Finger Style Ukulele - Somewhere Over the Rainbow

1. Introduction: Hey there. My name's Danny and I'm super excited to show you how to play this song Somewhere over the rainbow chord, melody style, or finger style ukulele as some people call it. What that means is it means that you're both playing the melody and the chords at the same time. So for example, here's the melody, right? And here are the chords to that part of the song. Somewhere over the rainbow. Now if you can stick both of them together, that's when the magic happens and so on, Right, so that's what we're going to be going over. The chord melody or the finger style ukulele, somewhere over the rainbow. Now I provide for you a PDF with tablature on it and chords and the lyrics as well, so I can communicate clearly, hopefully, to where we are and what we're doing and how to do it. And I'll give you tips on which fingerings to use and which chord chord shapes to use when we're going over this song. And also provided will be a video of just me playing it all the way through. So if you ever need to go back to that video and it makes more sense in context of how I do it, you can always refer back to that video. But yeah, I just go over just a couple of measures at a time, maybe two to four measures at a time. So we go nice and slow and break the song down. That way you can communicate to your audience when you learn the song that you can play this somewhat of a difficult piece of Somewhere of the rainbow on your ukulele and wow your audience that way. This is probably for the intermediate to advanced ukulele player. So if you're unfamiliar with how to read tablature, I have another video on how to read tablature for beginners that you can check out. And I have or videos, and even just a beginning ukulele class, if you need to refer back to those. Anyway, I'm super excited to show you guys how to play this. It's going to be super fun. It's going to be great when you learn it. And it's going to be a challenge for those who are just kind of playing the same thing, and they want to move towards something that's a little bit more challenging. I'm excited to start and hopefully I'll see in the next, or in the first class, I guess. All right, thanks. 3. Intro measures 1 - 2: Hey guys, in this video we are doing the intro of Somewhere over the Rainbow with a little bit more spice, a little bit more fancy. Fingers, I guess if you will. So you might be familiar with these four chords, these first four or seven. D minor seven might not be as familiar. And then Alt, right? Just, we're just altering one of the notes in seven. This is like a C six. You don't need to know that, But this is how you play. This is the first chord. This is how I play the C chord. K. I have it right here. This is my first finger is on the low C string, and that's on measure seven, as it says in the tabs. Then we got nine right here with my ring finger, and then eight. Try to play this cord first. Okay. And just strum it by itself. Okay. We're just going to strum the cores first and then we'll get the picking down. Here's the first cord. Anyway, the seven. I'm just adding one note. I'm just adding the pinky right here and replace the middle finger. Okay. Okay, here's right there. Hopefully you can see that then I'm just going one fred up with my pink right there. Okay, that's going to be 99 instead of 88. It's going to go to this nine. It's all scrunched in there because we've got these tiny little instruments here we're trying to get ahold of. Right. That's what it's supposed to sound like, The first is, then we got the seven. Okay. Then minor, we're going to shift everything a half step. Bring just everything up a half step, like this. Boom. And then this finger, we're going to replace it with our middle finger. Wow, that's super scrunchy. Looks like this chord right here, I guess maybe like a G, seven ish thing on the top three strings. Okay, It's going to be on the tenth on, so it goes 101010 and the ninth fret. Okay? Yeah, again, it's super scrunched in there. Okay. Try those three chords anyway, so here it is. Here's go down a half step. Play that C shape right there. Here's the seven, Okay, then here's in, then we got Alta. This is actually flat nine, I think if it has a diminished chord. But anyway, you don't need to know that. Okay? It's these three in a row right here after the minor thing. We're, it's just going to go straight from the D minor to this shape. Okay. That's gun, here's the minor. Then from there actually you could leave. I'm replacing my ring finger right here with my pinky. Okay. On the tenth and it goes 108.7 I don't play that one at all. I just play those three. Okay, It sounds like this. Then I get to this shape, that's another flat nine or diminished chord. It looks just like a seven, but you're going to go up a minor third or 32 steps, 123, right