Free Ukulele For Dummies by Alistair Wood Page A

flick your ring finger in the same way, followed by your middle finger, and then flick your index finger. Do this slowly to start with, but as you get used to making the movement speed it up so that one finger hits the first string before the previous finger hits the last string. Make it into one flowing movement.
    The roll strum (Track 17) is usually notated by a wavy strum line and the letter R, as in Figure 5-32. This R refers not to roll but to rasgueado – a term from flamenco playing where roll strums are regularly employed. Take a listen to Jake Shimabukuro’s ‘Let’s Dance’ for a masterclass on using roll strums on a ukulele.
    Figure 5-32: The roll strum.

    Deciding on an Appropriate Strumming Pattern
    Many of the chord charts you come across in the real world don’t give you any indication of how you’re supposed to strum. But don’t panic. As you pick up more playing skills, working out your strumming becomes a snap.
    Start off by breaking the song right down to basics. At this stage you can ignore the chords and melody and concentrate solely on the rhythm. Put down your uke and clap along with the song.
    Your first job is to work out the time signature (check out the earlier section ‘Introducing the time signature’). Try counting along to the song (and your clapping) in groups of four (‘one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four’) and groups of three (‘one, two, three, one, two, three’). Which fits better?
    After you figure out the time signature (most often it’s going to be 4/4 time), try out the various strumming patterns I describe in the earlier sections of this chapter and see which one fits best.
    After you’re comfortable with the song, you can start playing around with the strumming pattern and adding your own variations.
    Don’t get hung up on finding some ideal strumming pattern: no single ‘right’ strumming pattern exists for a song. If a pattern fits and sounds good to you, it’s right.

Chapter 6
    Meeting the Chords and Their Families
    In This Chapter
    Introducing the C chord family
    Trying out the three-chord trick
    Tackling barre chords
    Increasing your chord arsenal
    C hords are the building blocks of songs. Although you can write one-chord songs, they’re rare and in general most tunes employ three or more chords.
    If my maths is correct (and I calculate a 108 per cent chance that it isn’t), with the 12 possible major chords, 12 possible minor chords and 12 possible seven chords, a grand total of 7,140 three-chord combinations are possible. In reality (and fortunately!), songs use a much narrower range of chords. Certain sets of chords sound great together, and these are known as chord families .
    This chapter takes you through several families of chords as well as the moveable chord shapes that you can use to play them. If you need to bone up on your chord shapes at any point, you can find a full set of chord charts in Appendix A.
    Getting to Know Chord Families
    A chord family is made up of six main chords. Each chord in the family is identified by a roman numeral so you don’t mix them up with all the other numbers flying around. (They’re spoken as ‘a one chord’, ‘a two chord’ and so on.) Minor chords are shown in lower case and major chords in upper case. The C family is the most straightforward set of chords to play on the ukulele (all the chords are shown in Figure 6-1), so here is how the C chord family appears:
    I: C
    ii: Dm
    iii: Em
    IV: F
    V: G or G7
    vi: Am
    Figure 6-1: The C chord family.

    A VII chord is also in the sequence, but that’s a bit trickier and not often used (I discuss it in the later section ‘Getting cool with diminished chords’).
    Each family of chords is named after the I chord (also called the root ). So songs that draw their chords from this set are in the key of C . The I chord is almost always the last and first chord in any