Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Happy 4th of July!

If you're looking for some patriotic tunes to try you should check out the Ukulele Tips 'n' Tunes book from FMM. It's got You're A Grand Old Flag, America(My Country Tis of Thee), The Star Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle, and America The Beautiful.

My favorite book at the moment is Ukulele Gems (from FMM again. No, I'm not a shill for them, they're just great books for the uke.)
I mentioned Heart and Soul before which I found in this book. I also discovered It's Been A Long, Long Time which is a great song to play on the uke. Others I'm practicing from this book are Ukulele Lady, Bye Bye Blues, Ain't She Sweet, All Of Me, and Sentimental Journey.
Sentimental Journey is a real finger twister for me but I'm starting to hear a LITTLE progress. This one will take a long time but could be worth it. I'd love to hear/see how others finger an Am7 (2433) which needs to alternate with (2033), maybe there is an easier way than what I'm using.

Have a great 4th and come out to Como on Wednesday if you can, I'll be down there 6-8pm or so.
Keep StrumMN!
Brian

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brian, Some of the charts that I use show Am7 as all open strings. Try that and see how it works.
Gary

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Gary. Since it's a chord melody style arrangement I need it in the position mentioned. I'd learned to do the 2433 using a bar on 2 but when it alternates with 2033 I can't bar it. Thus my question about what fingers others might be using successfully for this. It may just come with practice but it's tough for me.
Brian

Anonymous said...

I gave this transition a try and it seems to be relatively quick doing it this way: For 2433, do it with the index finger barring the 2nd fret, middle finger on 1st & 2nd string at 3rd fret, and ring finger on 3rd string at 4th fret. When transitioning to 2033, pivot the left wrist upward (toward the headstock) and move the ring finger to 1st string at 3rd fret while keeping the tip of the index & middle fingers on the same strings. This seem to work for me. I'm pretty much a newbie though, so forgive me if I'm not making sense.
George

Anonymous said...

Thanks, George. I tried that but for me it feels like too much movement. I was using index on 4th string (2), pinky alternating on 3rd string (4 or 0), and middle and ring finger on 1st and 2nd strings 3rd fret. Normally I used middle finger on 1st string, for this song I'm switching to middle on 2nd string and ring on 1st. Makes the pinky stretch farther but seems to work for me. I'm still experimenting and welcome all suggestions!
Brian