CLASSES

Free one-hour classes on the 3rd Thursday of each month at 3 PM East Coast USA Time in 2026 — 3 Chord Thursday. Each session is livestreamed on YouTube for review, to play along for practice and improvement. Get the Pick Pluck Play! books on Amazon in advance to be prepared.

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2026

Make Your Ukulele Sing! 8 Wednesdays 1.5 hour in-person classes, from April 1st – May 20, 2026, Boston Public Library, Honan-Allston Branch – free, including instructional material (a Pick Pluck Play! book) – for those who get into this class and give full participation.

2025

  • Sunday 10/26 – Intorno All’Ukulele, Cologno Monzese, Italy
  • Thursday 9/11 – annual outdoor ukulele jam  at CCAE, Cambridge, MA (Harvard Square T station Red Line) – download the songbook 18-page pdf
  • Saturday 9/13 Nutmeg Ukulele Festival – Simsbury, Connecticut. Three sessions:
    • Reimagine Pachelbel’s Canon – all levels (ensemble)
    • Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D follows a common chord progression used in many pop songs. A canon is a round, where each part enters at different times, repeating what’s played by the previous part. Reimagined, this new arrangement for ukulele can be played by many players of different skill levels. It’s also possible to rotate parts, stick to the same motif or riff, fingerpick or strum. Advanced players can play the melody from the beginning to the end.
    • Fingerpickin’ Good!
    • Like strumming, fingerpicking can go on autopilot when your individual fingers automatically know what to do. This session introduces the most popular fingerpicking patterns and when to use them to accompany songs. Fingerpick individual notes to learn new melodies and introduce riffs to spice up a piece. Get bespoke exercises that will strengthen your fingerpicking prowess. 
    • Play Oz Like Iz: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
    • Authentically replicate Iz’s famous “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” – the song that brought the sound of the ukulele to the top of the pop charts. Equivalent to Für Elise for the piano, when you say you play the ukulele, someone will ultimately ask if you could play this song. Many people sing and play it like Judy Garland, but it’s an entirely different song. Learn how Brother Iz did it.
  • Wednesday 9/24 World Wasp Day – free one-hour workshop in Zoom
  • Sunday 10/4 Coastal Ukefest – Cohasset, MA – two sessions:
    • Fun with Ukulele: The 20% You Need to Play the 80% You Want
    • The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle from economics, shortcuts the traditional approach to learning a musical instrument by centering on the most popular chords, common chord progressions, strum patterns, fingerpicking patterns, most popular songs in the most popular genres and eras, information sources (song sheet and sheet music repositories), reference websites, and concepts like moveable chord shapes to derive new chords and switch between chords. 
    • Learn a new piece to play together to perform together as an ensemble after the hour-long rehearsal
  • 3 weeks 10/19 – 11/14 – Europe trip (Italy, Netherlands, UK)
  • Weekend 10/24-10/25 Ukulele Conference, Alessandria, Italy
  • Ukulele Workshops 10/26 Mango Tango Ostinato, Cologno Monzese (Milan, Italy)

WINTER 2025

6-week course (in-person), Boston Public Library Honan-Allston Branch
6 consecutive Wednesday evenings from 16th April to 21st May 2025 6:30 – 7:30 PM EDT
Free to participants who commit to the six consecutive weeks. Sign up. Show up. Set up. Practice. The library provides the music stands and “Fun with Uke” book; and your own ukulele that you can borrow with your library card. Contact the librarian to register.

Ukulele workshop in the coastal town of Cohasset, Massachusetts
Sunday 9th February 2025 from 2 to 4 PM EST. Free to participants.
In-person only. Free parking. Details here.

World Ukulele Day Workshops in Zoom
Sunday 2/2/2025 at 2 PM EST and HST. FREE.

Daily Music Writing Project – no 8-week courses in Zoom until further notice

FALL 2024

FREE TASTER WORKSHOPS IN ZOOM: 9th and 11th October 2024

Order new Ukulele Exercise books via this Form.

