Uketropolis: Ukulele Q&A with James Hill

Welcome back! I took a bit of time off to do a tour and release a new album but I'm back now and I have several episodes lined up for the coming weeks. This week I'll show you a simple strategy you can use in your practice to figure out which left-hand fingerings will work best. It's a simple thing but it can make a hu

This week, two topics: 1) How can you have a chord with no root? 2) Ideas for managing stage fright through creative pre-concert prep. Learn ukulele with James: www.uketropolis.com

A short, bite-sized bonus episode for ukulele teachers. Here's a technique you can use in the classroom RIGHT NOW: turn any one-chord song (e.g. Row Your Boat, Frere Jacques, Every Night, etc.) into a soulful rocker. It's easy and fun. Definitely something you want to have in your bag of tricks as a classroom teacher,

Welcome to Season 4 of the Uketropolis Podcast! To kick things off, a question from Uketropolis student Doug leads us to explore the relationship between speed and style in music. Specifically, we take a page from jazz saxophone technique in an attempt to have it all: speed and style.

In this final episode of Season 3, we tackle a thorny musical question: how can your ukulele be in tune and still play out of tune? It's a question that will take us on a fascinating listening journey. Ultimately, you'll discover why tuning to the song may be the only way around this tuning paradox.

Jazz teaches us many things. Even if we're not playing jazz, we can apply the lessons learned to many areas of music-making. In this episode: how jazz teaches us to do more with less (e.g. easier ways to play the B-flat chord), and how jazz encourages us to find our own personal musical style (e.g. artfully re-writing