Uketropolis: Ukulele Q&A with James Hill

A bonus lightning round of the most common baritone-ukulele questions. 

People who love baritone ukulele really love baritone ukulele. Why? We kick off Baritone Month with a simple question: "What makes baritone ukulele so great?"

This month is all about our favourite BIG ukulele. Welcome to the land of D-G-B-E tuning! Tune in starting next week for episodes about the benefits of baritone, how to make the transition to bari painlessly and how to better understand the place of the baritone in ukulele ensembles. #BariIsBeautiful

Navigating the ukulele fretboard is a bit like playing chess: sometimes it's mathematical, other times it's intuitive. Because there's no perfect solution for left-hand fingering it's a perennial topic among players of all levels. In this episode I offer three principles you can use when coming up with your own fretboard fingerings.

The examples in this episode come from Americana Ukulele, the latest Uketropolis online course. Click here to get two free lessons.

It's one of the most common student questions: when I'm improvising or composing, how do I know which notes to use? In this bonus episode, we explore practical and intuitive ways to create melody. Spoiler alert: in the end, there's only one scale you absolutely need to know...

Booster Uke is one of the most popular courses at Uketropolis for good reason. Who wouldn't want to learn easy ways to play Blues, Gospel, Pop and Jazz tunes? It's pure musical magic courtesy of a fretboard phenomenon called Chord Twins. But what happens at the fringes of the Chord Twin concept? What happens when we stop analyzing and, instead, use pure intuition to navigate the fretboard?

Alex Beds interviews James on his Ukes With Podcast. Get to know Alex better:

• Ukes With Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ukeswithalex/episodes
• Alex's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ukeswithalex
• Alex's Website and Original Songs: https://www.alexbeds.co.uk/
• Southern Ukulele Store: https://www.southernukulelestore.co.uk

Brad Bordessa's new online course brings important elements of traditional Hawaiian teaching into the digital age. It's a brave new approach to online education... and it might just work.

Slide ukulele slows us down and helps us savour the music we make. Here's how to get started with this beautiful style right away: an easy, gentle and fun introduction to the "slow uke movement." Bonus: get two free slide ukulele lessons with me here: https://www.uketropolis.com/slide. Enjoy!

What does it mean to explore the fretboard in all directions? It brings discoveries at every turn: move across the strings for speed and efficiency and or along a single string to gain understanding.

• To join the next live taping of the Uketropolis Podcast, go to uketropolis.com/podcast
• Get two free lessons from my new course Americana Ukulele. Go to uketropolis.com/americana