Wednesday, March 2, 2011

What are "Jazz" Chords

"Jazz"  chords are simply chords.

Just like the name "Folk" or "Cowboy" chords have been associated basic open position chords that movie cowboy singers like Roy Rodgers and folk artist's like John Denver played. The chords that jazz guitarists played came to be called “jazz” chords.

These jazz chords are simply chords. Typically 4-part chords like major sevenths, sevenths and minor sevenths . Although these chords appear more complex and use more of the guitar neck than the first few frets. These chords can be organized and learned like the basic chords one typically learns.

On guitar these "jazz" chords can be organized into four strings sets. And, four string set, with the most being strings set comprising strings 1234, 2345, 3456, 1235, and 2346. Using a C7 chord as your foundation or core chord - this gives you 20 voicings on guitar to learn. On ukulele one the 1234 string family is available, for four C7 chords - a little less daunting of a task. The number of chords to master as a jazz guitarist contributes to the mystic of "jazz" chords being hard to learn. Not really hard to lear, just a lot of them.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Creating Intros and Turnarounds Ukulele Lesson Videos

The UkuleleLesson Creating Intros and Turnarounds has been updated with video examples of several of the intros.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Musician "Mis" Communication - Which Way is UP?

Why can't ukulele players and musician communicate using, at a minimum, basic music terms?

I hear it all the time with ukulele video lessons online, in workshop and other players. It drives me nuts! They call the "higher" stings to bottom on a ukulele. The higher strings produce higher pitches and are on the top of the music staff in standard music notation and to top lines in TAB.

Learning an instrument is tough enough.

What is up, down, higher, lower, top, bottom, ascending, descending on a ukulele?. This ukulele lesson focuses on clearing up what these terms refer to and should refer too. Up, down, higher, lower, top, bottom, ascending, descending should refer to musical pitch and not be related to gravity as we know it. Up and higher refers to the raising of pitch and down and lower refer to the lowering of pitch. Top refers to the upper note of a chord voicing or musical phrase and bottom the lowest note.

The only gravity, up - down reference that is appropriate when communication musically is, when referencing to strumming or picking. Then the normal down and up that we know works.


Here is the definitive answer to Which Way is UP?

Friday, June 4, 2010

TRI-TABS added to TAB links

TRI-TABS added to TAB links


  • TRI-TABS - link

    The Easy Way To Learn Fingerstyle On Any Ukulele.

    The Purpose of this site is to provide ukulele players with a simple way to start learning to play fingerstyle tabs on any tuning of ukulele.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Blues Ukulele

Added new section to ukulele pages for Blues Ukulele.

An easy to remember link is: bluesukulele.com or ukuleleblues.com

Jazz Ukulele Section

Added a new Jazz ukulele section to the ukulele pages.

Surf Guitar section

Add new Guitar page for instrumental guitar, especially "surf guitar". Instrumental guitar was the sound that drew me to the guitar. I especially loved Al Cailo's Tuff Guitar.