We're Bottesford Ukulele Club!

Our Ukulele Club is set up in a way to give as many children as possible the chance to play. We provide the ukuleles and only ask that the members of the club practise.

It is difficult to teach larger groups of children with any instrument so we try to organise smaller groups, particularly in the beginner stages.

All children are brought together to check levels of progress and adjust which group they are in.

There are basically three groups:

1, Home players: These children have been given a ukulele and directed to this page so that they can view the Youtube clip below and practise the chords that are shown using the time stamps to help make their time more productive.

2, Beginner: These children have practised regularly and are able to play the chords of C, Am, F and G  - they can move between them with some degree of fluency (eg 1-2 seconds between chord changes).

3, Advanced: These children can play all of the beginner chords fluently and are learning a range of other chords such as 7th chords and are learning more complex songs that involve quicker chord changes etc.

Each time we have a whole group gathering, parents will be notified in order to remind their child to bring their ukulele to school. During the session, children will be given the chance to show their progress and if appropriate will move to the next group - if not they will be given some pointers that might help them to have a better chance of moving up at the next gathering.

Practising at Home

Below is a Youtube clip that shows how to play the first four chords that we learn at our club.

Please ignore what the man says about tuning the ukulele....if your instrument is out of tune - bring it to school and I will tune it for you.

Time Stamps:

C chord : 6 mins 20 sec

Am chord: 6 mins 50 secs

F chord: 7 mins 20 secs

G chord: 7 mins 53 secs

Practise regularly - it is much better to practise for 5 minutes each day than one hour at the weekend.

It is REALLY important that you use the correct fingers to hold the strings down and play the chords otherwise you have develop a bad habit and it is really difficult to break this....so always check that you are using the right finger!