These past few weeks, I have learnt the song “Summer of ’69” by Bryan Adams, “Let it Be” by the Beatles, and “This Land is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie

Through using the following chords: D, A major, Bm, G, C, Am, and F

The first song I learnt was “Summer of ’69” by Bryan Adams, using the chords D, A major, Bm, and G, and the strumming pattern DDU UDU, following along to the Ukulele Teacher on Youtube.

I selected this song as it was one of the songs I had aimed to achieve by the end of the school year as it incorporates picking. This song uses the chords Bm, which I have struggled with in the past. My transitions to this chord are not-so-smooth, so I’d like to focus on making these more quick as I continue to practice the song. The song also uses picking during the riff, so I had to learn how to read tab. I learnt through following along to this introductory Youtube video. I found it fairly easy to learn how to read, and once I had familiarized myself with the riff of the song, I was able to play that section fairly proficiently. I’m still working on this section though, as I am finding the Am part to be a bit more difficult than the Dm part of the riff (see video below).

The next song I learnt was “Let it Be” by The Beatles, using the chords C, G, Am, F, C, G, and Dm, and the strumming pattern D DU D DU, following along to the Ukulele Teacher on Youtube.

It took a little while to be able to nail the transition between the strumming patterns, and the end of the chorus and verses switches to just a quick downstrum on each: Am, F, G, and C. I was actually pretty impressed with my ability to play this little section by quickly switching between each chord, especially from F to G. I think that I have become so familiar to playing the G chord that my fingers gravitate towards to right positioning pretty quickly and easily – which is awesome!

The last song I learnt was “This Land is Your Land” by Woodie Guthrie, using the chords C, F, and G, and the strumming pattern D DU UDU, following along to the Ukulele Tabs website. 

I wanted to learn another children’s song, and I thought of this one as we played it once in class and discussed the different messages of the song. It has some really great and relevant themes for kids, and in general is just a really nice and pretty song.

For the next coming weeks, I would like to try to find some more songs with picking so as to become more confident with it, to work on mastering the Bm chord, and to keep adding to my library of childrens songs 🙂

I have included this video below of me playing the riff of “Summer of ’69” to show my growth:

-Jess