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100 Days of Ukulele

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For the 100 days challenge, I created a collection of fun songs for singalongs with video tutorials. Start reading here to learn about the challenge and learn more about Rise Up Singing, or skip straight to the song list.

Introduction

Cynthia Lin organizes a “100 days of ukulele” challenge, starting each year in March. Participants are encouraged to record a video every day of themselves playing ukulele and post it for the community to see. (Find it on Facebook, or her Patreon or on Instagram or YouTube using #100DaysUke2025.) The goal is to commit to a practice, and daily work on your skills. This year, I gave myself the challenge of playing lots of new songs, using each to practice and strengthen my: chord changes, choosing the best strum pattern and/or building my skills at finger picking. I figured I might as well record these as tutorials that I can share with others.

I chose to work with songs from the group singing book Rise Up Singing (Amazon affiliate link, or buy directly from the publisher). There are 1200 songs in the book! So, I am choosing some of my favorites / things I think may be commonly sung. Many of them also appear in the Daily Ukulele Songbook. (Amazon, publisher). Or they appear in the songbooks for the Eastside Ukulele Players group I play with.

Most of my videos will include chord diagrams. They contain at least some of the lyrics, and some contain info on how the chords align with the lyrics. If I don’t have all the lyrics and chords in the video, I will try to link to where you can find them. I do strongly encourage you to support the authors/publishers of Rise Up Singing and Daily Ukulele and honor their copyright by purchasing your own copy of each book. If you do singalongs in a group, purchase enough copies of the book for everyone in the group.

Rise Up Singing

Rise Up is a folk music singalong book, first published in 1988. It contains 1200 songs, sorted into 35 categories, well indexed by title, artist, and subject. For sheer number of songs, it’s incredible! In order to fit that many songs into a compact, affordable book, this is not full sheet music and comprehensive lyrics for all know verses. It just includes the lyrics and chords, not the melodies, so you either need to know the song, or look for a recording online to learn it. I love this book!

And… as a beginning musician, it was really hard for me to use it, even for songs that I knew.

Here’s a sample song. So the “C – F G /” means that for the first line of lyrics, you’ll play C, continue playing C, then F, then G. You have to figure out for yourself when to switch from one to the other. The second and third lines of lyrics are similar, then you’ll see for the fourth line, it just says 2nd. That means you play the second pattern. There’s a lot of thinking involved as you play, which was hard for me when I started.

The Rise Up Singing versions aren’t the fanciest arrangements – they lean toward using simpler chords and not a lot of chord changes, so in some videos, I include more interesting variations on the song. Also, I find the key doesn’t always feel right to me. An Amazon reviewer says “The keys chosen work well on guitar (tuned to key of E so lots of Es and Ebs and whatnot), not always so easy for uke players. I do find myself transposing on the fly.” I agree, so in some videos I offer a second version of the song, played in a different key than shown in Rise Up.

Song List

Here’s a list of all the recordings I did, in alphabetical order. Some are full tutorials, some are playthoughs of the full song, some just snippets… just what I was able to complete on that particular day of the challenge, depending on my other commitments. I starred the easier songs for beginners.

Simple Children’s Songs

I also have a series of videos made for preschool teachers or children’s librarians, using just a few simple chords on the uke to play these songs:

  • using C and F – Row Your Boat, Brother John
  • C7 and F – Skip to my Lou, Mulberry Bush, More We Get Together, etc.
  • C and G – Open Shut Them, Ring Around the Rosie, Clean Up
  • C and G7 – London Bridge, Looby Loo, Peekaboo
  • C, F, G7 – Twinkle, ABC, You are My Sunshine, Happy Bday, and more
  • C, F, G – If You’re Happy, Teapot, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Teddy Bear
  • D7, C, G – Old McDonald, Thumbkin, Coming Round the Mountain,
  • More Chords and Songs: Dm – Muffin Man; D and A7 – Bingo, A and E7 – Speckled Frogs, Em and B7 – Ants Go Marching; Am – Over in the Meadow

4 Chord Progression

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If you have worked your way through my full series on Learning to Play Ukulele, and are ready to play around some, here’s a fun approach.

Lots of pop songs are written around a standard chord progression. They’ll describe it as I V VI IV. (Within a key, these are the first, fifth, sixth and fourth chords in the scale.)

So, in the key of C, you’d play a chord progression of C G Am F. In G, it’s G, D, Em and C. In the key of D, it’s D, A, Bm, and G.

So, try just playing the chord progression: for example, strum C twice, then G, then Am, then F. Does that remind you of any song you’ve heard?

It might remind you of Don’t Stop Believing by Journey? Or I’m Yours by Jason Mraz? Or Let it Be from the Beatles? Yep, it’s in all those.

In the video below, they play snippets of all these songs that use this four chord progression. Journey — “Don’t Stop Believing” James Blunt — “You’re Beautiful” Black Eyed Peas — “Where Is the Love” Alphaville — “Forever Young” Jason Mraz — “I’m Yours” Train — “Hey Soul Sister” The Calling — “Wherever You Will Go” Elton John — “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” (from The Lion King) Akon — “Don’t Matter” John Denver — “Take Me Home, Country Roads” Lady Gaga — “Paparazzi” U2 — “With Or Without You” The Last Goodnight — “Pictures of You” Maroon Five — “She Will Be Loved” The Beatles — “Let It Be” Bob Marley — “No Woman No Cry” Marcy Playground — “Sex and Candy” Men At Work — “Land Down Under” Theme from America’s Funniest Home Videos Jack Johnson — “Taylor” Spice Girls — “Two Become One” A Ha — “Take On Me” Green Day — “When I Come Around” Eagle Eye Cherry — “Save Tonight” Toto — “Africa” Beyonce — “If I Were A Boy” Kelly Clarkson — “Behind These Hazel Eyes” Jason DeRulo — “In My Head” The Smashing Pumpkins — “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” Joan Osborne — “One Of Us” Avril Lavigne — “Complicated” The Offspring — “Self Esteem” The Offspring — “You’re Gonna Go Far Kid” Akon — “Beautiful” Timberland featuring OneRepublic — “Apologize” Eminem featuring Rihanna — “Love the Way You Lie” Bon Jovi — “It’s My Life” Lady Gaga — “Pokerface” Aqua — “Barbie Girl” Red Hot Chili Peppers — “Otherside” The Gregory Brothers — “Double Rainbow” MGMT — “Kids” Andrea Bocelli — “Time To Say Goodbye” Robert Burns — “Auld Lang Syne” Five for fighting — “Superman” The Axis of Awesome — “Birdplane” Missy Higgins — “Scar”. In the video , they are in the key of D, using D, A, Bm, and G.

So, you could choose any of the songs off that list, do a google search or YouTube search for “[song title] ukulele” and find a chord chart and a video and start learning that song, playing with that four chord progression.

Another common progression, called the 50’s progression or the doo-wop progression, in Nashville numbering is I VI IV V (the same chords as I V VI IV described above, just in a different order). In the C major scale, that’s C–Am–F–G

Just a few of the songs that use it are: All I have to Do Is Dream, Beyond the Sea, Blue Moon, Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Chain Gang, Crocodile Rock… find more here.