SHERIDAN MALONE

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Playing Ukulele

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Playing Ukulele

After years as a guitar player, I've actually learned even more about guitar from playing ukulele. Why? Because if one puts a capo on guitar at the fifth fret, the ukulele tuning is the same as the four highest strings on the guitar. Without bass notes, ukulele distills the essence of chord and melody playing for many musical genres. Below are some demonstrations of several techniques: double stops, chord melodies, and fingerstyle combinations of them all. 

Lessons are available on Zoom and in person with mask precautions. See my contact page.


Double Stops
What are Double Stops? Without any music theory, they are essentially plucked two note pairs that imply a chord sound. My fascination with them occured one day when I realized that they can be played out of almost any chord shape, and that all the two string pairings occur on strings 1 and 2 (E & A notes), 1 and 3 (C & A notes), 2 and 3 (C & E notes) 2 and 4 (G & E notes), and 3 and 4 (G & C notes).
    I had learned some of these patterns playing blues, folk, country, and bluegrass but never understood how or why they sound good for fills or leads, intros and outros. 
I worked on putting together a color coded road map for all the string pairs which is shown as a pdf. file. I discovered that if one only learns the red and yellow fingerings for any string pair, the shapes repeat themselves moving up the neck.  
   I'm studying music theory and learning to score and create ukulele tablature, and I'll post some videos, scores with Ukulele tablature below.
     I now realize these patterns are called "dyads", and are part of what is known as a "chord scale". These pairs imply another chord sound which still sounds lovely against the named chord for each pattern. 
    Offically in music the red dots are the Root or I chord, yellow is 2 minor or ii minor chord, green is 3 minor or iii minor chord, blue is the 4 major or IV chord, the next red is the 5 major or V chord, next yellow is 6 minor or iv minor and the next green is the Dominant seventh or VII chord.

Double Stop Roadmap
Document
Double Stop downloadable PDF
YouTube Double Stop Lessons
Double Stop Workshop Video - this workshop/lesson/demo requires a copy of the double stop neck map to make sense. The first half is where the two note pairs are located and a way to learn them from the five chords provided. The second half includes some of the kinds of music they fit as melodies, fills, intros, and outros, plus how they might be played differently by plucking, sliding, hammering on, and altenate string picking. Simple at the start, but takes some practice to get the feel for embellishing a song. Advanced players will also recognize how the forms can move up the neck to play in any key.

Document
De Colores
Document
This Land Is Your Land
Document
How's The World Treating You
My Ukulele Arrangements
Document
You Don't Know Me
Document
Losing You

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A Lifelong Love Of Music