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The Ukulele Pages

All sorts of mainly uke-centric goodies, mostly free. The newest stuff is at the top of the page.

This is not specifically uke-related, but if you're going to be flying with your instrument you should have a copy of the TSA/AFM letter printed out and carried with you. This is basically the agreement reached in 2003 between the president of the American Federation of Musicians and the Assistant Administrator for Security at the Transportation Security Administration. It says that musical instruments are to be added to your "carry on allowance".

Probably won't work for your double-bass or your grand piano, but I've heard plenty of anecdotal evidence from fellow uke-phreaks that it can be efficacious.

Disclaimer: I haven't heard of any updates to this so I'm thinking, even if it has been updated, maybe the airport person won't know that? In any event I must disclaim any responsibility for a given airport,airlines or TSA employee's interpretation of this letter.

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I've updated my "Cheater Theory" document. This is a very basic music theory primer on scales, notes, keys and chords to help you along when jamming with other folks, writing your own tunes or just for your own curiosity. The update fixes a couple typos as well as taking some of the more confusing chords out of the "how to make a chord" table and replacing them with more commonly used types. Special thanks go to Curt Sheller for help with the chords section.

I've given the new version a different filename but if you're still confused, the latest version has (v2) next to its title and is dated (at the bottom where I "signed" it) June 10, 2005.

I'd like to thank Thaddeus Spae, Dominic Pieranunzio, Jerrold Connors and Richard Hefner for their invaluable help in preparing this document. Any mistakes in it are mine alone. Remember that the "Cheater Theory" doc is a pdf file so you'll probably want to save it to your computer rather than have it open in your browser.

Restringing your favorite 'ukulele? The nice folks at Ukuleles by Kawika, Inc. have put up this helpful page about it featuring how to tie the knots for your bridge as well has how to attach them to the tuning posts.

For all you ukulele lovers out there! I've put together a slideshow of my custom Glyph soprano ukulele being made. Many thanks to Dave Means of Glyph Ukuleles, not only for building the little beauty but also for checking the slideshow out for "technical accuracy". Special thanks also go to Lucifer Doherty for straightening out my grammar.

Here's a page that teaches you how to make your own felt ukulele picks.

I guess it's time to get educational. At the December, 2002 meeting of the Puget Sound Strummers, Charles Forsyth showed a really cool intro and "outro" chord progression for songs in the key of G. I put it into a pdf document and, with Charles' permission, you can now check it out here.

If you're an IE user your best bet is to right click the link and choose "Save Target As". Users of other browsers use the analogous command. Of course, you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to check it out.

Continuing the "educational chord progression" theme, here's a big document of ukulele exercises. These are six different chord progressions in seven different keys (hmmm... 14 if you count the one selection of relative minor keys) and will help you not only develop your chops but also be a great jamming aid and a not too shabby "cheat sheet" for writing your own tunes.

This is another pdf file, so use the directions above to download it.

Many of our baritone friends have been feeling left out of the fun. To help correct this a bit I've reproduced the ukulele exercises document, only this time it's for baritone ukuleles, tuned in the standard DGBE fashion. You can download this baritone chord exercises doc the same way as all the rest.

Enjoy!

I have discontinued my Essential Ukulele Chords booklet. A better product can be found here, from Curt Sheller. Many thanks to the couple hundred of you who bought my little booklet over the last few years!

More to come! Keep your eye on the newsbox on the home page for details.

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