Greetings Strummers of Ukes and Wishers for Spring!

Wishing for spring? How about summer? Here it is, courtesy of George and Ira Gershwin and their musical Porgy and Bess. More Social Music! If you have jazz singers in your midst, and of course you do, they might be happy that you took a few minutes to learn this one. We’re going to break with tradition and learn Summertime in a different key than the guitar lesson that came out last week. They had Em and we’ll have Dm. So if your guitar playing friends want to jam and you decide to take this one on, why don’t you ask them to transpose their version down a step. I’m sure they’ll be cool with it. Em (and the key of E in general) is totally possible on the ukulele but usually not the first key beginners and intermediate people think of when they’re ready to rock - it’s quite challenging. In this lesson we’ll absorb the beautiful progression and find melodic possibilities based on the chord shapes. We’ll also cook up an instrumental passage that should satisfy everyone in the room. Good luck my friends! Let me know how this goes for you…..

Dan Zanes

 

 

Topics and/or subjects covered in this lesson:
Ukulele