How to learn 6 string ukulele online

Professional beatbox flute player, Greg Pattillo, is blown away by the volume of internet resources available to musicians today. With his first flute lessons in the 80’s, he falls among the last generation of musicians who had to learn music the old fashioned way. “I had to search long and hard for boot legged tapes of live recordings,” he remembers. “I couldn’t just open up my iTunes and download them, you know.”

Nowadays, Pattillo makes his living playing flute, but he’s used the web to learn a variety of musical instruments including 6 string ukulele purely for enjoyment. “I got my mitts on an alto sax not so long ago,” he says, “and now I have something like YouTube where I can get exercises, hear different people play the same things, teach myself how to have an opinion about alto sax sounds, and develop a way to learn alto sax on my own. I’m sure if I got a private teacher, it would greatly improve how well I could pick up the instrument, but I don’t really have time for that. So instead, I sit around and practice with video. Isn’t that amazing?”

How to Get Started With Free Online 6 String Ukulele Lessons

The internet is overflowing with resources for almost every musical instrument made. A simple search for “play…”, “how to play 6 string ukulele…”, or “learn to play…” with the instrument of choice will prove this with pages of tutorials, exercises, and YouTube videos. Here are some tips for how to best weed through the results.

How Musicians Make Use of Free MP3s and Audio Clips

Beginners may stumble upon sites where talented musicians have uploaded their own recordings of popular tunes. These songs can serve as week’s worth of music lessons.

When practicing 6 string ukulele along with an audio clip, beginning musicians or those who learn songs by ear may have an easier time if the tune is slowed down. As a solution, inexpensive software such as the Amazing Slow Downer, Slowgold, and Reed Kotler Transcriber can slow an MP3, WAV, AIFF, or AAC/MP4 without distorting the sound or changing the pitch.

How to Upload MP3s and Audio Clips

One of the fastest ways musicians can improve is to record their own playing of pocket ukulele. Listening to the recording will bring all sorts of timing, intonation, and embellishment issues to light.

After an honest self evaluation, the next step is getting critiques on these recordings of your playing of pocket ukulele. During private music lessons, a teacher offers hints on how to improve each week. Online, musicians can find help 24/7. Of course, not everyone offering advice on the web is highly experienced, but beginners can take the tips with a grain of salt.

A microphone designed to plug into the computer and some recording software is all it takes to get a musician’s MP3s online from pocket ukulele. Audacity, a free audio editor and recorder, can cut, splice, or mix sounds as well as change a song’s speed and pitch. All musicians need to do is download the program, plug in a mike, click, and play. For places to post these recordings, musicians can join online forums pertaining to their new instruments.

How to Find Free Online Sheet Music for 6 String Ukulele

The internet holds nearly an inexhaustible supply of tunes to practice. To find them, beginning musicians can simply google a song’s title along with the words “sheet music” or “tab”. Many sites display these tunes as picture files, but several large compilations are stored in a popular musical language known as ABC.

Tunes in ABC offer both a midi sound file and picture image of sheet music if musicians know how to retrieve them. One free and simple way to do this is by copying and pasting the ABC notation to sites such as Concertina website’s Tune-O-Tron Converter or ABC Music Notation Viewer/Player. Another fun site is the ABC transposer which can change a tune’s key up or down at the click of a button.

How to Use YouTube and Online Video Clips

Sites like YouTube, Expert Village, Bukisa, and E-How offer a treasure trove of video clips for musicians. These clips vary in quality, but beginners can watch and listen to a variety of techniques. Many of the videos are actual lessons and extremely helpful exercises.

Subscription Sites for Online Music Lessons

The internet is loaded with tutorials, audio clips, sheet music, and videos, but it does take time to chase these down. Many sites offer all this in one organized place. The musicians who put the sites together usually offer a few lessons as a trial. If beginners like the format, they can pay a subscription fee to continue. Though these sites aren’t free, they can cost a fraction of the amount charged for private lessons.

Learning a 6 string ukulele can be a rewarding challenge and the door to new people and experiences. Beginning musicians can also check out a related article offering practical tips to help during the first weeks with new musical instruments.