Khabu Young's New Ukulele Players Series

By Chris Ott

Monday, March 23rd 2015

Ukulele teacher Khabu Young discusses his newly released Ukulele Players Series, a self-guided online course that organizes the basics of music and applies it directly to the ukulele in a fun, easy to follow program and gets you playing music right away. The course includes videos, worksheets, and audio tracks for singing and strumming along. Learn more and enroll.

Lessonface: What prompted you to want to develop this course?

Khabu: Several years ago, I began posting worksheets with short video examples of musical exercises online for my classroom students as a way of reinforcing the fundamentals outside of the class. The more that each student honed these same basic skills on their own, the deeper the entire class could dive into applying the tools to real-time musical situations and repertoire. This format helped me better serve all the individual needs and helped the students stay on track as the course progressed.

One enthusiastic student, who happened to work in Internet marketing, suggested that my teaching could reach a broader audience and help more people as an online course that wasn't confined by my own location and schedule. Having taught workshops, classes, and private lessons around many parts of the globe for 30 years, I have found that many basic skills of musicianship and theory (particularly as applied to the same instrument), remain constant no matter what style or genre of music one is most drawn towards.

Lessonface: What kind of student will benefit the most from the course?

Khabu: Taken on its own, the ideal student is self-motivated to fully explore the given materials & self-disciplined to practice regularly, eventually making the tools their own. Musically inclined persons that have played or studied other instruments will find this course to connect this prior knowledge directly to the ukulele. Those who are already studying or intending to study with a teacher will greatly benefit from this course as a structure through which to organize the process, or simply provide additional resources. This course is for anyone who really wants to learn the essential musical tools for jamming with others, playing by ear, improvising, composing - really knowing what you're doing.

By the way, this course is an excellent resource and method for teachers, too!

Lessonface: How do you recommend someone get started with the course?

Khabu: I suggest first getting an overview of it all by looking over the materials, the way the lessons are laid out, listening to short segments of the play-alongs - enough to get a sense of the whole. Then watch the first video and begin the lessons in earnest. Even if the early lessons seem familiar - 'of course, I know all that already!' - play along with the audio & video anyway, because it's fun, and there just may be some things in there that you haven't thought about before. This will also help to make sure that you've got the foundation for understanding what comes later. If it only takes a day (or less) to master a lesson, that's fine, but still go through each lesson at least once. By the same token if it takes weeks to feel you've truly mastered the skills in a particular lesson, that's ok, too. Eventually, all the materials will come together to give a unified experience of making music with the ukulele.

Lessonface: What's your favorite part of the course?

Khabu: I especially love the play-along audio tracks, because they provide the opportunity to make real music with the materials. they provide many different tempos, moods, and grooves to practice with. I believe these tracks will inspire an inherent musicality using whatever it is you've got in that moment, which will only grow richer and more confident as you proceed along the journey.