Ukulele Tunes & Techniques

Description

Multi-instrumentalist Bob Brozman jumps right into this fascinating lesson with a potpourri of strums, rolls, triplets and syncopated fingerpicking patterns for the ukulele. You'll combine all these techniques on the traditional Hawaiian piece "Hi'ilawe," and segue into a medley of other traditional songs, "Tomi Tomi" and "Meleana'E." A Tin Pan Alley era "Hawaiian" song, "The Beach at Waikiki" will add to your repertoire of chord shapes, progressions and parallel harmony lines. The blues is not normally associated with the uke, but in Bob's hands the instrument can play funky chord progressions, turnarounds and down-and-dirty blues licks. Bob shows how chord inversions and extensions can create a full-blown blues instrumental. You'll then go on to arrangements of early jazz standards "Sweet Georgia Brown" and" I'll See You In My Dreams," complete with hot chord solos and fingerpicking melody. As a special feature of this lesson, Bob introduces the Hawaiian ukulele master Ledward Kaapana, one of the world's greatest players, as his "special guest." Led breaks down his version of "Blue Spanish Eyes," demonstrating double stops, right- hand damping, tremolo, and a terrific right-hand exercise rolling on pairs of strings. Ledward then performs a spectacular solo of his show-stopper, "L and D Slack Key," complete with amazing fingerboard acrobatics. This video will give you an excellent overview of the ukulele's potential for a variety of musical styles, and a renewed enthusiasm for what Bob Brozman calls "this noble little instrument."

Customer Reviews:

way too advanced.......2007-01-10

Bob Brozman is probably the fastest,best stringed instrument player that ever was.Unfortunately,he is way more of a Jaw-Dropping Show-Off than Teacher.This could only be helpful to a Lifetime Virtuoso with at least 20 years full time experience.

A Master Class For Ukulele Players.......2006-06-22

Bob Brozman is one of the most astounding players of pre-1940 stringed instruments and styles alive today. I concede that this is a bold statement but feel certain anyone that has seen Bob play will attest. His prowess on guitar with pre-war jazz and blues is legendary and deservedly so. Bob has long been fascinated with traditional Hawaiian music (he is a walking encyclopedia) and demonstrates his mastery of ukulele on this DVD tutorial. It is not for beginners but if you've been playing a while and want to push your chops over the top this DVD is for you.

Possibly because he uses National ukuleles (both vintage and the excellent National Resophonic recreations), Bob uses a D tuning which is a full step above the standard CGEA tuning favored by most players. You will need to tune your uke up to D to play along with Bob and the extra stretch on the strings may make it difficult to stay in tune if you drop back down to C tuning. But if you are like many uke players I encounter it's probably time to replace your strings anyway. (Hint: you can buy them on Amazon.com for about $3.00.) Also, if you play a larger, concert size ukulele, you might try using a capo. (Hint: if you can't find a ukulele capo many 5-string banjo capos will work.) Then again, once you've tried it you might like the sound of a D-tuned ukulele and stick with it.

This DVD is a master class by one of the best that illustrates the potential of a noble instrument. Mastering just a few of the techniques Bob and Ledward Kaapana demonstrate will put your playing above 90% of the ukulele players you are likely to meet.

And if you come across Tiny Tim on the road, kill him!

A Must for Anyone Who Wants to Learn Hawaiian Ukulele.......2006-06-07

Bob Brozman is a walking musical encyclopedia of Hawaiian music and the vintage Hawaiian musical style, whether he's playing ukulele or guitar.

This is a fantastic video for advanced beginners or intermediate players who want to learn to play ukulele in the Hawaiian style. You should know how to read tabs and music. He covers some very important basics like turnarounds, strums, fingerstyle technique, chord extensions and substitutions, things that you can take away from this video and apply to many other kinds of popular music, but especially to great old Hawaiian songs.

The only downside to me is that he tunes the ukulele in D in this video, so you'll have to tune yours up from C. That means that your strings will tend to go sharp after you tune them back to C. It's a small price to pay for such a good video, though. If you have more than one ukulele, you might want to keep one tuned in D anyway, it's a nice sound.

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