Aldrine’s debut CD – Suite 409 is finally available for purchase. For samples of the 12 track album and the order form, click here. If you enjoy Aldrine’s videos on Ukulele Underground, please support him and purchase his album. Thanks!

In this episode of Uke Got Mail, Aldrine answers a question from Berylbite about palm muting.

Open mic done~

Thanks to everyone who showed up and also to all the participants

Alright UUers! We have a very special Uke Minutes for you this week, bringing you the quick-and-dirty rundown of CHORD FAMILIES!

Ever wonder why certain chords sound good together? Want to write a song in a certain key, and wondering what chords to use? Well this episode of Uke Minutes was made especially for you!

Step 1: Pick a key. Any musical key you want to play in.
Step 2: Find the major scale. Click HERE to review major scales and how to find them.
Step 3: Number the notes in your major scale 1 through 8

Now, numbers 1, 4, 5, and 8 will be major chords. Numbers 2,3, and 6 will be minor chords. And 7 will be a diminished. That’s it! You’ve got your chord family!

All of these chords will sound good together, so if you are writing a song, go ahead and choose which ones you want and arrange them in a specific order. Once you’ve done that you’ve got a new chord progression to your very own song!

This also applies to figuring out the chords to an existing song. If you can figure out what key the artist is playing in, more than likely, many of the other chords in the song will be taken directly from the chord family for that key.

Have fun with this one guys! Also, Don’t forget to SIGN UP for Next week’s OPEN MIC (Wednesday, June 25 2008 – 3:30 pm HST / 6:30 pm PST). It will be broadcast right here on this page for the world to see! See you there!

XOXOXO
- UU Staff

Check out youtube.com today and you might see some familiar faces featured on the front page. Today all the featured videos were ukulele artists. A couple of our UU family were featured so please give them a big congratulations!

Misc. Updates

T-Shirts and Hoodies are on their way to us. Sorry for the delay everyone but looks like we’ll be able to get them to you soon!

Ukulele Internet Open Mic next week Wednesday, June 25 2008 – 3:30 p.m. HST (6:30 pm PST) Sign up here if you would like to participate or you could just tune in on the front page to sit back and enjoy the performances.

California Tour Don’t forget we will be in California next month. Here is our current confirmed list of appearances with more to be added in the near future.

No Uke Minute this week, instead we chose to debut our new show: ‘Uke Got Mail’. In this show Aldrine will answer questions submitted by you, our loyal viewers and forum members. To get your question answered on this new show, email askaldrine(at)gmail.com.

For those of you who are on Oahu – Come jam with us!! We’re gonna be hanging out at Kapiolani Park on:

*SATURDAY, June 14th*
Around 5:30 pm
Kapiolani Park

If you can, please post in the thread. And if you don’t post in the thread, come on down anyway! We’ll be the ones chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’ all cool, right around the tennis courts, so come by and say hi.

Can’t wait to see you there!
-UU Staff

I know, I know, MVOW, super late. My bad. On this belated Member Video of the Week, we are featuring Ukesista with her arrangement for Carlos Santana’s Europa Intro. Aldrine and I play this song all the time and it was refreshing to hear a different arrangement.

T-Shirt update : For everyone who ordered a t-shirt or hoodie, they are still being printed right now. It’s taking a little while to print because the order was so huge. We will let everyone know as soon as they come in.

UU Tour: Don’t forget, we’re heading to California next month! July 18-23. We need your help finding places to play if you live in the Bay Area, San Diego, or Orange County or L.A. Please check the thread for more details.

Hey everyone. We have some big news. The UU dudes, Aldrine, Rayan, and Aaron are planning to make a trip San Francisco and San Diego! The tentative date for our visit is July 17-24. We realize a lot of people who come to our website don’t visit our forum but please if you live in these areas, please check out this thread. We need your help. Thank you very much!

So here we are again, friends. The time has come for us to hang out together, happily enjoying yet another: UKE MINUTES! This time, we’ve brought y’all some Movable Chord Shapes to play around with.

Just in case you missed that 3-second bubbly image of basic Major Chord Shapes and Minor Chord Shapes, here it is again:

*Remember* This process works for all chord types, too, not just majors and minors. You can use it on 7ths, 9ths, Major7ths, diminshed-ths – whatever you want! Any chord that you know can be moved up or down the fretboard (as far as you fretboard allows). Moving a chord shape up one fret raises the key a half step. Two frets up raises the key a whole step.

For your reference, here are all the note names in half-step intervals:

C | C#(Db) | D | D#(Eb) | E | F | F#(Gb) | G | G#(Ab) | A | A#(Bb) | B

Once you get to the end (B), it loops around back to the beginning (C). For example, if you held a Bb chord (3211) and moved the entire chord shape up a half step – or one fret (4322) – then the chord would become a B. If you moved it another fret up (5433), it would become a C. This fingering would be an “alternate fingering” for your standard C chord (0003).

Thanks a lot, everyone. If you have any questions, comments, ideas, things to chime in, please post away at the FORUM! Let the discussions begin!

Love Always,
- UU Stafff