there. Okay, Try that out again. It's going to start from here. There's the right or the seven, flat nine, and then, okay, it's basically just a diminished thing. We did that, but anyway, okay, this is why I'm doing a video on this because this is a really hard part of the song. It's just the first two measures, it's a little tricky then once you get those chords down. So once you get this down, here's, here's a seven, here's D minor, and then here's this G seven alt if you just play with it. Just just the chords who sell like this, right? This really common thing in jazz. Anyway, just a lot of songs progression Anyway, check that out. Now once you get those chords down, then you can get the pick pattern down. It's just that same picking thing. Then you're going to go to the minor. Oh yeah, I do that. Wow, the ouch man. Okay. Push paws please. The first thing you need to do is get the cores down. Okay. As strumming them. Okay. Then after that then get the picking. Okay, you'll be on your way. Now if you can't get it perfect, get stressed out, just move on to the next video. Hopefully, continually get there. You just need to keep working on it and for 5 minutes a day, right? Unless you're like a crazy, go getter, an hour day, whatever you want to work on, just work on a little bit of a day and you'll get it okay. Especially if you're kind of well versed already in some of these other chords down here and you're just kind of tired of it. Right? All right, I'll see in the next video, let me know if you have any questions. 4. Measures 3 - 6: In this video, we're doing measures three through six in some more of the Rainbow. Yeah, we're going to get to it. Here's what the first measure sounds like. Okay. And I'm going to start with my middle finger on right there. Okay. I'll explain why. Okay. That's the very first measure and it covers and a minor, those chords. And the reason I'm doing it with the middle finger is eventually we'll get to minor with our first finger. Easier transition there. And I'm going to not in 16th eighth notes and I'm going to count it off like this. It's going to go 12.3 and 4.1 Okay? I'm breaking that measure in half, the measure three. Let's try that together again, I'm starting with my middle finger right here on C, okay? And I'm going to pluck with my thumb right here is always coming back to this open. That's going to be plucked with my thumb. Now the other strings I got string three right here. The co is going to be plucking my index finger and then the second string with my middle finger, and the first string of my middle finger. That's how I like to do it. You can use your ring finger there, But anyway, let's try it like this. 3.4 and 12.3 3.4 okay? And that'd be the next note or the next chord. Let's try that again. So again, three and 4.1 and 2.3 and 4.1 okay? The next part of the measure is just 1.2 3.4 okay? Let's try that again. Here's on a minor 3.4 and 1.2 3.4 okay? So let's put them together now. Okay? Let's put these two together, measure together. Here we go. 3.4 and 12.3. And 4.1 234. Okay, there's that first measure. Hopefully you're getting it now. I would just practice that until you get it Right. Right. I would put in the time to work that out. And it might take a couple of days, so don't worry about that. Just work on it for a few minutes every day and you'll get it. Let's move on to the next measure and measure four. What I would do first is first we have our minor right here. I don't play the full minor chord there, but I play part of it. And it's like, it sounds like a C major seven right there. It's this note right here. And the most important part of any song is the melody. Okay, first I'll get this melody down. That's why I like this shape, starting with my first finger on second fret right here. This note right here. Starting on measure four. Yeah, and I stretch it out, so here's okay. Then I add in the filler notes, so it's going to go okay, that's the seven, pretty dissonant seven. It's pretty cool. Here's normally C seven, right here, right here's a C and here's the flat seven there. There's the C seven right there. It's that cool. Okay, so you kind of have this kind of effect where it's super dissonant and then it resolves right here to C seven. Anyway, that's the shape I'm doing. So it goes here again on measure 43.4 F. Okay. It's just these two shapes right here that I'm moving back and forth again. It sounds like this. I keep my pinky there, right there. Because then it's going to be ready for my next chord, that's seven K. Work that out. Let's try to again one more time. A little bit slower. Here we go. 3.123 and 4.1 Keep your fingers there. Everything is right here. Just these two chords. I guess when you first there's an extra note there, but after they get there, then you leave your hand there. Okay, let's move on to measure