The Basics and Day 1 of Uke Songs

When I was gifted a ukulele for my birthday, I was also gifted two books to help me learn how to play. One of them was 21 songs in 6 days.

Tonight, I learned a new strumming technique and three strumming patterns. The technique is different from what I mentioned I learned in my last post from another book. The other book said strum down with your right thumb and up with your right pointer finger. This book suggests (and I like better) strumming down with the nail beds of your three middle fingers on the right hand and up with the nail of your thumb on the right hand. I found it much easier and sounds better that way.

Once I got the new strumming technique down and the three patterns, I jumped into the three songs for Day 1 out of 6 using C major chord – which I had learned properly from the other book I started with.

The songs I learned tonight were: 

Are you sleeping?
Row, row, row your boat
Three Blind Mice

They, obviously, are super basic and I feel obnoxious even writing about it now since they’re so simple it’s probably not even worth my time mentioning. But, I wanted to track my progress and time learning this instrument, so here I am anyway.

First song ever completed face!

I did struggle a bit with keeping the tempo while singing. It takes some time to learn how to multi task like that! But I have faith that I’ll get there. After several times through the strumming and the singing, I got them to match in the end.

I have learned, because I recorded myself doing the songs, that I am a horrific vocalist! This worries me more than whether or not I’ll be able to learn the uke. I feel like learning how to sing would be even more difficult and a task I’m not sure I could take on simultaneously. But I will keep on keeping on.