Customer Reviews

Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Tips 'N' Tunes: Ukulele Technique

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a beginner's bible for learning to play the ukulele. Mr. Beloff presents ukulele strumming in a simple and straightforward manner and makes sure that the pupil is having a great while learning. Readers of this book quickly learn to play folk tunes and American standards. Experienced ukulele players might be bored with this intro book, but it is perfect for beginners.

For beginners:
This book provides you a basic set of skills and knowlegde, on which you can build further on your own or with a help from more "advanced" books. The book has only 64 pages, but it is probably VERY intense if you have never learnt to play any stringed instrument.
Mr Beloff starts with such basics as the name of the parts, holding the instument, forming chord and reading chord diagrams, how to strum etc. Unfortunately you are supposed to actually read and understand them, but it's not overwhelming.
After that, you learn 29 songs one by one. Though it's possible to flip through and pick up your favorite song, actually I recommend to proceed one by one: The author carefully arranged the materials from the simplest to modestly challenging, and each new song exposes you to one or two new element(s), be it the chord, key, strum pattern and/or time.
Once something is presented, in general it is not repeated later, so you'll have to go back and forth quite often to revisit what you've learnt in the past (chord chart at the end of the book is going to be your life saver, though). Yet IMHO he was successful in making it fun. I wish this kind of book were available when I started playing guitar 17 years ago.

For non-beginners:
If you remember all of these 29 songs by heart, this book is not for you. On the other hand, this makes a great songbook if you're searching for something that you can sing together with others with good enjoyable ukulele arrangement. As a parent of school-age kids, I was quite happy with this book.

I am a piano player and previously took guitar lessons so I know how to read music and some string basics. For me, this book was great - the progression of lessons is very good. I had a lot of trouble learning the correct strums so got the companion DVD. I recommend that to everyone - the book and DVD are a great combination and you'll be on the road to success!

This is a perfect book for beginners. I bought an ukulele, and this book three years ago, and now I'm playing in bands and having a great time.
One of the things I like most about this particular book (which I would like to see in other books) is that simplified chords are given for each song, with more complex chords in parentheses, so that as you progress you can return to songs you've learned earlier in the book and play them with more complexity.

I've been teaching ukulele for some time now and I've checked out most of the method books on the market. While some of them have nice features, I always seem to come back to Jumpin' Jim's Tip & Tunes. It has everything a beginner needs to know, the songs are well chosen and arranged and like all of Jumpin' Jim's books it's fun to look at with interesting pictures and short articles about the uke. New chords and strums are introduced as you work your way through the book and more advanced "parenthetical" chords can be introduced later to add harmonic interest. There's really a lot of good information packed into this little book and I always have my students purchase a copy to get them started down the right path in their ukulele endeavors.

This book gets right to the main points. I bought it because it's recommended by Dr Uke (fantastic website to learn uke stuff). I don't know why 1 review was negative because the book has pictures on page 6 to learn how to know where the fingers go on the frets per the chord charts. I had already bought another beginner book, but I like this one better. With the various websites, forums, and YouTube videos, this is the only book a beginner needs. IMO.

This is the best book if you are starting on the Uke with no past musical experience. It's still pretty useful if you have played guitar or piano in the past.

It's tempting to learn a few chords and just read tab when playing the uke but your enjoyment of the instrument will be an order of magnitude greater if you spend some time with this book and learn to sight read.

Your next book should be Mark Nelson"s - Mel Bay Learn To Play Fingerstyle Solos for Ukulele - there is no better styled book available. This book will take your sight reading skills and chord changes to a much higher level. The CD that comes with it will show you how to play these songs with soul.

For the beginner these books are excellent. I bought his whole series and love them all. Well done.

Jumpin' Jim's book begins with some very basic instruction on the fundamentals of the ukulele. Then it proceeds with some "simple" songs to play, that would be simple if Jumpin' Jim didn't expect you to inherently know where to place your fingers on the fretboard to acheive the particular notes, and rather informed in the introduction. After flipping through the book to see if there is any sort of diagram that would shed some light on where to place your fingers you will find an incredibly confusing diagram on the second to last page. If you don't know very much about stringed instruments, and wish to learn to play the ukulele, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK for you will find it both confusing and frustrating.