20 Easy Fingerstyle Studies for Ukulele

This is a book every beginning to intermediate uke player should have. The exercises aren't easy. In fact, if you could play them at full speed, you'd be well on your way to a professional ukulele career. However, they are accessible to all levels at the slower speed. On the CD, Rob plays both a slow version and a fast version. An advanced beginning/intermediate player will be able to play the exercises at the slow speed with a little practice, but will be quite challeged to get them up to the faster speed. A person who is new to the ukulele will be challenged to play at the slow speed. The exercises sound so nice at the faster speed that students will be motived to keep practicing in the hopes of getting up to that faster speed. The book focuses on both left hand and right hand techniques, but it also has excercises on musicality--dynamics, playing soft to loud; accents, 3/4 vs. 6/8, for example--which is another important part of playing well. I'm working my way through the exercises. So far there is only one I can play at the faster speed. I enjoy having exercises to practice and I know they will improve my playing.

This book provides exercises with detailed notes that help a beginner to fingerpick. The exercises are very musical in that they are more like little songs themselves, and the author provides plenty of opportunity, even with the first one, to be creative and expressive. I started the 20 progressive studies by the same author, and then found this one which is a primer. I recommend this one first, as the CD has both slow and fast performances, which are really quite helpful. Also, he gives more specific notes for the right hand, using the 3-finger and 4-finger approaches. My playing has surely gotten better, and there are videos too of his playing of many of the studies on the author's site. He is also great about answering questions about his books. Doing these studies works really well with learning his Celtic Tunes book and Sanz baroque book. I couldn't be happier with it and have recommended to my ukulele orchestra colleagues, along with his other arrangements.

Lovely melodies with excellent notes on each piece. Written for gCEA tuning. Rob MacKillop also encourages improvisation and creativity and introduces this in stages. This is an excellent book for an absolute beginner. Pieces are arranged in order of difficulty so the student can gain confidence quickly and easily. The staff and tab are in large easy-to-read print, no awkward page turns plus space on the page to add any notes or comments. The cd also has both slow and fast versions of all pieces. I have used this book for a month and am making significant progress.

Relatively good at teaching riffs and techniques, but I found it to be too hard unless you are well between intermediate and advanced. One I will have to come back to when I am more matured

I love these little tones played by this Scottish Ukulele player. I especially like the music Tears for Amalia. I need to practice more to get the timing down, but I have read the music and follow his instruction. I really like the fact that the bottom score shows the strings on the Ukulele with the number of the fret and a letter for what finger to use. It is great fun playing these short pieces. I also like the fact the his website have some Youtube videos of him playing these places. The background is dark on those videos, but you can see his fingers and what he is doing. This book comes with a CD so you have hear how the music should sound like. Then when you practice the piece, you can refer back to this CD to hear the sound track and see how close you got to the good sound. I have to practice all of these 20 easy fingerstyle picking Ukulele music before moving on. He has other music like Old Time Classics and Celtic and Spanish style of playing on the Ukulele. For now, I am more then happy to just be able to learn the music pieces in this books. Great job Rob. Wonderful music and a great artist.

Book has several exercises to try finger picking for the ukulele. The instructions are not always clear as to how to do some of the fingerlings.

My ukulele teacher had me purchase this book he wanted me to learn from, and I've been enjoying it. It's well written, has good write ups about the pieces and the ability to stream audio samples of what the music should sound like. It's a lot of fun and that makes practicing a joy.

I've got lots of Ukulele books, but this one is my favorite. I worked through this book in the past two months and feel that I am finally really able to play fingerstyle ukulele. The exercises in the book are interesting, musical, and just right for a beginner-to-intermediate player. The CD that comes with the book is very helpful as it includes each song in both a slow version and a faster version.

Couple moments. 1) Most pieces are NOT very musical, they are mostly for exercising your fingers and developing your technique but not pleasant to listen to, and definitely not for performance. 2) I could not figure out how to place some of them. Not for beginners.

Etudes d'initiation au finger style, parfaites pour des joueurs de ukulélé déjà habitués aux accords. Ne convient pas aux débutants

I have really enjoyed the pieces in this book and it was perfectly balanced for a beginner, easing you into the versatility and growing complexity possible with the great instrument that is the ukulele. Sure, its not full of familiar tunes and is repetitive at times, but the variety of music styles and even the brevity of the pieces I believe truly has helped me to incorporate the basics of fingerpicking. The first two pieces are especially easy to pick up and sound great for something so basic. I would highly recommend this to any other ukulele beginner. At the beginning of the book there is a section of short instructions and advice on each piece, which I do think could have been better placed closer to the pieces they are talking about, but still very handy.

I liked the content. The songs are short and this helps because it is a basic / intermediate method. I find slow recordings unnecessary because they take away some of the sense of the songs. I didn't really like the layout of the tablature but it's just a detail.

This is a great book. I started playing the ukulele only a couple of months ago and like the fingerpicking style so this really is for beginners with some nice and simple tunes and some more challenging! Rob also provides tips and techniques for playing every tune. I particularly like the music 'One - Nil' which sounds a bit like the music from the film Amelie. It comes with a cd with a recording of each track both fast and slow. I no longer have a CD player but I've managed to transfer it to my ipad. It would be good if this was available as an mp3 though.