Reviews: Ukulele resources

As a classroom music teacher, the ukulele has become a regular feature of our school music curriculum from Year 4 onwards. Over time, I have found a range of printed resources really useful for whole-class teaching or small groups. Here are my top four – in no particular order.

Uke’n play for kids

Packed with 25 songs (including ‘Alice the Camel’, ‘Frog Went a Counting’ and ‘Ging Gang Goolie’), Mike Jackson offers a super ‘instant play’ method of using coloured dots on the fretboard to highlight different chords. It really helps the children locate the chords, especially those who don't have a natural aptitude for the instrument. This entry-level book just uses three chords: F, C and G7. I use it alongside other resources, as other than the instructions and notes at the beginning, you do only have a page for each song plus words and chord symbols. The audio provides helpful example performances, great band backing tracks and a track to help you tune. The series covers a whole range of chords – it's well worth diving into.

Ukulele from the Beginning: Pop Songs (The Red Book)

Arr Christopher Hussey; published by Chester Music, £4.88

The reason this book works particularly well (the same goes for the Blue and Yellow Books from the same series) is because the children know and love some of these pop songs already, including songs from across the decades such as ‘Hey Jude’ (the Beatles), ‘Someone like you’ (Adele), ‘Hallelujah’ (Jeff Buckley) and ‘Imagine’ (John Lennon). The pieces do become quite advanced, starting at just three chords and progressing to a whopping 11 for ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’.

I tend to use Bill Withers’ ‘Lean on Me’ (C F G7) in whole-class lessons. However, in a smaller ukulele club you can access many more of the pieces. This book also provides helpful melodic notation with useful strumming instructions and diagrams of all the chords. I particularly like the notation; however, this is primarily a repertoire book with picking instruction and a chord library.

Ukulele Magic: Tutor Book 1 and Songbook

£7.99

This is my go-to whole-class ukulele offering. Featuring a strong design, this series comes fully illustrated with both student and teacher editions. The teacher edition includes a whiteboard e-book with embedded video and audio via a CD-ROM. The book is packed with pieces that introduce specific chords and feature traditional melodies.

There are learning objectives, strumming instructions (thumb brush and banjo-style free strokes, chord grids, fingertips and tab on some pieces). The book introduces the four strings, then the chords of C major, A minor, F major, C7 and G7. Pieces are for one, two or three chords.

Melodic notation is not provided on the page but given at the back of the book. It does jump in difficulty when the G7 chord is introduced. If the tutor book is used alongside the songbook this problem is overcome – the progression at this point is very accessible.

The children's all-time favourite from this book is ‘It's raining, it's pouring’ with actions and a rap included. The tutor book also provides improvisation opportunities with tuned percussion (using the blues scale) alongside the ukulele chords. This is a very creative and engaging resource, packed with additional resources.

Ukulele Quest

Published by Faber Music, £9.99

This book includes everything you need to play the instrument: playing position, strumming, tuning, timing, and chord positions. Set out in chapters that function as a fun-packed treasure hunt, the tunes are accessible with fun audio backing. Various styles are included such as rock, blues and reggae, with six pieces in total. Chords (C, A minor, F, G6, D and E minor) are introduced via blank chord grids and a manuscript with audio backings. I truly admire how music theory has been embedded. This book is perfect for ukulele clubs and small groups, or even a whole class if you can purchase a class set.