Strum With My Thumb
by Teresa Jennings
We feature two chords for beginning ukuleles in this light, simple piece: C and F. The C chord is extremely easy to play, needing only one finger to press a string in the left hand. The F chord is slightly more difficult, but still pretty easy, needing only two fingers. The diagrams on the music indicate which finger/fret to use for each chord in case a little reminder is needed.
The focus of this song is to work on brushing down with the thumb. The words to the song even help kids remember this. The rhythm is written as two quarters and a half note for the strums until the last bar, which seems to work nicely with the vocal melody. However, you can alter this to make it simpler by using all quarter notes, half notes, or even whole notes.
If you would like your students to read a part to play along, we have created one for you to download for free.
Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.