Ukulele

This workbook turns the course into daily reps with your ukulele in hand. Each section maps to a course module and gives you exercises, fill-in worksheets, and checklists to run on real chords and real songs. Keep your ukulele and a clip-on tuner beside you and a metronome app open, and treat every worksheet as a decision you make on the instrument, not just notes on a page.

Set up the right instrument, learn its parts and hold, and get reliably in tune at the start of every session.

Detune all four strings slightly flat, then retune to standard G C E A using a clip-on tuner, always tuning up to each note. When the tuner says you are in tune, check by ear: play the C string at the 4th fret and compare it to the open E string, then the E string at the 5th fret against the open A string. Note any pair that does not match and retune.

Record the details of your instrument and starting setup so you can track string changes and spot tuning problems over time.

Learn to read chord charts, play the core open chords cleanly, and make changes smooth enough for real songs.

Pick your weakest chord pair (often C to F or Am to G). Set a one-minute timer and count how many times you can switch cleanly back and forth, strumming once per chord. A change only counts if every note rings clear. Record the number, rest, then try to beat it. Log this daily for one week.

For each chord you have learned, write down the finger placements from its diagram in your own words so you can self-check without looking at the course. Use the format finger-string-fret.

Choose a two-chord song such as Iko Iko (C and G7) or Row, Row, Row Your Boat (C with one G7). Play it all the way through at half speed using only steady downstrokes, never stopping the strum to set up a chord. Then play it with the original recording slowed to about 75 percent.

Lock in a steady pulse and the counted strumming patterns that turn chords into recognizable grooves.

Set a metronome to 70 bpm. On a single C chord, keep your strumming hand moving down-up like a pendulum the whole time and play the island pattern: down on 1, down on 2, up after 2, up after 3, down on 4, up on the final and (you miss the strings on beat 3 and the first and). Loop it for two minutes, then add a C to Am change without stopping.

For each pattern you practice, write it out as downs and ups over the count, then log the fastest tempo at which you can play it cleanly on a single chord and with changes.

On the island strum, add a percussive chunk on beats 2 and 4 by letting the side of your strumming hand mute the strings as you strum down. Once it feels natural, play a song you know along with the original recording slowed to 75 percent, then bring it up to full speed.

Move into melodic fingerpicking, widen your chord vocabulary, and lock in a routine that keeps you improving.

Hold a C chord. Assign thumb to the G and C strings, index to the E string, middle to the A string. Pluck in order G, C, E, A slowly and evenly with a metronome at 60 bpm, keeping every note the same volume. Then keep the exact same picking pattern while changing between C, Am, and F.

Travis picking is learned in layers. Log your progress adding one element at a time, noting the tempo at which each layer is solid before moving on.

Write out your own 20-minute daily routine using the course template: tune and warm up, transition drills, pattern practice, a song slightly beyond your level, then free play. Run it for five days straight and log it in the practice tracker template.