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| Guitar - Ukulele song suggestions? - Beginner Questions - Ukulele - Ukulele - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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artcrocker Approved
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A Guitar friend and I want to start playing together for the purpose of fun and mutual improvement. I was hoping someone had suggestions on fun songs that work good with the Guitar Ukulele combination? I've noticed that the few songs we have tried together are not great. I see that quite a few ukulele players on this forum also do Guitar and maybe have suggestions of things that work well. Thanks,
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Will Approved 
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Getting a uke and a guitar to work together in a jam can be done, with some thought, and perhaps some adjustments in playing technique and the selection of songs and styles that work well for both instruments playing together. At the local jam, I have played guitar with another uke player (he also plays guitar), and in a small jam setting without an overabundance of guitars and other loud instruments, it worked fairly well with folk, pop, or country songs that were originally recorded with all or mostly acoustic instruments. I would advise staying away from purely electric rock songs, where the distorted amplified guitar is the signature sound, because it tempts the acoustic guitar players to play loud, drowning out the uke. The guitar, being a much larger and louder instrument, often played with a pick, needs to avoid drowning out the uke by holding back the strumming/picking volume (as compared to playing solo or competing with a jam circle of other loud steel-string instruments). The bass strings on the guitar should provide a good rhythm - the "boom-chuck" style of alternating bass and rhythmically strummed chords will work. If either the uke player or guitar player has the ability to pick the melody or play an instrumental lead, that can be done if the rhythm instrument strums more softly while the lead instrument plays. If both players can play a lead, the instrumental break can be traded off and extended. Some suggestions: -Down By The Riverside -When The Saints Go Marching In -Take Me Out To The Ball Game (try out that diminished chord) -I've Been Working On The Railroad -Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head -I'll Follow the Sun (and other acoustic songs by the Beatles) I have posted an on-line collection of over 100 PDF chord-lyric sheets on that might work well for your jam. They were arranged by ear, by yours truly, so I can't guarantee that all of the chords are "right" - many were arranged using the limited 21-chord selection on my autoharp, before I learned to play guitar. Here's the link: http://servercc.oakton.edu/~billtong/chord-lyrics/ Last edited on Wed Apr 9th, 2008 02:43 pm by Will ____________________ Will http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/297/ Loose Change & Friends http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/245/ http://loosechangeandfriends.com The Earth Tones http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/337/ A Bunch Of Coconuts http://abunchofcoconuts.com |
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artcrocker Approved
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Will, Thanks so much for the input advice. Looks like the main thing is a bit of volume balance between the two players, and trade offs when someone can pick a melody. I like the idea of trying to use the bass rhythm from the guitar, guess one could also add a percussive rhythm from the uke at times. I appreciate your included selection of songs. Another question, from your experience do you find that the Guitar and the uke should be playing the same Strum pattern? I would suppose that to stay in Time with each other it would help to start out that way?
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Will Approved
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artcrocker wrote: Will, Art, That's a good question. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to playing the exact same style of strums; just stay together on the beat. I am more of a flatpick style guitar player; when I jam with a fingerstyle player, I adjust my playing volume a bit lower to complement the other instrument. In fact, it sometimes works better when one instrument is able to fill empty spaces in between strums by the other instrument. The key word is to be adaptable to the situation and the tune you are playing. Try out different ways to play the same song and find out what works for you. Good luck and have fun. Last edited on Wed Apr 9th, 2008 03:05 pm by Will ____________________ Will http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/297/ Loose Change & Friends http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/245/ http://loosechangeandfriends.com The Earth Tones http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/337/ A Bunch Of Coconuts http://abunchofcoconuts.com |
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Tonya Approved 
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Thank you, Will, for posting your collection of songs/chord lyrics. You have great songs in a wide and far-ranging variety. Would you mind if I share this with members of our little ukulele group?
____________________ http://ukuleletonya.com |
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Will Approved
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Tonya wrote: Thank you, Will, for posting your collection of songs/chord lyrics. You have great songs in a wide and far-ranging variety. Would you mind if I share this with members of our little ukulele group? Thank you, Tonya. No problem; those PDF files were posted there for sharing. The few odd songs arranged in Bb were done on the autoharp, because I didn't have enough autoharp chords in the key of A. Recent songs that I have posted are mostly in the keys of G or D, making them easy to play on guitar, using a capo if necessary.
____________________ Will http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/297/ Loose Change & Friends http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/245/ http://loosechangeandfriends.com The Earth Tones http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/337/ A Bunch Of Coconuts http://abunchofcoconuts.com |
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artcrocker Approved
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You do have a great collection of songs, glad to see Lets Talk Dirty in Hawaiian is there, a very fun song to do. I noticed that you mentioned most songs are in G and D keys. Would that be due to it being a better key to sing in? Or was these a favorite key for your Guitar playing? I assume most songs tabed out for the ukulele are in the key of C. I guess a question I have would be is there a Best Key for guitar and a Best key for ukulele, and then maybe a best Key for singing depending on ones voice? Perhaps you can tell that I have not a full grasp of the concept of Keys.
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Will Approved
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artcrocker wrote: You do have a great collection of songs, glad to see Lets Talk Dirty in Hawaiian is there, a very fun song to do. The "best key" to play a song depends upon the situation and the players. Is the song arranged in a key that is comfortable for you to sing? (I am a baritone and I favor the key of D or E; I can sing in G, but some songs in A or C are a bit too high to sing comfortably.) Do you and your jam buddy have similar or dissimilar singing ranges? Do you want to emulate a recording in particular key? (Johnny Cash recorded a lot of songs in Ab, such as Ring of Fire.) Those scenarios may involve transposing to a different key. I find that playing in the key of G or D on guitar involves the least amount of fret hand movement to smoothly and quickly transition between the shapes of the related major, minor, 7th, Maj7, Min7, diminished and other chords. The capo takes care of compensating for the right singing key, which may vary, depending upon who is singing the melody. It's often difficult to find a common key that both men and women can sing, so I often will sing tenor or baritone harmony if a lady is singing the melody. The capo shortens the length of the strings and raises the pitch of the song key, while preserving the same chord shapes. For example, if I want to sing a song in the key of Bb, I would put the capo on the 3rd fret and play the song in G. If a song is in F, I can capo at 3 and play in the key of D. Another reason for playing a lot in the keys of G or D is that I practice picking out the melody out of chords, and sometimes, the melody notes are found in the open strings; playing in other keys makes those open strings less available because they are then no longer part of the I-IV-V progression. Many guitarists also play a lot in the key of C, which I personally dislike because transitioning in and out of the F chord wears out my hand at a long jam session. On a uke, with 4 strings, most of the chords can be played without a capo, but then you may need to transpose and write down the altered chords onto the lyric sheet - a tedious task. A banjo capo can come in handy if you want to experiment with playing in odd keys on the uke using familiar chord shapes without re-writing all the chords. For some songs, I have arrangements written out in more than one key; for example, Abilene. Another suggestion I can make is to buy a fake book. These are chord-lyric (no tabulature) arrangements of popular songs, geared for piano and keyboard, and almost exclusively in the key of C (the easiest keyboard key and scale to play), and that works great for the uke. Last edited on Wed Apr 9th, 2008 05:31 pm by Will ____________________ Will http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/297/ Loose Change & Friends http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/245/ http://loosechangeandfriends.com The Earth Tones http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/337/ A Bunch Of Coconuts http://abunchofcoconuts.com |
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