five. Here it is. It does the same kind of rhythmic thing on the 16th notes. It's 1.2 and right, or I'd like to count them as eighth notes. Just easier to count that out. Let's try it out. The chord actually I'm not playing on this measure five, I'm not using this. Right here. What is that? I'm not using that right there on the chord, but I'm just having it open. Okay? It sounds really similar as the third measure. I like to count like this, 3.4 and 12, and 3.4 and not too bad. Really similar to that third measure, then when it goes to the seven, instead of doing the full seven, I basically play the seven without the middle finger K. It's just let's play the whole measure, Measure five. Here we go. 3.4 and 123. And 4.12 and 3.1. Okay? That's the word high, that I ended right there on that third measure. Excuse me, the sixth measure. On the third fret. Okay. That's what I was trying to say. Third fret right there on that C cord. Okay. So it kind of does this thing where you got and then G seven, and then right here, it's quicker to move to that note because I have this note already used my ring finger, so that's why I'm using my key right there. Okay, So let's try that again here real quick. Okay, so let's try to measure 51 more time. Here it goes 3.4 and 1.23 and 4.7 Here it is, 3.4 and here's the C. Okay? On measure six, this is what it would sound like. Sorry, maybe I didn't need to stop there, but here it is, 12.3 12.3 Okay. So it does this little, that's really what the line is right there. Okay. On measure six, that's maybe what I would practice is starting with that little scale, moving down, and then Okay. And then I just add the filler notes in there. So way up high, there it is. And then there's a couple other filler notes right there. Okay. I'm going to count it off. Let's try it on measure six here it goes. 3.4 and 12.3 and 4.1 and 23.4 Okay? And then that's measure six. Hopefully that makes sense you guys. If you have any questions, let me know and if there is an issue, I'll just make another video. No problem. All right, I'll see in the next video. 5. Measures 7-10: Hey, in this video we're doing measure seven through ten somewhere of the rainbow, so just starting right here. Okay, yeah. It gets a little trickier as we go on, but I think this is the cool, one of the coolest sounding parts of the song. Anyway, is this little slide three to five. It just means I play on the third note right here, and then I slide it. So I got, I'm plucking with my thumb here. Okay? So it's going to sound like this. And I have this chord right here. It's, it's an F chord. Is right this, right here. Anyway, I'm going to slide, I'm going to actually have my middle finger ready to hit this note right there after I slide up. So it's going to be slide. Okay. I got that. Okay. Then the minor, I'm going to borrow this whole thing on the eighth threat, not the whole thing. I mean, just these first three strings right here. And this is going to be open super dissonant right there. Yeah. It's not too bad. It counts off like this. It's 1.23 Okay. And again, I'll just count this as eighth. No, it's 12,123.4 Work that out. Let's work it together. Here we go on measure 73 and 4.1 and 2.3 that five, when it slides up to five, that does count as a beats two and 3.4 Okay? And then the next part, this minor and four, okay? Just stays there. So it's 12. I guess I did it right here. We go together, 3.4 and 123. Okay, let's move on. Let's move on to the next chord or the next measure, measure eight, okay, Has this. So this is going to be on measure eight. We're going to start with A. Okay? Here's the C chord. It looks like a chord. If you have right here, you can think of it this way. Here's, if you just play 33 strings right here. Here's G. Here's a whole step and another whole step. Here's B. And a half step from there, there's our core. Sounds like the core down here. Okay, here's, and it goes. It's just a pick pattern at the first. Anyway, it sounds like this. Look at the shape. I have my hand right. I did all that. Picking to the word heard, which is the picking. It sounds like this on measure 812.3 And then you want to reach over with your pinky right here, excuse me, on the fret ten, That's the word. It's on the word now. He. Okay. And the rest of the picking is just right here on this cord. So the whole measure is actually with CNA minor is just with this core. Okay, So it goes, it's like the sound, right? 