Ukulele For Dummies (22 page)

To perform a roll strum, hold your hand above the g-string in a loose fist, and then flick out your little finger so it strums the strings. Then flick your ring finger in the same way, followed by your middle finger, and then flick your index finger. Do this slowly to start with, but as you get used to making the movement speed it up so that one finger hits the first string before the previous finger hits the last string. Make it into one flowing movement.

The roll strum (Track 17) is usually notated by a wavy strum line and the letter R, as in Figure 5-32. This R refers not to roll but to
rasgueado
– a term from flamenco playing where roll strums are regularly employed. Take a listen to Jake Shimabukuro's ‘Let's Dance' for a masterclass on using roll strums on a ukulele.

Deciding on an Appropriate Strumming Pattern

Many of the chord charts you come across in the real world don't give you any indication of how you're supposed to strum. But don't panic. As you pick up more playing skills, working out your strumming becomes a snap.

Start off by breaking the song right down to basics. At this stage you can ignore the chords and melody and concentrate solely on the rhythm. Put down your uke and clap along with the song.

Your first job is to work out the time signature (check out the earlier section ‘Introducing the time signature'). Try counting along to the song (and your clapping) in groups of four (‘one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four') and groups of three (‘one, two, three, one, two, three'). Which fits better?

After you figure out the time signature (most often it's going to be 4/4 time), try out the various strumming patterns I describe in the earlier sections of this chapter and see which one fits best.

After you're comfortable with the song, you can start playing around with the strumming pattern and adding your own variations.

Don't get hung up on finding some ideal strumming pattern: no single ‘right' strumming pattern exists for a song. If a pattern fits and sounds good to you, it's right.

Chapter 6

Meeting the Chords and Their Families

In This Chapter

Introducing the C chord family

Trying out the three-chord trick

Tackling barre chords

Increasing your chord arsenal

C
hords are the building blocks of songs. Although you can write one-chord songs, they're rare and in general most tunes employ three or more chords.

If my maths is correct (and I calculate a 108 per cent chance that it isn't), with the 12 possible major chords, 12 possible minor chords and 12 possible seven chords, a grand total of 7,140 three-chord combinations are possible. In reality (and fortunately!), songs use a much narrower range of chords. Certain sets of chords sound great together, and these are known as
chord families
.

This chapter takes you through several families of chords as well as the moveable chord shapes that you can use to play them. If you need to bone up on your chord shapes at any point, you can find a full set of chord charts in Appendix A.

Getting to Know Chord Families

A chord family is made up of six main chords. Each chord in the family is identified by a roman numeral so you don't mix them up with all the other numbers flying around. (They're spoken as ‘a one chord', ‘a two chord' and so on.) Minor chords are shown in lower case and major chords in upper case. The C family is the most straightforward set of chords to play on the ukulele (all the chords are shown in Figure 6-1), so here is how the C chord family appears:

I: C

ii: Dm

iii: Em

IV: F

V: G or G7

vi: Am

A VII chord is also in the sequence, but that's a bit trickier and not often used (I discuss it in the later section ‘Getting cool with diminished chords').

Each family of chords is named after the I chord (also called the
root
). So songs that draw their chords from this set are in the
key of C
. The I chord is almost always the last and first chord in any sequence. For example, the song ‘I'll Fly Away' (which I describe in Chapters 4 and 7) starts and ends with a C chord and is in the key of C.

Chord families work so well together because each chord contains notes from the same scale. So in the C family of chords all the chords are made up of notes in the C major scale.