Tag Archives: ukulele

100 Days of Ukulele

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For a 100 days ukulele challenge, I created a collection of fun songs for singalongs with video tutorials. Start reading here to learn about the challenge and 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. In 2025, 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! I chose some of my favorites / things I think may be commonly sung. Many of them also appear in the Daily Ukulele Songbook. (Amazon, publisher) or in the free songbooks for the Eastside Ukulele Players.

Most of my videos include chord diagrams. They contain 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 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. 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. Then you’ll see how it calls out the chords (but not the timing) for the second and third lines of the lyrice, 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. So, I searched online for other versions that called out how the chords and lyrics align, and are in the same key. (So, for Rocky Mountain High, to match the Rise Up Singing version, you’re looking for key of C – it would begin on C, then F, then G. Ironically, it’s actually quite hard to find this song in C!) But here is one example:

For most common songs, you’ll find many workable chord sheets.

Song List

Here’s a list of all the recordings I did, in alphabetical order. Some are full tutorials, some are play-throughs of the full song, some just snippets… whatever 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.

Resources for Learning Ukulele

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Once you’ve mastered all the preschool songs in my Beginner Uke for Preschool Teachers series, you may find you’ve fallen in love with ukulele and want to learn more.

Finding Tutorials

Here’s my approach: Most mornings when I’m playing on my ukulele, I think of a song I want to work on, go to YouTube and search for “[song title] ukulele tutorial” and then work through the tutorials I find.

Working through a Book

I’ve also used the book Daily Ukulele (Amazon affiliate link). I flip to the next song, try it on my own, then search for tutorials of it to build more skills or search on YouTube for “[song title] play-along” if I am feeling confident and ust want to practice playing it at tempo.

The book Rise Up Singing is a common resource used by sing-along groups and camps, but it is not a good resource for a beginning uke player. But many of the songs in there are quite do-able if you look elsewhere for chord charts. I created a collection of singalongs from the songbook Rise Up Singing.

Recommended YouTube Channels

Here are the YouTube channels I have learned the most from:

Someday I’ll be good enough to keep up with: Matt Dahlberg and Christopher Davis-Shannon.

Many of those instructors have Patreons, where for a small monthly fee you can access PDF song sheets, additional tutorials, live jams and lots of other supplemental material.

Finding Song Sheets with Chords

Morristown has all of their song sheets available for free. My local ukulele groups on the Eastside of Seattle have some free songbook PDF’s with lots of fun songs to play along to. Several of the YouTuber’s I mention above have Paterons where you can download song sheets.

Or, for any song you want to learn, you can do a google image search for “[song title] chords” or “[song title] ukulele chords” and usually come up with several versions in different keys – play around to find the one that suits your voice best. Most preschool teachers lean toward the key of C, as it suits young voices well. Many chord charts designed for guitar are in the key of E, and that is a more challenging chord on ukulele.

Playing with a Group

If you really want to improve your playing, find other people to play ukulele with!! Search for a group in your area – they’re often free, drop-in-anytime groups. Or if you can’t find one locally, there are some online groups as well.

Most will have a songbook – sometimes a printed copy, but more often a PDF you can download and either print at home or use on a tablet. When you first go, it may feel really intimidating! Here are a few “cheats” to make it more manageable.

  • don’t try fancy strums – just do downstrums on each beat – or even just one downstrum at the start of every measure
  • if you only know some chords, just play on those chords and sit out the others! Like every time a C or F shows up, you can play those measures, and then sit and wait through the Bflat and the E, until they get back to something you’re comfortable with
  • 7’s are optional – if the song sheet says G7, it’s OK to play G. (Note: minors are not optional! If everyone else is playing C minor and you’re playing C, it won’t sound right.)

Have fun playing ukulele!!

C, F, G7 Songs on Ukulele

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If you’ve been working your way through my Uke School tutorials, you should know how to play C, F, and G7 chords, so let’s try some three chord songs!

