December 2024

Everyone always wants to learn the most complicated ways to strum a particular piece of music.
The reality of it is when beginning to play as well as throughout your life of playing a ukulele,
sometimes the simplest of strums is the best way of achieving a sound you are striving for. The
goal is always whatever sounds best to you and to make a song your own! 

Ok, you can strum now but why doesn’t your strumming sound like the pros? 

In this class you will learn the kinetic movements necessary to manipulate the strings into a symphony of sound, along with a little strengthening of barre chords on the left hand for tight control. You’ll come away with a classy strum, honed listening skills and a beautiful song to show off your new skills. We’ll even cover Neil’s iconic riff to add that extra sparkle. 

Blues is one of the most commonly loved and understood forms of music for a reason; it helps us express some of the deepest feeling in our hearts. Join Dani Joy for this simple workshop where we’ll break down Charles Bradley’s version of Black Sabbaths song “Changes”. You’ll learn some simple chords up the neck, a little fundamental chordal walk down and leave with a deeper understanding of how to express yourself through one of America’s most beloved musical languages; the blues! 

Looking for a song to obsess over to the point of OVER practicing? (Is there such a thing?) Cat Steven’s song Wild World is just the thing. This upbeat song covers a wide range of the fretboard while never holding down all 4 strings at once. You’ll learn to blend chord and melody, play some partial chords, open voicings and a handy little scale walk down in the middle. Soon you’ll have another fun little song to add to your one-person band. 

Ready to get creative with your strumming? In this workshop, we'll break down how to create more rhythms with our strumming technique through roll and flare strums, which can be used to play complex rhythms like triplets and sixteenth notes with ease. Let's get jiggy!!!

Let's add some drums to our strums! Get ready to add kicks, snares, and chucks to our strumming technique and transform into your very own one-man-band. Let's get jiggy!!!

Ten-hut! Time to tackle barre chords and 4 finger chords of all shapes and sizes! We're talkin' healthy habits when it comes to making tricky chords, helpful chord substitutes, and more. Let's get jiggy!!!

Song endings are absolutely critical to a great presentation of a song. In this workshop, we'll learn ten of them.  We’ll also learn a trick to turn any ending into a great turnaround.

These endings are great for both blues and jazz, as well as vintage country and western swing.

Skills and Concepts:

• Classic Swing Endings 
• Converting an Ending to a Turnaround
• Ending set-up phrases
• The Nashville Number System

So you just got a bass and you don't know what to do. In this class, you will learn everything you need to know for your first jam session. You'll learn the major scale and the Roots and Fifths that go with it. Roots and fifths are the most common and most crucial bass-line building blocks. Once you learn these, you'll be able to follow a chord chart and play along with your ukulele friends. 

When listening to music, have you ever found yourself making up a melody with your voice? It's pretty easy with your voice, but when you try to do the same thing with your ukulele, the results are probably far from commensurate. If you have ever longed to create melodies on the ukulele as freely as you would with your voice, then this class is for you!

Areas of Focus:

• Playing what you hear
• The ear to fingerboard connection
• Limitation Exercises