Learning How to Play the Ukulele: My Favorite Ukulele YouTubers

As the mother of a 12-year-old aspiring gamer boy and the wife of a man who loves watching Sam The Cooking Guy (I'll be honest - we all love Sam), our feed on YouTube is pretty...diverse? When I started to get back into violin and wanted to teach myself back in 2000, YouTube wasn't even a thing yet. Now, if you want to learn how to play the ukulele, there are literally thousands of channels on YouTube where you can find free ukulele lessons. 



Here's a rundown of my top 10 YouTubers for learning how to play the ukulele at home:

1. Uncle Mark's Ukulele: this is the YouTube channel I used when I first started learning how to play the ukulele. Mark Piper has some amazing videos that are simple, easy to understand, and got me playing pretty much within minutes. 

2. The Ukulele Teacher: I love this guy. His creativity is just amazing, and his sense of humor is pretty good, too. Check out some of what he does when he mixes his own tracks on some classic rock and heavy metal songs using the ukulele!

3. Ukulele Magazine: the only ukulele magazine I can find, they have some great videos for techniques that I'm still working on mastering.

4. All For Uke: lots of great videos with series on fingerpicking, strumming patterns, barre chords, and great song tutorials!

5. Uke Like the Pros: another great channel with lots of technical skills and some fun blues songs for baritone uke.

6. Cynthia Lin Music: you can't say you play the ukulele if you haven't learned at least one song from Cynthia Lin. She's incredibly talented, and has literally hundreds of videos you can use to learn ukulele at home.

7. Bernadette Teaches Music: another great YouTube channel with some music theory, some fun songs, and some great techniques.

8. Lara Markowitz: Lara is just starting her YouTube channel, but she's definitely one to watch. An excellent teacher, and I think this is going to be a great resource for a lot of ukulele players.

9. Ukulele Underground: welcome to the YouTube ukulele rabbit hole! Holy crap, there are a lot of videos here. Have fun getting lost in a zillion song tutorials, techniques, and fun stuff.

10. Fretboard Toolbox: a great resource for music theory and when you're ready to go way beyond the basics and learn how to navigate the fretboard of your guitar, re-entrant uke, and baritone uke.

As I get braver with my blogging about the ukulele, who knows? Maybe I'll add my own YouTube channel to this list one day. Stay tuned!


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