Twinkle Tune and variants

There are LOTS of songs you can sing to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

(C) Twinkle, twinkle, (F) little (C) star
(G7) How I (C) wonder (G7) what you (C) are
Up a(F)bove the (C) world so (G7) high,
(C) Like a (F) diamond (C) in the (G) sky
(C) Twinkle, twinkle, (F) little (C) star
(G7) How I (C) wonder (G) what you (C) are

(C) Two little eyes to (F) look a(C)round
(G7) Two little (C)ears to (G7) hear each (C) sound
One little (F) nose to (C) smell what’s (G7) sweet
(C) One little (F) mouth that (C) likes to (G7) eat.
(C) Eyes and ears and (F) nose and (C) mouth.
(G7) Eyes and (C) ears and (G7) nose and (C) mouth.

(C) ABCD (F)EF (C)G (F)HI (C)JK (G7)LMNO (C)P  QR (F)S (C)TU (G7)V (C)W (F)X (C)Y and (G7)Z. (C)Now I know my (F)AB (C)C’s. (F)Next time (C)won’t you (G7) sing with (C) me.

(C) Snowflake, snowflake (F) fancy (C) free.
(G7) Snowflake (C) snowflake (G7) dance with (C) me
First on my (F) head (C) then on my (G7) toes
(C) then on my (F) nose where the (C) cold wind (G7) blows
(C) Snowflake snowflake (F) turn a(C)round.
(G7) Snowflake (C) snowflake (G7) touch the (C) ground.

More C F G7

You are my (C) sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me (F) happy when skies are (C) gray.
You’ll never (F) know dear how much I (C) love you,
Please don’t take my (G7) sunshine (C) away.

Happy (C) birthday to (G7) You,
Happy birthday to (C) You,
Happy Birthday dear (F) [name]
Happy (C) birthday (G7) to (C) you.

(C)This old man, he played one, (F) he played knick knack
(G7) on my thumb, with a (C) knick knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone,
(G7) this old man came (C) rolling home.

(C) Bumping up and down in my little red wagon
(G7) Bumping up and down in my little red wagon
(C) Bumping up and down in my little red wagon
(F) Won’t you (G7)  be my (C) darling

(C) Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes
Head Shoulders Knees and (G7)Toes, Knees and Toes
And (C) Eyes and [C7] Ears and (F) Mouth and [F7] Nose
(G7) Head Shoulders Knees and (C)Toes, Knees and Toes

C and G Songs on Ukulele

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If you’re new to ukulele, then before this, be sure to check out: Getting Started on the Ukulele, C and F songs, and C7 and F songs. They’re intended to be learned sequentially to build your skills.

Playing G Chord

Playing C and G Songs

Here are the songs in that video:

10 Little Indians Tune

(I don’t sing the Ten Little Indians song, but it’s tune is the basis of many songs!

(C) 1 little, 2 little, 3 little snowflakes
(G) 4 little, 5 little, 6 little snowflakes
(C) 7 little, 8 little, 9 little snowflakes
(G) 10 snowflakes on the (C)  ground

(C) 1 little, 2 little, 3 little bubbles… in the sky

(C) Lift one foot and then the other,
(G) Lift one foot and then the other
(C) Lift one foot and then the other,
(G) Lift them both to(C)gether.

(C) Where oh where are  (baby’s)  fingers?
(G) Where oh where are ________ toes?
(C) Where is _______ belly button?
(G or G7) Round and round it (C) goes!
(C) Where oh where are _______ ears?
(G) Where oh where is _______ nose?
(C) Where is _______ belly button?
(G or G7) Round and round it (C) goes!

Open / Shut Them

(C) Open (G) shut them, (C) open (G) shut them,
(C) give a little (G) clap clap clap.
(C) Open (G) shut them, (C) open (G) shut them.
( ) Lay them in your (C) lap lap lap.
( ) Creep them (G) crawl them, (C) creep them (G) crawl them
(C) Right up to your (G) chin chin chin
(C) Open up your (G) little mouth,  But ( ) do not let them (C) in!

Ring Around the Rosie Tune

(C) Ring around the rosie, A ( ) pocket full of posies,
( ) Ashes, ashes, We (G) all fall (C) down!
( ) Cows are in the meadow, ( ) Eating buttercups.
( ) Thunder! Lightning! We (G) all stand (C) up!

(C) Walk around the circle, ( ) all around the circle.
( ) Walking, walking, let’s (G) all do (C) this:  
[stop and do an action, like jump – they copy]

Barney’s Clean Up Song

(C) Clean Up, ( ) Clean Up. (G)Everybody (C)Everywhere.
( ) Clean Up, ( ) Clean Up. (G)Everybody (C)Do Your Share