Essential Guide to Playing the Ukulele: Method Book 1 - A Comprehensive Approach to Learning the Ukulele

Inveterate Shopper: This is somewhat useful because it has easy to read chord charts and strumming patterns and includes some simple very popular songs. But although it shows strumming patterns for many of the songs, it doesn't show how they fit in to the rhythm - which is absolutely vital. The main focus is how to play individual notes - something I'm not interested in at all. I don't recommend this book at all.

United States on Aug 04, 2023

Robert Cunningham: I have this and the "Ukulele Method" book 1 and like this one much better. It starts off with strumming so knowing 2, 3 basic chords you can play something enjoyable. It talks about reading notes and playing individual notes.

All other Ukulele books are so basic you can just go on YouTube and hit out a few songs.

But this really takes you from beginner and if you practice enough the content takes you to playing advanced songs. There's also practice methods which many books skip out.

For reading music notes I like how you can play a few songs just knowing a handful of notes. It makes you feel like you're learning and confident to push on.

It's a jam packed book and once you go through it you can just get song books.

United States on Jul 31, 2023

Dez Walt: This is a great book but I never used it. That’s on Mexico I love this brand and when I learned other instruments I would use this brand and it’s great for beginner and people trying to teach themselves.

United States on Jun 05, 2023

Joelle Koresky: its a book so its good

Canada on Jan 08, 2022

Mel Sue: After trying to teach myself how to play the ukulele for a couple of months, I decided to pick up this book. At first I thought that it was too basic. But about a third of the way in to the lessons, I realized the techniques being taught were essential to learning. The techniques are presented in a thoughtful and methodical way so even an advanced music learner is bored, but is mastering the basics of the ukulele. Some skills, like finger picking, I thought I would never master, have improved greatly. The book teaches chords, strumming techniques, and finger picking notes.

United States on Jan 21, 2021

Akhil J.: The book is an excellent starting to new ukulele lovers. It would have much better if right hand picking fingering also mentioned. As these is a beginer material the students are expected to use thump for picking through out these book.

India on Nov 03, 2020

Megan Larson-Wilkie: This is a fantastic beginner book for someone with or without a musical background. The audio tracks are very helpful.

Canada on Jan 05, 2020

SAI DUTT: Good Book to start learning Ukulele. More emphasis is given towards playing chords and strumming pattern. Lot of exercises to perfect the learning. I personally feel this book is Better than 'Hal Leonard's Ukulele Method Book' series.

India on Mar 27, 2019

Kindle Customer: Pros:
- nicely laid out and formatted
- the song choices are fun and familiar, with a lot of variety.
- the order that the chords are introduced makes sense and builds nicely.

Cons:
- moves way too fast. Although you could say that about just about every method book ever made , really. There's just not enough reinforcement on each concept before adding another new element.
- the sequence that the strumming patterns are introduced is way off. I am an adult, trained musician, and I can't do some of these strumming patterns and sing the song at the same time. They should have started much simpler.

Nuetral:
- in this method, chords are taught before actually reading notation. Since I already know how to read music, I'm not sure if this is effective or not. I'm concerned that there wouldn't be enough reinforcement for the notation to sink in.
- other than introducing the chord, the chord diagrams aren't included in the music. I am torn on this. The other method I have used included the chord diagrams, and it made it much easier to play the music without having to look up a chord if I forgot it. On the other hand, it is probably better educationally if...

United States on Mar 13, 2019

Mari-Tricia: Great book for beginners. Lots of useful information.

Canada on Aug 17, 2018