88. Okay, let's try it together. And you have this shape right here. I would keep this shape. You're going to move once a couple of times, but the hardest stretches on the fret ten. Okay? So here it is on land that I heard of. Okay? On measure 83 and 4.1 and 2.34 and back to this regular C heard. And then here's the with your pinky right there on eight. Okay. So it's oops, basically that's what it is if I just did it with just right land that I heard of. Right. Anyway, so the picking, you just got to work out. Let's do it one more time and then we'll move on. Here we go. 3.4 and 12. And 3.4 and back to the original. Okay, there it is, Nine, my friends, this one confusing for me to teach. Hopefully I can teach this in a way where it makes sense. I think that the easiest thing to do first is get the melody down. It could be getting a little confusing with where the melody is, where the words are, not anything in between, but exactly where the words are. That's what I want you to focus on once in. By. Okay. I would focus on that before I did anything else. If I'm a little confused here again, once skip, all that other stuff, go straight to the word in by. It's hard for me to communicate that. But anyway, I'll first get that melody down. Right? Okay. And then I'd put in the fillers, and here it is. Okay? We have D minor and it has a pretty sound, right? Here we go once. Okay, I'm going to try that again. I'm going to go slower again. You've first got to get once in a lull by just by itself, with no fillers, just the melody. And then add these cords in it. The shape is this. I'm barring fifth fret just on strings 123, and it has that cool sound like this that goes on the five, keep your pinky there for eight, then five, keeping that finger there. And then okay, and then this last measure right here, we'll measure ten. Anyway, it does this little scale thing, that's what I would practice is doing. Here's the notes, Right here we go. 33 and then the two, okay? 32 then starts again, right here on measure three, right? That's where it repeats it. Maybe try this first and then start 32, right? That quick little, those quick little, that little lick, I guess you could say I do with one finger. You can do with two fingers if you want to pull off. Do you know what that is? But I like just one finger. I just hit it once with the right hand and then open for the next right, the beginning of that third measure. So anyway, there I have it. And then with the fillers, it sounds like this. So 3.43 I guess I did reach that out with my ring finger, but you can reach whatever finger makes sense to you. So anyway, there is the first, we're done with the first page. So there's a lot to take in. Just work on one measure at a time and get comfortable with it before moving on to the next. I know I said that the intro, you just kind of skip it. That one's a work in progress, I think the intro, but measures three through ten, just work on one measure at a time and yeah, then we'll get to the next page in the next class. All right, Thanks. 6. Measures 11-14: Hey, in this video we're doing measures 11 through 15, and we're going to start with measure 11. Here we go. This is what it sounds like. Anyway, we're going to end on this chord. It's a cool, I'll focus, there we go. It ends on that. Or I'm going to do it one more time. Let's do it slow. Here we go together, 1.2, and ready and play to 14. Okay. That last one right there, that last 16th note. That's the word. It's the word. The word Lyric should be moved over right underneath that. Looks like I made a little mistake though. Hopefully you can forgive me on that. Yeah. Let's go to measure 12. We got some then I want to try this. What you want to do is play this chord right here, okay? It looks like an E minor, but I'm going to let go of my first finger there. It's open. Sound It wister, right? You just need to get those two under your fingers first. Then the next measure is going to be these two fingers again. You just go up a half step right here with your left hand. And you're going to keep this note here. It used to be the two notes, these two, right? For this next measure of 13. Sup on the start, Wake up where the clouds are from, can go between those two, okay? Try that out as a chord I like to do, for whatever reason. I like to do it with my middle two fingers starting right here. And then I move everything up a half step and then do this shape, okay? Anyway, push, pause, Work that out. Now I want to try some day. And then this open string and then three, third fret, okay? Then open string and then four open string three. Even though these are the same notes, just a different effect there on. Okay, so work that out. I'm going to lets do it together real slow. Here we go. 3.4 P. Then the next chord, Here it is, right here. I like to play it like this. You can play it this way or whatever. Now, here's the next measure, 13. Here we go. 3.4 where the. Okay, hi. Now here's measure 14. Hire is another. Here's that goes C or C. This is what I'm playing for. The cord is just this note right here for this half of this measure, 14, right? A lot of similar notes there. A lot of the goes going on again. Here it is, 143.4 and 12.3. And 4.1 Okay. Here's the next shape for seven. Normally people play seven right here. Yeah, CGC sharp G. That is, this geno is doubling this geno. Anyway, we got seven here, It looks like this, this shape. Okay. So again, here's C starting on major 143 and go in 124. And there's seven, okay? There's that. I didn't I didn't realize this until now. Is that you just leave your ring finger there for the seven and that 14. 7. Measures 15-17: All right, so on measure 15, we're going to play this minor looking thing. It, okay, so there's in here it is again, 3.4 okay? Just this shape right here. It looks like a G. It's like a Sus type chord. Then seven. We're going to stu that. Let's see here. How do I do that? It's going to go seven. Oh, here we go. That's why. Here's the seven. This is what it sounds like. I play it like this. Some people like to play it like that is the easiest way for me to play it. Yeah. You can look at the tabs there on measure 15757, roll it like that. In the video, I do that. Anyway, what I do is I get all the strings right here in my right hand and you can pluck it. But then now after you get used to plucking it, you want to just roll it like you're opening a door. Like the door knob there? Yeah. That's what I would do on measure 15. It's going to go on 234, and then I come to this shape right here for G seven and I roll. And then, yeah, you could yeah, that's the way I would do it again. On G seven, it goes okay, you got to move your hand all the way down to that third note when it says where then going to start again, just like we did in measure 12. On measure 16. Which, where we're at right now actually. You know what? No, no, we'll finish this out. Measure 16, it does the same thing again, so troubles melt, Just like we did in the previous measure, measure, previous measures 12.13 But this time instead of doing going up, we're going to go down a half step. Okay? So you're going to bring this shape, this exact shape right here. A half step, this way, right? And I'm plucking both of these and the open G, the course open G, you might just want to push, pause, and go back and forth like this with your right hand. That's a cool dissonance end on that seven, right? I'm leaving this note out for the seven anyway. Work that out. And then we get to, we're going to actually go to measure 18 in the next video. Push pause and try those different things out. And I'll see you in the next video on measure 18. All right. 8. Measures 18 - 27: All right, in this video we're doing measures 18 to 27. I think we can get that far. We're doing a lot of repeats measures in this video. So it sounds like this. I'll just play it for you. It goes, wait. So we just got done doing measure 17, the last video, so that were five me. Okay, we're going to attempt to get to that point. We'll see if I need to make another video or Not minor, Okay, it's this chord right here. Maybe you've played that chord, minor. That's the way I play minor. And it goes like this. Let's play it together. Just half that measure on 18. Here we go, 3.4 and 12, and 3.4 and Okay. Now the seven normally play it like this. Right, Which works. But this is kind of the pole seven. I think this is nine and I believe this is the ninth ne above a. Yeah, it looks like this is the shape right here, right? It sounds like this. And you play it like this. Okay, so that's on measure 18. Let's play that whole measure together. So push, pause, and just try the seven by itself. Try the minor by itself, and then let's put them together. Here it is. In measure 183.4 and 13.4 Here's a 714, okay, minor. I'm just bring this fret five, those three strings, it's the same pick pattern. Okay, Let's try it together on mine. Here we go measure 193.4 I know sometimes I use different fingering, but I stick to the fingerings. I got thumb 123. Okay. And then seven. This is like a altered or 75, I think. Here's the seven. Okay. Maybe you play seven this way, right? Here's another way to play seven, looks like this. Try this out before moving on, it looks like the F. Okay? And then move it up a whole step right there. And then this finger is going to be right here on the fifth fret. And the pinky's also going to be on the fifth fret. Okay? And my first finger is shoved right there on the third fret. So that's the seven, that'll be great. And what you have to do to make the G seven sharp five, you just have to move the pinky up a half step right there. Super Has some dissonance in there, but I think it sounds cool again. Here's the seven and here's the seven sharp five from D minor, it would sound like this. Then there's the five. Okay. That might just take some practicing. Go between minor and seven altered or 75 right there. Or even just minor and G seven. Okay, there's that. Then it gets back to me, the beginning, the very beginning of the song. Not the intro on measure three, right? On measure 20. All right. Hopefully