  • UKULELE FALL 2024 Wednesdays from 4 PM in Zoom / in-person followed by Zoom sessionat 5 PM EDT (hybrid). SIX required + TWO optional = 8 classes.
  • PIANO FALL 2024 Thursdays from 4:30 to 5:50 PM EDT in Zoom. 6 classes.
PIANO SPRING 2024
Ukulele Course Spring & Summer 2024

Get on the Ukulele Enthusiast e-blast to be the first to get notified of workshops and courses. Take a peek at what we do in the group classes in this new blog post.

Hybrid Workshops in 2024

Hybrid means in-person and in Zoom. These one-hour workshops are offered after 3 Chord Thursday sessions and start promptly at 4:30 PM EST unless otherwise specified.

To be scheduled
Ukulele Bootcamp
Learn 20% of what you need to play 80% of what you want

Ukulele Bootcamp
This is the class that will get you to improve your rhythm and timing, practice different strokes and strum patterns, build your chord vocabulary, grow your song repertoire, … the 20% you need to do 80% of what you want. It’s the class that gives you the most amount of playing. [In contrast, Music Theory has most amount of homework and least amount of playing.] Each bootcamp is new and different from the previous offering. You can take this class as many times as you want. You are invited to requests songs you’d like to learn.

Fingerstyle Ukulele: fingering and fingerpicking technique

Fingerstyle Ukulele
Depending on the skill level and focus, fingerstyle ukulele courses have been given different names to reflect the content and skill level: Pick & Pluck, Tab & Pluck, Pluck & Play, Fingerpickin’ Good, Low G Ukes Unite! , Pluck & Strum, Fingerstyle Ukulele Showcase, and Riffs.

We start with reading and playing from tablature (tab or tabs) and focus on technique to produce quality tone. Topics: how to produce a good tone, how to read from a lead sheet and make a chord melody arrangement, pluck patterns for accompaniment, duet, ensemble playing. In the past, the following books have been used in this class:

  • Jeff Peterson’s Graded Repertoire for Ukulele Classical
  • Daniel Ward’s Arpeggio Meditations (high G ukulele)
  • Daniel Ward & Heidi Swedbergs ‘Tis the Season for ‘Ukulele (low G ukulele)
  • Anne Ku’s Fun with Uke Book (high G ukulele)
  • Paul Mansell’s Classical Uke
  • Paul Mansell’s 2kulele (ukulele duets)

Course Information

  • Each class session is video recorded, the link and handouts distributed to class members within 24 hours. You may take the entire class at your ideal time and pace if you wish. The video link will remain active until the start of the next season.
  • The course’s full schedule will be given at the first class session.
  • Register for a course by completing the registration form. The tuition fee may be paid by Zelle, Venmo, Paypal, Amazon Gift Card, or Cash/Check. The Zoom link will be sent to you after fee payment.
  • The course will be offered once minimum 6 register, or else gets postponed. If a course is cancelled, a student may register for another course at the original registration fee. See below for refund policy.

Read previous testimonials.

SPECIAL OFFERS

Classes with minimum enrolment of 6 will start as scheduled. Below that number, start dates will get postponed. Only registered students who have PAID will receive the Zoom information.

Unless specified otherwise, the tuition covers all instructional material for all class sessions, including bespoke exercises and arrangements (custom-created for the class), class video recordings, and homework. Certain classes require advance purchase of books.

Illustration by Eve Myles

Refund Policy

If the class gets cancelled, you will receive a full refund of what you paid via Venmo or Zelle or Cash. If paid through other means, only the tuition you’ve fully paid will be refunded (due to administrative costs charged by Paypal etc).

If you have to cancel, BEFORE the class commences, you can request for a refund by e-mail. You can choose to receive 1) a 50% monetary refund, 2) a full tuition refund in CREDIT towards future classes, or 3) donate into the SCHOLARSHIP FUND. Payment fees via Paypal will not be refunded.

If classes have already started, you can request for a REFUND of the unused portion in the form of partial CREDIT towards future classes. Again, you can also transfer the remainder to someone else or donate into the SCHOLARSHIP FUND.

Other options:
For any reason, you choose not to take the class you have registered for, you CAN request to switch to another class. You CAN give your paid enrollment to someone else (who can take the class you chose or switch to another offered). You CAN donate your tuition into the Scholarship Fund.

Workshops (one-off)

Music Courses (4 to 10 weeks)