Hi Strathmore Primary School Community,

It’s been a great start to the year in the music room with all students learning ukulele and playing chords.

The Foundation students, have been introduced to the ukulele and have been strumming chords. The grades 1s and 2s, have been working on changing chords and playing songs with that change between the C, F and G chords. The 3s and 4s, have been learning about Verses, Chorus and Bridges in songs as they try to play and sing at the same time. The grades 5s and 6s, have also been trying to play and sing at the same time with some of the students playing guitar to accompany us while we sing. 

The ukulele is a great fun instrument that is a great start for someone wanting to learn guitar. A new feature in our music room is the uke wall which hangs some of our ukuleles and also has lots of interesting vintage ukulele newspaper articles and photos of people playing the ukulele.

 If you are interested in buying a Ukulele for your child to play at home, I would recommend the basic Mahalo Uke which can be found on ebay for around $35. I can help with putting the stickers on, if any students would like to have them so their ukulele is the same as the ones at school. 

If you are after an app to play along with and to help tune your ukulele, I would recommend ‘Ukeoke’ from the app store. It has 109 free songs and yearly subscription is around $50 which will unlock all of the songs. 

I am looking forward to another wonderful year teaching music at Strathmore Primary School. 

Mr. Gribben