Teaching the Reading of Music

Our overall approach focuses on engendering an interest in instrumental music in a  accompaniment context as that is the most common environment for the ukulele and from where most of the enjoyment of the instrument is derived.

We do, however, want the older students to be able to relate it to standard musical notation and elementary theory so that a connection is made with other musical studies. It can be fun to have instrumental-only renditions where some students play melody notes and others accompaniment chords, switching back and forth.

Some students are keen on melody playing and others tolerate it until they can get back to strumming and singing, so we dole it out in appropriate amounts.