with the right strumming pattern, you start by using what I consider my favorite strumming pattern of all time. As someone who’s played ukulele for over 25 years, this is still my go-to pattern whenever I’m first learning a new song. And I suggest you do the same! But I’m warning you… This ..read more
Visit website
Ukulele vs. Guitar: The Complete Guide to Decide Which is Best to Learn
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
1y ago
Yes, this is Ukulele Tricks, a website that helps you become a better ukulele player, but… Spoiler alert: I’m not just going to tell you to learn to play ukulele! Contrary to popular belief, ukulele might not be the best instrument to learn if you’re a beginner. I’m a lifelong ukulele and guitar player of over 25+ years, having learned both instruments right around the same time (in addition to piano), so I know there are a lot of factors that go into choosing to learn ukulele or guitar. The last thing I would want is for someone to make a decision learn ukulele because they feel like they sh ..read more
Visit website
How to Play the E Major Chord on Ukulele the Easy Way
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
1y ago
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been playing ukulele for a month or a decade… The E major chord is one of the worst chords to play! And by worst, I mean hardest. But yet, there are SO MANY songs with E chords in them. Why is this? The biggest reason the E chord shows up all the time is because it’s actually a super easy chord to play on guitar. So much popular music has been written on guitar in the last 50 years, which means you end up with a lot of songs written in the key of E major. Sadly, this doesn’t make it easy on us as ukulele players! But there is a way to make this really common chord e ..read more
Visit website
How to Practice Ukulele and Lose Track of Time
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
1y ago
In my 30 years of playing music, there’s one trait that’s helped me practice ukulele and improve the most as a musician. It’s helped me so much so that I… Lose track of the time when I practice… Have more fun when I practice… And, have more patience for myself when I can’t perform. Yesterday, I was working on practicing a particularly difficult bluegrass solo on guitar by the great flatpicker Tony Rice (I’m a lifelong ukulele player but also play guitar and piano!). The solo is a short, lightning fast 8-bar passage in the song Nine Pound Hammer, and for me, it’s just… hard. Every time I step o ..read more
Visit website
3 Ukulele Strumming Tricks to Instantly Add Energy to a Rock Song
Ukulele Tricks
by Brett McQueen
2y ago
It’s true that with just a few chords and a simple strumming pattern you can play hundreds of songs on ukulele. But maybe you’ve noticed it’s one thing to strum the chords and another thing to sound musical. This idea of musicality is really interesting to me because what I often find it’s the small, subtle things you add to your playing that make the biggest impact! In this new video, I take the chorus of Tom Petty’s famous rock song I Won’t Back Down and apply THREE strumming tricks to a beginner chord progression and strumming pattern to instantly add energy to the song. I show you ways to ..read more
Visit website

Follow Ukulele Tricks on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR