Bluegrass Ukulele: A Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Songbook

Nice book with great examples online where you can hear what you should be rolling. Fret fingering seems to be close to what I play on the banjo.

I like the selection of songs, and I understand why they are arranged in the keys that they are in (for playing in groups of traditional musicians), but in many cases that means that they are not in the easiest keys for an ukulele. So, that makes this a beginner /intermediate level book in my estimation, rather than just entry level.

This book has an explanation of different strumming patterns, picking and rolls, then each song has 3 arrangements; 1st- the music melody line and lyrics and chords and tabs for the Uke, and then 2nd- is strumming with chords and tabs and the 3rd is rolling with chords and tabs. This gives you everything you want!!! He also explains how to do certain exercises or strums on his cd, I am soooo pleased with this book and I almost didn't buy it because it was almost 20 bucks, I'm so glad I did!! After you learn these methods you can apply them to any of your songs! Oh I almost forgot, I also saw that Fred Sokolow has some youtube videos and in the "beginning for ukulele players" he demonstrates these strums and rolls - very helpful. I would very much recommend this to anyone trying to learn bluegrass on the ukulele, if you only get one book get this!!

Most of the books I've bought have not been that helpful. the most useful item I've bought for learning ukulele has been Bob Brozman's The Ukulele Toolbox DVD. It blows everything else that I've bought out of the water.

As long as you read through the beginning section of the book and have an understanding of some of the basics of ukulele, like reading tablature and chord shapes, then this book can open some doors for your bluegrass and fingerstyle playing. It helped me to both play the book's arrangements of bluegrass songs, and it offered guidance as to how to arrange songs in a stylistic manner. I'm really enjoying this book.

I haven't gotten very far in the book, but I'm enjoying it. I'm using the strumming and picking patterns for exercise and I feel it's improving my playing.

Love that this includes a CD for FAST learning! LOTS of great tunes, with TAB and chords. It covers all the bases. I recommend this for beginners!

Good book.When I heard the CD my first reaction was: "I love to play like this" which is a good starting point for a textbook.I love that each song has three arangements, strum and sing along, strum with melody and fingerpicking.So that enables play-along with my friends. Boosted my Ukulele experience.

I' m addicted to my uke and to bluegrass music as well.Fred Sokolow connects both in an impressive way.Thanks to the high pitched fourth G string on the uke- provided it' s tuned in G C E A - you can play bluegrass tunes in banjo style ( clawhammer and a range of variations of rolls -forward roll, double index roll, tag roll, etc. ) on it.So you don' t need a five string banjo to fulfill your bluegrass dreams.Fred does explain the techniques very well.This book provides a code to enter on a given web address for downloading the tunes and examples.The sound is nice and very clear.The book features 21 bluegrass tunes.Some come along with lyrics, and some are fiddle tunes and bluegrassers usually play them as instrumentals.Each tune is accompanied by different techniques.You can just pick the melody or play the tune in clawhammer style or apply rolls.I almost forgot a very nice and important picking style called the Carter lick, popularized by Maybelle Carter, June Carter Cash's mum.It's a great book that meets my needs in every sense.I highly recommend it.

C'est mon 2ème livre de Fred Sokolow : avec lui l’ukulélé se joue de manière très vivante.Au fil des morceaux, une grille de lecture pour la mélodie, des arrangements en finger picking qui agrémentent le tout nous amènent à notre tour à imaginer de futures compos.Qu'importe la durée d'apprentissage, je recommande, même si les morceaux semblent d'un "autre temps".

Muy buen material, pero no para principiantes. Las canciones están bien elegidas y para cada una hay una tab con la melodía, una con el rasgueo en modo clawhammer y una tercera con los arpegios (fingerstyle). A Sokolow no diempre le alcanza la voz, pero el audio está muy bien.

Very informative and guide to learning. Cd also helps. Very technical

It's an excellent ukulele learning book I've bought. There are 21 classic bluegrass songs such as Wildwood Flower, John Henry, Old Joe Clark & Wayfaring Stranger, etc. For each song, the author Fred Sokolow will sing two verses with strumming accompaniment. Then he'll play its solo in two different styles, one in index finger picking or thumb picking strumming, and the other one in three-finger rolls banjo-style. I've learned a lot by playing the songs in this book.