you have that down already. If there's a refresher measure 20, here it is, here we all. 3.4 and 12.3 4134 minor. Remember we just keep that in shape. Okay, we've done that before. And then now we're on measure 22 chord, which we've played before in the beginning, let's say 3.4 and 22. And then again we have this repeat again. We've done this before, so let's start on this. Birds, So anyway, birds, birds, birds. Okay, let's start together. Here we go, 20, what is that? 24. Here we go, 3.4 and then eighth fret again, right? Three. We've done that. And then we got, it looks like a G, but it's, it's like a S and then D minor. We went over this in a video. Then again, we've done this one already. Okay, we're going to stop right there. Again, like measures I would say 20, measures 20, 2027 is a repeat of measure three, is basically a repeat of the page one. Okay? So if you got page one down, then you should be able to get measures 20 through 27 down. Okay, if you guys have any questions, let me know. In the next video we're going to finish it up with the ending of the song. Yeah, to see there. 9. Measures 28 - 32: Hey guys, Congratulations if you've made it this far, is a difficult song. We're going to go through the last four measures starting on measure 28. And we're going to go through the chords first the shapes, and then we're going to get to the picking. So first of all, we're going to play a flat. I know that's not the most common chord to play on the ukulele, but here it is, right here. This is the shape that I like to do anyway. Okay? And it looks like this. Let me see if I can focus. There we go. Let's see as it says, you want to stick these tabs together and make a chord out of it. 44.5 Those are, that's the 4.5, We have an chord, let's go up 123 steps with that F with these middle fingers normally play an chord like that. All right, I'm going to play these two middle fingers, and I'm going to go up four half steps. Three actually 32 steps. Then our first finger is going to be right here on this genome, or third fret. Second string. Then our pink is going to be on what, is that, the sixth fret? It's a big fat chord, but that's what it looks like. Okay, And we're going to play all the notes. Go ahead and strum that. That's what it's Sp, so like. Okay, that's the pick pattern is just the two and then these two, we got strings 4.2 and then 3.1, okay, back and forth. Try that out. That's measure 28. That's the whole measure again, 4563. Just these strings over and over again. Then I go up a minor third, so what that means, let's see, 1232 steps from where we were before. If we're on a flat here, we're going to go up 123, half steps. Okay. It's going to be 56. Let's see here. Yeah, this is 7.8 and this is 9.6 Again, it's just the same that we just did just on the starting on the sixth threat, with our first finger being on the sixth threat. Okay. Again, that's what it's supposed to sound like. Strings 4.2 and then 1.3 You can either pluck them together like this with just thumb and one finger. One or any fingers you want. I do these two thumb always being on top. Okay. And then it gets to that last note on ten, which you're going to reach with your pinky. One stretch right here. Right here's one. If happy little blue birds fly, right? That's the very first word. And then it goes up a half step. Okay? So that same shape, sorry if that was confusing. That same shape. Down a half step was on the B, and then up a half step you have C. Okay? So happy first fly. And the only thing that we're changing from this Court to the very last or the G, S four is our ring finger. It's going to go up a half step. It might take some practice. It might hurt a little bit. That's the. Okay, here's C, then here's the G, four. Okay? It looks like it sounds like the same, picking two on the right hand, if happy first y can't. Okay. And this is that's clear up there. 12, 15. That's you sound better than mine and that's okay with me. But yeah. So here's the shape, the magical shape. One more time, Okay. Again, it looks like an chord, right? And you go up a half step or half, go up 123 steps, three half steps. And then you want to put your pinky right there on the sixth fret, and then your first finger on the third fret, okay? The chords are a flat then, which is up 123 steps, half steps. And then is just up a half step and then you're moving your ring finger back and forth. Can start the song out like that, which is cool anyway, so why can't Okay. There's the last four measures. Okay. Hopefully you've enjoyed this class you guys, I'd really appreciate your review guys. Give me your review. Give me an honest review please. That would be helpful. Yeah. Looking forward to putting out some more classes for you. Hopefully, I can communicate to you what you need to know on how to play. It's super fun and I'll see you next time.