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This is a good book for beginners with lots of easy- to-
play songs that everybody knows.
The only known music holder for the marching ukulele player
can be ordered from kani-ka-pila.com.
These books by Jim Beloff have a lot of the classic Tin Pan
Alley tunes including, in addition to the songs shown on the
covers, "Button Up Your Overcoat", "You're
The Cream In My Coffee", and "Lulu"s Back In
Town", in UKULELE GEMS, and"By The Light Of The
Silvery Moon", "Once In A While", and "Five
Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue", in UKULELE FAVORITES. These
songs will be a little more difficult than you might expect.
Ukulele arrangement but with the ukulele tuned in Eb. Usually
this is done by tuning the uke in the key of D and placing
a capo on the first fret. When playing from vintage sheet
music, be sure and note the tuning indicated for the uke.
This song is an all-time classic, recorded by all the great
vocalists and easy to sing and play on your uke. Note that
one of the writers of this song was Henry Creamer, discussed
in the article on this website about "After You've Gone",
which he also wrote with Turner Layton. Regrettably, this
edition of the sheet music is now out of print but can be
found on eBay and in old piano benches. You can hear Ruth
Etting singing this song if you get the Ruth Etting cd TEN
CENTS A DANCE pictured on the Performers gallery on this website.
Songbooks can be found at sheetmusicplus.com that have this
song, but with guitar chords instead of ukulele chords.
Ian Whitcomb author of this book could also be in the performer's
section and he is still going strong playing his uke, singing,
leading a band and writing songs. This book has many of the
best including "Rose of Washington Square", "Carolina
In The Morning", "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My
Sister Kate", "A Good Man Is Hard To Find",
Who's Sorry Now?", "I Used To Love You But It's
All Over Now", "Margie", and others. It has
the chord symbols but no ukulele chord diagrams. This book
is the only current source for the famed song "Rose Of
Washington Square". With the book comes a cd of Ian and
and his band playing a lot of the songs, which is worth the
price by itself.
Another great Ian Whitcomb ukulele book which actually has
ukulele chord diagrams. It comes with a great cd and includes
"When I Lost You", "Shine On Harvest Moon",
"You Made Me Love You", "If I Had My Way",
"I'm Sorry I Made You Cry", "Peg O' My Heart",
"Smiles", "I Hate To Lose You (I'm So Used
To You Now)", "I"m Aways Chasing Rainbows",
and others. Hearing the songs on the cd is a big help when
you are learning them. The numbers on the cd feature Ian's
singing with his professional band and a lot of the recordings
seem to be from previously released albums.
Yet another book by Ian Whitcomb. Published in 1975, and
now appears to be out of print but comes up frequently on
eBay. This book has the complete words and music to forty
great Tin Pan Alley Songs as well as pictures and history
of Tin Pan Alley, the unique American contribution to popular
cultuure. Most of the music in this book appears to be reproductions
of the original sheets and some have chord diagrams, some
have chord symbols, and some have neither. The songs include
"Alice Blue Gown", "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down
On The Farm", "Ain't We Got Fun", "I Love
My Baby", "My Blue Heaven", "Love Me Or
Leave Me", "Me And My Shadow", "I'll Get
By", "Blue Moon", "Swanee", "Charmaine",
"About A Quarter To Nine", "Tip-toe Through
The Tulips", "Lili Marlene", and others.
Dover Publications of New York, prints song books that have
reproductions of original sheet music that is in the public
domain in the US. They usually contain a statement that the
sheet music in the books can be used as printed or adapted
and used for any purpose without permission, fees or royalties.
Since the music involved here was written prior to 1923, it
generally does not come with chord diagrams or symbols. You
can get a piano player to figure out the chord names for you
or you can read chapter eleven of my book the UKULELE PLAYERS
GUIDE, shown below and figure out the chords for yourself.
The Dover books can be ordered from pdinfo.com.
This book has a lot of the practical information that is
known to experienced players but not explained in the song
books most people get. Certain "tweaks" (which I
have seen on even vintage Martin ukes) make the ukulele easier
to play and improve the intonation. Changing a song to an
appropriate key can vastly improve its performability and
being able to change guitar chords to ukulele chords gives
you many more options. Since people under the age of fifty
have often never heard of the great American popular composers
and singers, that information is discussed also. The practical
and cheap advantage of getting and playing used lp records,
now a forgotten subject, is covered. To play you need a uke,
sheet music and a true performance to listen to. This book
should help with those things. 209 pages. It is available
from fleamarketmusic.com.
These Ukulele Ike books from 1949, 1958, and 1961, are currently
out of print but come up frequently on eBay. Book No. 3 is
much harder to find than the other two and usually costs a
lot more. These books have a lot of the songs tha t Ike recorded
such as "I'll See You in My Dreams", "Ja-Da",
"Sleepy Time Gal", "At Sundown", "June
Night" and others in the first book and "A Faded
Summer Love", "The Whiffenpoof Song", "Whispering",
and others in the second. The first book has more hits. As
is usual with the small ukulele songbooks the verse may be
missing. The third book includes the songs "Broadway
Melody", "Gone Fishin'", "Time On My Hands
", "You've Got To See Mamma Ev'ry Night" and
"Volare", among others.
Wendell Hall was a radio star in the twenties and thirties
who sang and played ukulele. The songs in this book are for
a ukulele tuned in the key of D. If your uke is tuned in C
just sing the song one note lower. Irving Berlin, probably
the greatest American composer, is mostly unknown to the under-fifty
crowd today. The songs in this book are for ukuleles tuned
in the keys of Bb, C, and D, which shows why you need at least
three ukuleles (just kidding, you can just adjust your singing
to be in tune with the song unless you are playing with a
piano or other instrument). I believe these books are also
out of print but they do show up on eBay frequently.
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