These courses are for Music Educators and offer Graduate Credits through Vandercook College of Music.

Summer 2023

Producing Educational Media

Playing and Teaching the Ukulele

Kalani presents a full mini-course on playing and teaching the Ukulele for the elementary school classroom. As a long-time ukulele artist and music educator, Kalani understands the concerns and goals of the music educator. This lesson shows how anyone can get started with the ukulele, holding, tuning, strumming, playing basic chords, and even chord progressions and a few simple songs. Kalani also share tips for playing and teaching the ukulele that any educators will be able to use right away. For more about the ukulele, visit the Ukulele Club YouTube Channel and get the Ukulele Club Multimedia Resource, from TeachersPayTeachers.com. Contact Kalani for Zoom sessions and Professional Development.

Playing the Native American-Style Flute is something many of us enjoy, and getting sounds from a bass flute can be exciting and rewarding; however, there can also be challenges when playing any bass instrument. Some of those include holding, fingering, and using just the right amount of breath pressure to create the sounds you want, without getting the sounds you don’t.

In this lesson, Kalani covers everything you need to know about breath, fingering, tongue techniques, and general position, to help get the best results possible. He also talks about and shows some flute design features that can help maximize the potential for success. This Flute Lesson for Native American-Style Bass flutes is for beginners and experienced players alike. Enjoy and let us know what types of content you want to see into the future by sending a note through the contact form. Happy Flute Playing!

A Unique Opportunity for Musicians

When we strengthen our relationship with music, we are rewarded with greater options, deeper connections, and more ways to use it.

Deepen your connection to the music you love.

The greater our skills and comfort with different rhythms, meters, and patterns, the greater our ability to use and enjoy the music we create – alone and with others.

Rhythm is the KEY that unlocks musical styles. It’s also what helps us play with others and create music that FEELS great. Rhythm is what moves music forward and makes us want to get up and dance. Musical skills allow us to access the hidden potential of music.

Participants will

• Learn foundational rhythms that are essential in a variety of styles.
• Learn universal and supportive rhythm patterns that help define genres and styles.
• Learn how to add variety and get “unstuck” from familiar patterns.

This course includes weekly videos from Kalani and access to hundreds of supplemental video and audio. An a-synchronous format allows you to learn at your own pace.
Contact Kalani any time with questions. Join the Courses Tier on Patreon and search for World Rhythms Full Course.

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We all start playing the ukulele from basically the same chord set. We learn the C chord, the F chord, the G7 chord, and likely, the A minor chord. It’s true that you can play virtually hundreds of songs with those four chords. It’s also true that most ukulele books have a page or two in the back that show you how to play EVERY SINGLE possible chord there is on the Ukulele – All the Major chords, Minor chords, Dominant Seventh chords, Diminished chords, etc… in every single key. Is that really necessary? Short answer: No. Not really.

The question we need to answer is: What are the most useful chords commonly played on the ukulele? or another way to put it: What is chord set represents the shortest distance between my ukulele and the music I want to play?

That is the topic of this post and what I’m giving you in the PDF.

Over my 20 years playing the ukulele, I’ve come to realize that, while it’s great to know a bunch of chords, there is a specific set of chords that seem to get used far more than others. Of course, there will always be certain songs that require exotic or less-frequently used chords, and you can always add those as needed. It’s also useful to learn new chords so you can play a song in a different key – to make it easier to sing for certain vocal ranges, for example.

I created this one-sheet chord set so we can all focus on what I believe is the most important set of chords every ukulele player should know – and the chords that will get every beginning student the farthest down the musical road with the least effort in the shortest amount of time. Forget about that page of 100 ukulele chords for now. Learn these 10 and you’re good to go.

Why are the the most useful ukulele chords and why?

C, F and G7 are the most common and widely used ukulele chords, period. They allow you to play hundreds of songs in the key of C, including I-V7 and I-IV-V7. The key of C is the most common key for Elementary music.

Adding C7 (modifying the C major chord) opens up I-V7 songs in the key of F and works as a transition to the IV chord (V7 of IV) in the key of C.

Adding Am and G to the above opens up hundreds of songs that use the 50’s (I-vi-IV-V7) and Pop (I-V-vi-IV) chord progressions.

Adding Dm allows for alternative 50’s progressions (I-vi-ii-V7) and the “Don’t Worry. Be Happy” Progression (I-ii-IV-I). Dm is also the IV chord in A minor.

Adding E7 opens up songs based on the Andalusian Cadence (vi-V-IV-III7). E7 is also the V7 in the Key of A minor.

Adding A7 and the easy D7 opens up the Blues (I7-IV7-V7) and lots of Hawaiian songs that start with the common D7-G7-C (II7-V7-I), also known as the “Hawaiian Vamp” or “turnaround.” It also opens up songs, such as the Hukilau Song in the Key of F.

Here’s the final list: C, C7, Dm, D7, E7, F, G7, G, Am, and A7.

I get a lot of questions about how to learn and teach ukulele to students, especially early on, when students are total beginners. This lesson is for you (if you’re a total beginner) and your students (if you teach anyone else). The strategies I cover in this video tutorial for beginning ukulele include how to start off strumming the ukulele, how to do basic Down-Up strums, and how to practice strums in a classroom setting. Then we get into chording and playing songs. I cover topics like, when to switch chords and how to play a song without getting hung up on chord changes.

Get your free sample of the Ukulele Club Multimedia Resource (by a music educator, for music educators).

This is one of over 25 musical games for groups that are port of the DRUM FUN series. For more like this, download the DRUM FUN – Musical Games for Groups product from Teachers Pay Teachers.

Help support the World Drum Club YouTube channel, a free community resource with over 600 videos designed to help everyone do more with music. World Drum Club is a member-supported channel. Supports contribute through Patreon and one-time donations are accepted via PayPal. Scan the QR Code to help.

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