Here are a couple of lessons showing how you can strum your five-string banjo ukulele style. You can quickly switch to high-energy strumming when you want to kick some energy into a dance or just as a break from regular clawhammer.

Here’s an introduction to the strum I use most often:

I use my index finger for both frailing and strumming, but I recommend you use a different finger for each approach. The strumming wears your nail down fast. I’m switching my strumming to my middle finger but I’m not there yet, so I use the index in the video.

For happy strumming, you need to know what chords to play. So here’s a quick look at how to figure out the basic chords of a D tune:

Links

• Jim Bottorff’s site of American popular songs for strumming fun
• Find any chord in any tuning at ChordFind.com
• Many more Illinois tunes at Dear Old Illinois
• Tab and a solo banjo MP3 for the tune you hear in the videos

Other uses for the strum

If you’re at a big, noisy jam and the players have wandered apart rhythmically, you can (politely) switch to the uke strum to bring them back together. The banjo uke sound cuts through everything and gives a steady beat for people to latch onto.

Why not open G?

I showed the strum and chords in double D for two reasons:

1. Many people who watch my videos want to play old-time music, for which D is a popular key.
2. It’s way easier to make the I, IV, and V chords up the neck in D.

If I want to strum in several keys without retuning, I use open G (gDGBD). I know many more chord shapes up the neck in that tuning, and it’s what I use for playing the kinds of tunes on Jim Bottorff’s site. However, old-time tunes usually insist on I-IV-V, and switching between G, C, and D up the neck in open G is a bear. So to make it easy on the old-time crowd, I chose a D tune and aDADE.

Here’s part of my quest to get more people to learn tunes by ear.

Chords will help you find the melody
First, here are the three chords you need for most old-time tunes in D, shown with two positions each. When you know these chords, you can quickly find the melody notes for just about any D tune you’re likely to hear at a jam.

Here’s a PDF chord chart for those chords, including a fretboard map showing the notes you’re most likely to use.

Use the chord shapes to learn a new tune
Once you know the chord positions, use them to learn “Toads in the Woodpile,” an original yet reassuringly formulaic D tune.

At the beginning of this video, you’ll hear a fun, loping jig by melodeon player John Kirkpatrick of Shropshire, England.

Although it sounds like it has a “weird” scale, it plays fine out of double D, which is what I used in this tab.

Like this tune? There are lots more at John’s online store.

Traditional Irish tune. Tab to come.

Slow, for learning:

MP3

Contra dance speed (it’s a little crazy because it’s hard to avoid crazy at 120 BPM):

MP3

Traditional Breton? French? lullaby.

Tab

Traditional English tune in 6/8 and 9/8; from Blowzabella.

Tab

A fun challenge by Jay Ungar.

Download MP3 | Tab

A common Swedish walking tune, played as a processional at weddings and such. I have sweet memories of this tune from the days when Folklore Village was a one-room schoolhouse lit by candles.

Download MP3 | Tab

Traditional Macedonian song. It’s in 7/8 but don’t let that stop you.

Tab

A line dance from Brittany.

Download MP3 | Tab