How To Play Blues Ukulele Pdf Chords

Mississippi Blues Trad. David Beckingham Tab: UkuleleHunt.com Ukulele Standard Tuningn o = A = E pq = C = G Moderate h = 110 d 4 4 1 Q P ' 3 & & (3 ' & $ full? $ ' $ 3 ' & $ 3 &% $ 3. From a musical perspective, a chord consists of two or more notes played together. In the case of the ukulele, you’re basically just putting together chords with a strum to make a song. You make the &+25'6%chord diagrams. The dots indicate. Download your Songbook here: The 12-Bar Blues in C Tutorial Sweet Home Chicago The 12-Bar Blues in G Tutorial Gulf Coast Blues The 12-Bar Blues in D Tutorial St. Louis Blues (Basic) The 12-Bar Blues in A Tutorial Backwater Blues 12 Bar Blues – Tricks & Variations Down-Hearted Blues Original song: Take a listen to. The most popular definition is the blues turnaround used in twelve bar and similar blues songs, C-F-G7-C. Often the C and F are repeatedly played (sometimes using 7 th chords) and at the second to last measure we play G7 briefly before ending on C. By moving to the V7 chord we add tension and transition at the same time back into the I chord.

How to play blues ukulele pdf chords for beginnersPlay

By now playing your ukulele may often consist of looking up chords or tabs to a song and learning the specific chords necessary to play it. This is great in the beginning because it helps increase you chord knowledge; however, you will eventually want to add more to your songs. By adding melodic intros, turnarounds, and endings we end up accessorizing our songs and filling them out. In this situation the terms intro, turnaround, and ending can often be used interchangeably. We are simply learning popular harmonic progressions that help to start, transition, or end a song. Over time you may want to creatively make your own turnarounds and intros for the music you play. Once you have the basics down it is a lot easier to start substituting and experimenting with chords to find that perfect turnaround!

The Turnaround

The musical idea of the turnaround are chords or notes that lead back into the main section of the music. However, depending on how the turnaround is played it may sound great at the beginning as an intro or even at the end of the song. The most popular definition is the blues turnaround used in twelve bar and similar blues songs, C-F-G7-C. Often the C and F are repeatedly played (sometimes using 7th chords) and at the second to last measure we play G7 briefly before ending on C. By moving to the V7 chord we add tension and transition at the same time back into the I chord. If you don’t grasp the music theory part of it, that is fine, just remember the whole point is to transition back into the main riff of the song. When playing the twelve bar blues that turnaround lets us know we will be playing the verse progression again.

Beyond the blues genre you will see the term turnaround used quite often for many progressions and after practicing for awhile you will start to recognize them in popular music. A couple popular turnarounds are:

  • C-G7 (the common Folk turnaround, the 7th played in the last bar)
  • C-Am-Dm-G and ending on tonic C (a Standard turnaround)
  • C-A7-D7-G7 (a Ragtime turnaround)
  • C-Gdim-F-G (diminished turnaround)

Each genre of music has specific turnarounds and common intros or endings that are used. And they all have specific music theory rules, but we can simply use our ears to tell what sounds good. Let’s say you are playing a common progression of C-G-F-C a few times through, at the end play C-G-F-G7-C (The folk turnaround shown above). This will either give the song a nice transition to another verse or it also serves as an ending. Once you have learned some of the more common turnarounds and are familiar with the chords, you can always start fingerpicking single notes. This gives your turnaround a relatable but unique feel (because we are staying in that same familiar progression, just with single notes).

The Hawaiian Vamp

We have discussed this common turnaround at greater length in the past, but it doesn’t hurt to review. One of the famous Hawaiian turnarounds is II7-V7-I so in the Key of C that is D7-G7-C. After playing this you will recognize it as a common riff used in between songs and verses in Hawaiian music.

Blues Ending

When you play these chords slowly you will hear a great descending blues ending. In a way we are still following the pattern above but adding 7th chords in to transition. This is perfect to play at the end of some 12 Bar Blues. With the basic twelve bar pattern and this ending you can have a nice little ukulele blues jam with a few other musicians!

How To Play Blues Ukulele Pdf Chords

C-C7-F-F7-G-G7-C

Circus or Fun Intro and Ending

This is a simple little vamp that sounds very familiar and can be used with other music or even its only short little tune to fill time between songs!

C-C7-A7 three times and then F-G-C-G-C, the last two chords strummed quickly

Jazzy Intro or Turnaround

These chords below look a little complicated, but they are not that bad to play and go great as an intro into a song in the Key of C. Augmented and diminished chords can really add some depth and beauty to the ukulele.



Often we can take our basic chords used in common turnarounds and by adding 7th, aug, dim, 9th, and such chords we will get a jazzy turnaround. If we take the common Hawaiian vamp above of D7-G7-C and change it to Dm7-G7-C we get a little different feel. Even further more try adding Eb in place of D, a variety of substitutions can be made depending on what else is going on in the song you are playing.

