By: Russ Aloha and welcome to a new series for ukulele instruction books! I know it’s going to be hard to surpass the quality of the last series (90s music), but I’m going to give it a shot: There are songs that seem to have been with us forever. Songs that we seem to be born knowing. They’re the songs that bring us directly to a different place mentally and have the … [Read more...]
Jazz Guitar Christmas
By: Russ Aloha! Years ago, I was on the search for an easy jazz standard to learn. I had tried and failed at so many before and it was always a frustrating experience. But then I found a transcription of "It's Only A Paper Moon" (which is my wife's favorite song, so I was familiar with the tune) and it was broken down two different ways: There was a single-note transcription … [Read more...]
Andrew Molina GHS Strings
By: Russ Aloha! Before I moved to Hawaii, I knew I was going to be buying an ukulele for me at least, but was trying to get the kids interested in it as well. I found a video of an amazing player tackling Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off,” and my daughter, a huge Swift fan, was intrigued. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftSUaF919VU I was more interested in the player, … [Read more...]
Things I Like: October 2017
This is a roundup of a few things I've been enjoying this month: 1. Doom Side of the Moon - This is a side project from Sword guitarist Kyle Schutt. As its name suggests, this is a tribute to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. It's a fairly faithful interpretation, while adding in some of the "Doom" elements that Sword is known for. I'm enjoying this one more than I thought … [Read more...]
Acoustic Rock (Ukulele Chord Songbook)
By: Russ Aloha! To close off this series of uke books for music from the 1990s, I’ll admit that not ALL great music comes from the 90s and we should never limit ourselves to just one decade. Even if it IS the greatest decade of music, it in no way discounts great music that came before or after it. So, with this being said, we can expand our view a bit to something the … [Read more...]