Hey Hey Hey. It’s time for another edition of Uke Got Mail! In this episode Aldrine answers 2 questions, one about some chords, and one about his ukulele. The only question that remains is, where the heck is Manny?

As always, post your feedback in the comments below or in the forum.

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Wednesday has come around again and that can mean only one thing: FREE LIVE UKULELE LESSONS!

Aldrine will be online at 2 pm HST (5 pm PST and 8 pm EST) giving another free ukulele lesson – to you! Check it out:

>>–Live Ukulele Lessons with Aldrine Guerrero–<<

And tell your friends about it! Post a Myspace blog, Twitter it, whatever you like – just let everyone know to get in on the live lesson chat, because it’s always more fun with friends! See you there!

Much Mahalo,
-UU Staff

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Join the discussion about this episode HERE.

Ok. You’ve gone through the basics. You know how to strum your ukulele. You know how to pick your ukulele. But do you know how to “Strum-Pick”??

In this episode of Uke Minutes, Aldrine breaks down the technique behind “Strum-Picking” (not to be confused with the Jake-approved “Pluck-Strum” technique). By muting the other three strings of your ukulele, you can isolate a note on one specific string and, using any number of the strumming patterns and techniques that you have learned, effectively “strum out” a picking. This provides added depth and percussive qualities to spice up any ukulele picking!

Remember, when muting the other strings, it is important to place the fingers you are using to mute the strings (either your thumb or pointer finger, here) gently over the strings you want to mute, so that when you strum, the strings do not ring out. This might take some practice (but that’s nothing you can’t handle, right?).

So, try out “Strum-Picking” for yourself and, as always, if you’ve got any questions, feel free to ask away in the UU Forum, or shoot an email to askaldrine(at)gmail.com !

*AND* if you haven’t gotten a Deach T-Shirt yet – What are you waiting for?? : D

Thanks for watching! UU Out!

Aloha,
- UU Staff

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Today is Wednesday = FREE LIVE LESSONS! Yay!

Be here at 2 pm HST (that’s 5 pm PST and 8 pm EST) for Aldrine’s weekly live lesson and chat!

>>–Live Ukulele Lessons with Aldrine Guerrero–<<

Aloha,
-UU Staff

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To get yourself a “DEACH ME PLEASE!” T-Shirt, CLICK HERE.

Alright UUers! If you haven’t already heard about the epic, limited edition “Deach Me” T-shirts that we’ve got over at the UU Store, there’s no better time than now.

We’ve partnered up with legendary UU Forum member, Deach, in an effort to buy new ukuleles for the kids of Kapaa Middle School’s Ukulele Band.

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS: When you buy a “Deach Me Please!” T-Shirt, the proceeds from your purchase go directly to the ukulele fund – to buy more ukes for the students.

PLUS, Deach has pledged to donate $1 for the first 49 shirts sold. If more than 49 shirts are sold, he will start donating $2 for each shirt, and if more than 100 are sold he will start donating $4.

We want to give as many ukuleles to the kids as our money can buy, so the more shirts you buy, the more ukuleles we can deach!

Special thanks to Deach for being so awesome, russ_buss for coming up with the definitions, and everyone who has already ordered a Deach T-shirt or donated money to the cause! You are the best!

And if you haven’t ordered yours yet, we’ll be taking preorders until the end of the month, so get yours today! Deach Me, Please!

For more about Deach, check out the forum post, or watch Deach & Russ’ video adventure.

Aloha,
- UU Staff

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CLICK HERE to watch UKE MINUTES 17 – Movable Chord Shapes
Join the discussion about 7th Chord Shapes HERE.

Fresh off the Minutes Machine, UU presents another episode of UKE MINUTES – Seventh Chord Shapes! Here, we’ve provided for you even more movable chord shapes for you to play around with!

You can hold any one of these chords anywhere on your fretboard and you will get a 7th chord. Each of the chords are based on a non-barred chord – if you move them all the way to the bottom of your fretboard, until each “barre” is replaced by the nut of the ukulele, you will find the basic seventh chord. So, if you were to move the shape up five frets on your fretboard, count up from the original seventh chord five notes on the chromatic scale to find your chord. Here is a chromatic scale for your reference:

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

So, for example, the chord shape in the bottom left-hand corner of the diagram above is based on the C7 chord (if the barre is moved over the nut of your ukulele). If you moved the shape 4 frets up from the original C7, you would count 4 notes up on the chromatic scale and find that you are holding an E7 chord.

