Grab your ukulele and let's learn one of my favorite jazz standards - 'Dream a Little Dream of Me'. We'll be playing in the same key as Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (well at least for the first half of their recording!)

There are a lot of basic chords in here but some quick changes and curveballs along the way. I'll show you the chords to both sections of the tune and then we'll put on the backing track and try it along with the full band.

Join the Magic Ukulele Club for the 30 minute version of this lesson plus 3 more lessons covering chord melody, split stroke soloing, chord subs, a ten page PDF, Backing Track, and an archive of 400+ Jazz Ukulele Lessons.

Hello four string friends,

Skip the fluff an go straight to the lesson and tabs

Looking to add a beautiful waltz to your ukulele repertoire?

I've just released a solo chord melody arrangement of “Someday My Prince Will Come” — and you can download the TAB for free.

In the lesson we'll look at how to create a chord melody arrangement from a lead sheet for this classic tune. You don't need me - learn to create your own arrangements!

We'll start with the basic melody, simplifying the harmony, and then building our arrangement with individual notes and chord substitutions. Learning and arranging melodies is a key step to learning to improvise in jazz - we need to understand how great songs work before we add to them and create something new.

Whether you're just starting with jazz or looking to level up your chord melody game, this one’s for you. If you'd like to dive deeper into the world of jazz and improvisation on ukulele join us over on theMagic Ukulele Club - the largest resource for jazz ukulele lessons.

Cheers!

Christopher.

PS for my London based friends - stay tuned for an exciting show announcement soon!

Triads, or three note chords, are one of the most powerful, and overlooked, tools in our harmonic toolbox. On ukulele it's easy to always think in four note chord shapes but triads are the building blocks that we need to understand chords and substitutions.

Watch the free lesson and download the PDF

In this deep dive lesson we look at how to build Major, Minor, Diminished, and Augmented triads inversions, make them moveable up and down the neck and then put them to use. We'll be using the jazz standard 'Moonlight in Vermont' as our vehicle starting with the basic triads and then seeing how we can play the 'wrong' triads over top to create new harmonic colors.

If you want to dig further into this song join us over on the Magic Ukulele Club where are learning this song all month in a series of 7 lessons addressing everything from chords to soloing to Johnny Smith's unique arrangment with Stan Getz:

Join the Magic Ukulele Club

Cheers!

Christopher.

Learning all of the moveable chord shapes on ukulele can seem an impossible task but in this lesson I’ll show you how to build chords by only memorizing four key shapes.

View the lesson and download the Free PDF here

If you already know G7, C7, E7, and A7 then you’re halfway there. I’ll walk you through how to modify each of these shapes to create Major 7, Minor 7, Major 6, chords and more by thinking about moving voices instead of memorizing chords shapes.

Having these four chord voicings under your fingers will give you the knowledge to find every 7th and 6th chord on the instrument and serve a foundation to build upon for more complex chords in the future.

You can put these ideas to use every week with new lessons on the Magic Ukulele Club.

Maybe I've been listening to too much Lyle Ritz but I've really been wanting to try reentrant baritone tuning on my ukulele. I only have soprano ukuleles and wondered if I could get it to work on such a short scale. Let's explore the tuning, how it works, strings to use, and listen to a few songs. If you're looking for a lower, more guitar like sound without sacrificing the special sound of reentrant tuning you may just enjoy this.

Since 1945 It's Been a Long Long Time has been a staple of the great American song book. While most folks know the second recording by Harry James with Helen Forrest his initial recording was knocked off the charts a week after its release by a recording by Bing Crosby backed by the Les Paul Trio.

In this lesson I'll walk your through the chords to the song phrase by phrase and then we'll play it along with the full band featuring the iconic Les Paul guitar solo.

For the full lesson package (and more than 400 Jazz ukulele lessons) join the Magic Ukulele Club

When learning jazz a turnaround is a key piece of the chord puzzle.

Download the free PDF to accompany the lesson here

This harmonic progression simply fills the space at the end of the section or form to turn us around to the top of the tune. In this lesson we look at how to take a basic 2 chord turnaround using our I and V chord and add movement, melody, and rhythm to make it something beautiful. This is a great exercise in applying chord substitutions that you can use in tunes or when creating chord melodies. The best part is that we can then look at how to make this a moveable pattern to use in at 12 keys.

Put these skills to use every week on the Magic Ukulele Club

A few weeks ago I posted a brief clip of myself practicing 'Misty' and had a bunch of requests for tabs. I thought it would be a good opportunity to sit down and do a bit of an off the cuff arrangement.

You can listen to the arrangment and download the tabs for free here

Hello Friends,

Let's try the swing and jazz standard 'Three Little Words' together! I've arranged this chord melody solo in the style of Lyle Ritz so be warned we'll be doing a few acrobatics up and down the fingerboard but it’ll be worth the challenge in the end.

This is a great practice in finding some new chord shapes and practicing your chord inversions. We'll start it off at full speed with tabs and then try it again at half tempo so that you can work out the chord voicings more easily.

Join me over on the Tin Man's Magic Ukulele Club for a full lesson on this chord melody arrangment as well as an additional 6 lessons on Three Little Words and a 12 page PDF and backing track to practice along with.

Cheers!

Christopher

Beginners: Do you know your Bb Chord?

Intermediate Players: Do you Know your 3 moveable major chord shapes?

Advanced Players: Do You know your major 7th chord inversions?

What if I told you that was just the tip of the ice berg with learning Bb Chords?

