Soprano ukulele — a graded beginner curriculum

A technique-graded course for the soprano (standard) ukulele in C tuning (g–C–E–A). Unlike the organ and harpsichord tutors there is no score corpus here, so the curriculum is built from the skills themselves — holding and tuning, the stroke, chords, then picking and solo playing — grounded in public-domain ukulele methods of the 1900s–20s.

The five levels

• Level 1 · First steps — hold, tune, strum — posture, C-tuning (g C E A), the down-stroke, your first chords
• Level 2 · The common stroke & easy keys — steady strumming patterns, more chords, simple accompaniment
• Level 3 · Picking & the scale — finger/felt-pick strokes, the major scale, syncopation
• Level 4 · Chords in all keys & transposition — movable/barre shapes, the full chord vocabulary, transposing
• Level 5 · Solo & chord-melody playing — chord-melody, advanced strokes, improvisation

Sources

• Peterson Ukulele Method (early 20th c.) (archive.org) — holding, tuning, the strokes, chords in all keys, transposition
• Roberts Progressive Method for the Ukulele (1910s–20s) (archive.org) — finger/felt-pick strokes, scales, chords by key
• established soprano-ukulele pedagogy — the standard beginner-to-advanced progression