Ukulele for All: Teacher Edition

The Teacher Edition is an easy-to-use, comprehensive guide to the Student Edition. It includes all student pages in color. Teacher resources are in black-and-white and include:

• Basic information about the ukulele
• Effective solutions for establishing the ultimate music learning environment
• OBJECTIVES to aid in evaluating student progress
• Strategies for teaching the National Core Arts Standard processes for artistic literacy: Performing, Creating, Responding, and Connecting
• Notations directly in the student music help you troubleshoot common performance challenges

This book begins with singing and strumming each song. Ukulele for All teaches chord diagrams by presenting them sideways with a picture of a person's hand.

The teaching of tab reading is also unique because it shows how the ukulele's horizontal strings relate to the lines of the tab staff, making it easy for students to easily visualize where to put their fingers on the strings of the ukulele. Tab notation is taught alongside the singing of melodies and strumming of chords.

The book starts with single-chord songs and has a chapter for each of three beginning chords (C, A Minor, and F.) Tunes that change chords are introduced in the fourth chapter. Students are encouraged to sing rounds to create harmonies within a one-chord song.

Strumming patterns are kept simple throughout the book. Finger-picking of accompaniments makes its entrance in Chapter 8. There is also a chapter on the 12-bar blues that encourages students to improvise solos over a bass line.

The book comes with proprietary software that includes video lessons for each song and each concept (including tuning) presented in the book. The software also includes audio for the songs that can be slowed down for practicing. Students can also record themselves and submit recordings to their teacher.

The book was written for either classroom use or private instruction. If a student prefers melodies, the student can focus on that. If a student likes to sing while they strum chords, the student can work on that since both versions are given with each song. There is a Teachers' Edition of the book available with detailed suggestions on how to work with groups of students at different levels.