Clearly when we get into the world of jazz turnarounds we may leave the boundaries of normal ukulele playing. Yes, some advanced student may wish to dive deeper into complicated jazz transitions, but even the simplest turnarounds are quite effective. Look how many folk and pop tunes go to the V or V7 before returning to the tonic or root chord. You do not have to get all fancy with your ukulele turnarounds, the key is to just find a transition that sounds great and fits in the sound of the song.

There are so many examples of turnarounds that it is best to just listen to know when they occur, you will find they are essential to music. Transitions are there to break up the monotony of a repeated verse or chorus. They are also very helpful in a band situation to tell where you are at in a song, once you hear the turnaround you will most likely be going back to the basic verse chord progression. Whether they are used in common or unique ways they definitely add substance to our songs and performances.

– Learn to improvise and jam in the blues style.

– Packed with ideas and techniques for blues soloing.

– Play riffs and licks in the style of blues musicians from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to Stevie Ray Vaughan.

– Blues chord patterns and strum patterns in a variety of styles.

– 80 examples with mp3s and 4 backing tracks to jam along with.

What you get: A 78 page PDF file, 84 mp3 files, a printer-friendly pdf file, 7 pdf files containing scale and chord patterns. Download size: 27.3MB. To learn more about these file types and download a test file, visit our FAQ page. If you have any questions not answered there, please contact me here.

How to Play Blues Ukulele

Price:$17

Style Pack

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The style pack contains the Blues Ukulele ebook along with Ragtime Ukulele. It’s a big download – just over 30MB – so if you have a slow connection, downloading will take some time.

To give you some idea of what you’ll be able to play, this is the final piece tabbed in the book which combines a number of the ideas contained in the ebook.

Learn To Play Ukulele Chords

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Here’s what people are saying about the How to Play Blues Ukulele ebook:

This is a wonderful little tome. I’m not the kind of guy who learns how to play things or do things from books or manuals, I’ve always hated it. Yet I found the experience different when playing with this ebook. I learned to pick out just about everything you had in the ebook quickly and it was fun.

Chords

– Todd Mauldin of The Hellbusters

The book is amazing!!! so professional and, even more importantly, so USEFUL! I love the lessons, they’re broken down into manageable chunks, and the MP3s demonstrate everything so clearly! Really, you have done a stellar job.

I play blues (among other things) on uke all the time, but honestly, i have been stuck in a rut with my playing… I sat down and played with your book for just 20 minutes and it opened up all kinds of new ideas for me..such as using the C5 instead of the straight C. now I want to sit down and write some new songs using what i picked up. I can’t wait to get even more into the lessons! very exciting!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I am really going to enjoy playing with this!

How To Play Blues Ukulele Pdf Chords Guitar

– Pam Moore AKA Madame Pamita

Of all the written ukulele instruction I have poured through, this stands out above all the others. Every example is worth learning! I can’t bring myself to skim through the pages for fear that I will miss one small tidbit of great information. The mp3 examples are great, especially for picking up a particular rhythm in a selection.

Anyone who plays the ukulele should have a copy of this book.

– Lonna Brockway

Table of Contents

1 Blues Chord Progressions

1.1 Shuffle Rhythm
1.2 12 Bar Blues
1.3 Variations on the 12 Bar Blues
1.4 The Blues Shuffle
1.5 Other Blues Chord Patterns

2 Blues Riffs

2.1 Muddy Waters Style Riff
2.2 John Lee Hooker Style Riff
2.3 Bo Diddley Style Riff
2.4 Stevie Ray Vaughan Style Riff

3 Intros, Outros and Turnarounds

3.1 Stevie Ray Vaughan Style
3.2 Robert Johnson Style
3.3 Descending Turnarounds
3.4 Turnaround To Outro

4 Blues Soloing Techniques

4.1 Blues Bends
4.2 Vibrato
4.3 Hammer-Ons & Pull-Offs
4.4 Slides

5 Blues Soloing

5.1 Minor Pentatonic Scale
5.2 Transposing the Pentatonic Scale
5.3 Improvising Tips
5.4 Self Accompanied Blues
5.5 Minor Pentatonic Second Position
5.6 Minor Pentatonic Third Position
5.7 Minor Pentatonic Fourth Position
5.8 Minor Pentatonic Fifth Position
5.9 Using the Re-Entrant String
5.10 The Blues Scale
5.11 Major Pentatonic Scale

6 Putting It All Together

How to Play Blues Ukulele

Price:$17

Style Pack

Price: $27Save $7 on the full price

Blues Ukulele and Ragtime Ukulele.

This is a big download – just over 30MB – so if you have a slow connection, downloading will take some time.

If you have any questions or problems please email me at help@howtoplayukulele.com or use our contact page.

Cover photo: e-uke by R.W.W. under Creative Commons licence.

How To Play Blues Ukulele Pdf Chords Pdf