Love the ‘Strum Together’ books from Hal Leonard!

Have you seen the series of ukulele books from Hal Leonard called, ‘Strum Together’?
The ‘Together’ part is cool – each song has the chords for the following:

  • Standard Ukulele
  • Baritone Ukulele
  • Guitar
  • Mandolin
  • Banjo

They are intended for casual jams with friends who play other instruments. Since the purpose of them is to allow people with different instruments who may not have played together the arrangements are not difficult.

They are also great for ukulele classes since they give both the standard ukulele chords and the baritone chords.

The music is on the right side page and the chords are on the left side

I have three of them:

There are a few duplicates among the three books…

  • some are in a different key, 
  • some are in the same key in both books
  • a few are in the same key but one has more advanced forms of the chords, 
  • some have different layouts [order of verses, chorus, coda, etc.], some are in 

I have these marked on and in my books if you’d like to see them.

There are three others…

The series can be found here. The names of the songs in each book are listed there. 

I know that a couple of them was arranged by Mark Phillips but I don’t know about the others.  

Below is an example of the chords page…

The song is on the right side with the chord names, the melody and the lyrics.

Free Backing Tracks for Bluegrass, Celtic, Gypsy-Jazz, etc.

Free Bluegrass Backing Tracks
Free Bluegrass Backing Tracks

If you play a string instrument and like any of these styles of music (Bluegrass, Old-Timey, Celtic, Gypsy-Jazz, etc.) you may like this Website – it offers free backing recordings for playing along with. You can slow down or speed them up.
There is also a section of common Chord Progressions to practice.

http://www.fbbts.com/Home.html

This is similar but a little less daunting. It includes the words, but you can’t slow down, etc. https://toneway.com/songs

Technology Tip:

I use Chrome browser on my laptop and my audio volumes were too soft and so I searched for a solution and found this.
It works great!
https://chrome.google.com/…/nfdfiepdkbnoanddpianalelglmfooik

““Playing the ukulele is so relaxing and beautiful. It’s lifesaving.”

Jan Fox  and the Uke-adillos
Jan Fox and The Uke-adillos (source: NextAvenue.org)

NextAvenue.org posted an interesting article about Senior Citizens and the value of music in their lives. The article was entitled, “Music Matters for Older Adults: Just ask these six people who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s

The title of this post came from Jan Fox’s words. Ms. Fox, 83,  in retirement “took up line dancing, which she now teaches, and then a friend suggested learning to play the ukulele. Fox, who lives in Austin, Texas, did just that….”

She even started a performance group.

Read all about Ms. Fox and the other five musicians who just happen to be seniors.