Play around with these shapes and the movable chord shapes concept, and find alternate fingerings for the chords in your favorite songs. (For major and minor shapes, see Uke Minutes 17 – Movable Chord Shapes). That way, when you play along with someone else, you can play the same chords together, using different fingerings!

And as always let us know if you have any questions – www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum and askaldrine(at)gmail.com!

Aloha,
-UU Staff.

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Good news everyone! It’s live lesson Wednesday! Be sure to tune in with your ukes in hand to get your learning on. Lesson begins at 2:00pm HST (thats 5:00pm PST and 8:00pm EST).

>>–Live Ukulele Lessons with Aldrine Guerrero–<<

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First off, thank to you everyone who took the time to enter. We were overwhelmed with submissions and we’re sorry it took so long to announce the winners. You guys are all awesome. There were a LOT of good entries and deciding the winners were really hard. In the end we judged them by originality, and the question, “would we wear this shirt?” Here we go, top three designs that we really liked.

3rd place – $25 worth of shwag from the UU store

Submitted by – Nick Wong

2nd Place – $50 worth of shwag from the UU Store

Submitted by – Arnaud Charbonnel

First Place – New Kamoa Pineapple Soprano

Submitted by Samantha Nery

Congratulations to the winners! Please e-mail me (ukuleleunderground(at)gmail.com) so we can work out how to get your prizes. Once again, thank you everyone who entered. Stay tuned for an easier contest and chance to win your own ukulele.

Also, if you’re not already part of our awesome forum, you may not yet know about the new project we have going. In the forums, we have a legendary member Deach, you may have seen some of his videos on youtube. In the forum, he has become notorious for giving away ukuleles to young up and coming ukulele players. This has caused some controversy in the past, but it’s become the general consensus that he is just an awesome guy. So what started as a way to just immortalize an awesome forum member has somehow turned into a charity drive to give more ukuleles to more kids. We have a pre-order item for a Deach T-shirt in the store in which part of the proceeds are going towards the Kapa’a Middle School Ukulele band to buy them new ukuleles. The program is doing its part of perpetuating the UU mantra of growing the next generation of ukulele players so if you can, please buy a Deach shirt and help us get some new ukuleles to these kids!

Aloha! – UU Staff

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Day 4 – “SD Bound”: The guys awake early to clean up russ_buss’ apartment in SF and head off to the airport for a (Virgin America!) flight to San Diego. In San Diego, they make it over to Pacific Arts Dance Studio where Aldrine teaches two workshops – a Beginner/Intermediate ukulele workshop and an Intermediate/Advanced ukulele workshop. The turnout is more than anyone could ask for and the team meets a LOT of awesome UUers and many new faces for a night of uke-ing.

Day 5 – “Mo’s”: Easily the longest and busiest day of the trip. The guys leave the hotel in search of things to do in San Diego. They have lunch with Joey Jr. at Phil’s BBQ, then chill at Pacific Beach. They hit up Reel Picture, the company that pressed and printed Aldrine’s CD, before heading back to the hotel for a warm-up jam with BJ and Bugoy. Everyone meets up at Mo’s Island Grinds, for a gig with Almost Islanders. A spontaneous after-hours jam arises with legendary band, Pau Hana, and the guys get to hang out with some hilarious brosephs from YT. Insane.

Day 6 – “Huntington”: Last day of the Tour. The UU Crew packs it up for the drive up to Huntington Beach. They stop off in Irvine to have lunch with Ryan’s brother Stephen before making their way to Island Bazaar, one of California’s largest ukulele shops. The entire place gets packed to the rafters with UU members and ukulele enthusiasts from across the LA Metro Area and everyone has a blast.

Honestly, the UU California Tour was the most fun that we’ve had in a long time. The entire experience was, in a lot of ways, life-changing for all of us and we have everyone who came out to the shows and supported us along the way to thank for it. As soon as we can make it happen again, we will definitely be back for more!

The BIGGEST MAHALO humanly possible,
-UU Staff.

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Yay for Wednesdays! Today’s FREE streaming ukulele lesson with Aldrine Guerrero will be brought to you LIVE from the island of Kauai. Be here at 2pm HST (that’s 5pm PST and 8pm EST) for some of the best ukulele instruction in the world!

>>Click Here For Free Live Streaming Lessons with Aldrine Guerrero<<

See you there!!

Alohas,
-UU Staff

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