Grab the free PDF and watch the lesson here

In this lesson I will walk you through 58 different ways to play Bb major chords on ukulele from basic triads to major seventh to 6/9 chords. Not only that I will show you how we find each of these chords how they are built, and also why they sound different on high and low G tuning.

Start putting these chords to use today over on the Magic Ukulele Club or start your journey from scratch with Fundamentals of Swing Ukulele

I frequently get asked for tabs to accompany my videos but the reality is that most of the time they are improvised chord melody solos. In this lesson I'll introduce you to how I think about harmonizing melodies through the lens of Barry Harris' 6 diminished scale and how you can start using it today in your own ukulele playing.

View the Lesson and grab the free PDF here.

This is a fundamental concept to start playing jazz on ukulele and understanding, as well as manipulating, harmony to find your own voice. While we'll use many fancy chords in this lesson we'll see how they are built off of two fundamental chords from one simple scale. You don't need a million chords - simply how to use use the ones you already know.

In this ukulele lesson we'll learn how these concepts work and how to apply them over the beautiful introductory verse to 'Tea for Two'

Over on the Magic Ukulele Club you can put these shapes to use over dozens of other songs and dive into countless other chordal exercises.

Don't know where to start your ukulele jazz journey? Begin with the Fundamentals of Swing Ukulele course

In this guided practice session we will work through how to gain the flexibility to play chords that seem out of your grasp. While we all need to work within physical limitations we can generally push them much further than we think. Join me as I walk you through how to gain more independence in your fingers while learning some fun new chords along the way.

Improvising a chord melody solo can seem nearly impossible at first but when we simplify our options to 2 shapes to cover all of our chords we can start to build solos right away.

Download the PDF here

In this lesson we look at chord melody in the style of Lyle Ritz and Joe Pass and how to construct a solo to practice improvisation. You don't need to know every chord on the instrument or even and scales to start your improvisation journey today.

Over on the Magic Ukulele Club you can put these shapes to use over dozens of other songs and dive into other improvisation exercises.

Don't know where to start your ukulele jazz journey? Begin with the Fundamentals of Swing Ukulele course

An end of year gift to you: an arrangement of ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ in the style of Ohta San. This tab is a skeleton version making it much easier to play while allowing you to impart your own style.

Over on the Magic Ukulele Club you can dive into 3 hours of videos lessons teaching this beautiful song.

Join me in learning one of my favorite Christmas jazz tunes - Louis Armstrong's 'Christmas in New Orleans’

Get the free PDF to accompany this lesson here

We're doing this in the original key so that you can play a long with Louis himself once you have it under your fingers. I'll go over the basic chords with you and then we'll do a play-along with some bass added in. After that we'll look at a host of chord substitutions and new chord voicings for the intermediate and advanced players that want to take the tune a bit further.

For more lessons like this join me over on the Tin Man’s Magic Ukulele Club for new jazz ukulele lessons each and every week.

A little bit of knowledge can go a long way. In this lesson we look at how to find any chord on ukulele using only four basic chord shapes that you already know.

Get the Free PDF here

At first glance a chord chart for a jazz standard can look more like an algebra problem than a piece of music and this lesson will give you the power to decode it. Understanding the building blocks of chords is much more important than memorizing 1000 chord shapes (in writing this I have realized that the book I’m writing has over 1100 Chords currently and isn’t finished!) and with a bit of practice any one can be finding, as well as making, their own chords in no time.

I’ll walk you through my five step process to finding any chord and then we’ll put these concepts to use over the A section of Autumn Leaves.

You can put these concepts to more use in this Jazz harmony 101 lesson.

If you enjoy deep dives into theory, music, and want to up your ukulele game join me over on the Tin Man’s Ukulele Club we we put these concepts to use with new lessons each and every week.

Grab your ukulele and let's take a whirlwind strum of Les Paul's version of 'How High the Moon'. No electric ukulele required although it certainly does it make it more fun!

This song can seem like a mess of chords but the important thing to remember is that it is really a series of ii V I progressions. Starting to understand jazz standards in this way as opposed to individual chords means you can spend less time learning songs and more time playing music. Check out this free lesson on jazz Harmony to get a jump start on your journey.

This month on the Magic Ukulele Club we're studying 'How High the Moon' in a series of 5 lessons:

• History and Harmony

• Melody and Chords Together

• Les Paul's Chords

• Keeping it Simple (U Bass Lesson)

• Single Note Solos with One Chord Shape

• Plus 2 recorded Live Streams on ii V I progressions

Join the largest jazz and swing ukulele community with over 300 lessons:

https://www.thetinman.co/join-the-magic-ukulele-club

Grab your uke and let's learn the Ink Spots classic 'The Java Jive'.  A quick little strum along with the backing track to start things off and then we dive into the Ink Spots intro. Variations of this introduction were on nearly every tune they recorded.

You can grab the Free PDF to accompany the lesson here

Then we move on to a bunch of chord variations that you can play on the tune all outlined in the lesson and PDF. I've included in the second part of the lesson the original chord changes to the bridge which are a bit more fun to me than what the Ink Spots played. The Ink Spots had such an iconic version of this tune that nearly every version recorded uses their chord and lyrics changes.

If you enjoy deep dives like this join us over on the The Tin Man's Magic Ukulele Club where we do even deeper dives into songs with new lessons every week. During the month of October we'll be studying 'How High the Moon' with an arrangement based on the Les Paul version including five video lessons, two live streams, a backing track and more.