Originally written 30/4/20 : “KAME Chord task : Ukulele in the real world and popular music”

~ mitchelljamesdavis

After challenging myself to better understand technique in playing the ukulele along with working out the twelve bar blues I IV V chords in several keys, I have been thinking more about the place and purpose of the instrument beyond decoration on top of existing music. While genres that include the instrument as a staple may be worth exploring, for now I will stick to western popular music for learning purposes. This process will allow me to further cement chord shapes in mind, as well as fulfil the intention of this assessment in the first place, to be able to perform chord based popular songs on a variety of instruments as the teacher in a variety of contexts.

This website (Uku-tabs) is reminiscent of Ultimate guitar, a community dedicated to sharing of transcriptions of songs for the instrument. The link provided is a long list of songs dedicated to ukulele driven popular songs, a perfect resource for learning more about the instrument in a real world context beyond the scope of this assessment.

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Published by mitchelljamesdavis

Mitchell Davis is currently a music education student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, born in 1997 in Sydney. Following a positive experience with music education in primary and secondary school combined with a personal interest in music as an art form and pastime, the decision to become a secondary school music teacher was naturally made. Complimentary to studying music education, Mitchell also holds ongoing experience working casually in a youth centre in his home town of Liverpool, New South Wales. After studying a Certificate IV in Youth Work, It was here that he initially found his confidence and appreciation for working with young people to achieve positive outcomes, predominately running various sport and recreational youth programs both in local Liverpool school environments and at the youth centre's facilities. Mitchell's specific area of musical expertise is in contemporary popular music. He is a guitarist and songwriter who enjoys genres such as heavy metal, extreme metal, hard rock, blues and pop. He has begun to write, release and perform his original music in order to gain greater experience in the world of contemporary music and give more value to his skills in becoming a music educator.

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