What you'll learn:
- Explore the ukulele and learn to play it
- Explore rhythm, harmony, melody and capture the theory behind them.
- Identify and clarify the musical options afforded by the ukulele
- Provide not just the basic techniques, but challenge students to develop their own styles
- Provide encouragement throughout the entire learning process
- Relish the history, lore and impact of the ukulele, it's music, players and styles
- Keep it fun
The diminutive ukulele, born of a marriage in Hawaii in 1879, is currently in its third wave of worldwide popularity. Ukulele festivals and clubs abound planet-wide. Players of all nationalities come together to share their hopes and dreams and joys through the universal language of ukulele music. It's a charming, friendly instrument and ultimately easy to play. And there are many treasures hidden in its depths.
The learning never ends.
This course is taught by Dan Scanlan, an aficionado of the ukulele who has performed on it for 60 years and taught it for 30. In 1998 he returned the ukulele to Madeira Island, Portugal, (from where the two instruments came from that married in Hawaii) and taught it to Madeiran folk musicians. His workshop in Ireland founded the Ukuhooley group there. He had led several ukulele groups and taken them to New York and Hawaii festivals. In this course, he will hold your hand as you learn to play ukulele, learn its parts, its lore, its tuning, and show you how to steer it into the world of harmony, melody, rhythm and song.
Written lectures are often backed up with video presentations. The course includes a video chord "dictionary" to help students learn how to play the chords and to learn how they are named and built.
The instructor is available via email and responds to questions.
This course is appropriate for absolute beginners who want to learn ukulele, guitar players who wish to migrate to the ukulele, and accomplished ukulele players looking for new challenges. The course seeks also to give students an idea of the many paths one can choose to take to expand their musical adventure in the ukulele world.
