John King - The Classical Ukulele Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Masters Series Book/Online Audio

I believe that I’m an intermediate level player and this is challenging material for me. It’s excellent and what I want, but just know this isn’t for beginner players. As mentioned elsewhere, this is for re-entrant, high G tuned, ukulele. If you want something similar for low G tuning, I’d suggest looking at Jeff Peterson’s Graded Repertoire for Ukulele. I think it’s also excellent. One final comment on the John King book, mine did not come with a CD, but all the music is available online.

After making it part of the way through James Hill's excellent Duets for One, I took a chance to see if the series could make it two out of two. When I first received Mr. King's book, I opened it to the first song and saw the melody line for Danny Boy. Wow, I thought. This is going to be way too simple. Then I thought, alright smart guy, let's see if you can play this simple melody line with precision, tone and heart. Of course, I couldn't. So I practiced and then moved on to the next tune.I am utterly charmed with this book and I'm only up to Prelude by Chopin (I used to love playing this on the piano — a beautiful piece). Imagine the thrill of being able to play Chop Sticks as your first solo piece before friends and family.This book starts easy and gets harder fast (Prelude is simple to count but a challenge to seamlessly fit the chord shapes together).Thank you, Mr. King. I apologize for ever doubting you. Now I'm off to review Mr. Hill's excellent ukulele music book.---Brian

This is a good book of ukulele songs. I would say that many of the songs are intermediate and advanced level. It helps a lot that the book includes a CD of the songs being played. This helps a lot with learning to play the songs. I'm still more of a beginner. I have been able to learn a couple of the songs, but many of them are still out of my reach. I am able to play parts of other songs and feel like I will eventually be able to learn more of them. I still rate the book fairly high because I feel that the limits are my own, not in the book. Just be fair-warned that this is not a beginner-level book.

So glad this still comes with a CD instead of an online collection of Recordings. These are so beautiful I actually listen to them on my stereo for entertainment as well as learning to play them. These are really lovely and fun to play on the ukulele. Super hard to memorize though because the style has you all over the place trying not to hit the same string in succession so memorization becomes a bunch of patterns based on that objective. But wow does it make the ukulele sound like it rings out and resonates all over the place... Which we know it really doesn’t. So it’s really worth it. Buy this book, play these arrangements, and watch your friends start to see the ukulele as a serious instrument.

I LOVE this book/CD package. Here's why:1. Advanced material but excellent tabs that make it accessible to many levels of players.2. a KILLER CD. John King's playing is absolutely stunning. Amazing tone, beautiful arrangements. Get this just for the CD (ie to listen to like an audio CD) and then the transcriptions come along with it for almost no $.3. The arrangements feature John King's signature technique of fingering with open strings (or string jumping between the 1st and 4th string) so that the notes run into each other almost harp-style. This is really special and after you play these arrangements a little while, you might just start incorporating this technique in your own playing.4. Great repertoire.I have the Lyle Ritz books (I'm much more of a jazz player than a classical one) and like them a lot ,,, but I like this one much more. Stunningly good.

John King plays ukulele like a virtuoso violinist plays a violin, and the result is pretty much the same. Wonderful music. The Campanella style works really well on uke, and the tones ring wonderfully. On the more chordal pieces, his technique is enough to carry them off. I can recall playing the Chopin Prelude on piano when I was a piano student. To hear it on ukulele is amazing. The tab and notes are well done, and I can see they will present a real challenge. If you can finally play some of these wonderful arrangements, you have arrived as a ukulele player. If you love good classical music, well performed, grab this set. If you play ukulele and you don't have this set, you are an idiot.

The first thing you should know about this book is that it is for uke with reentrant tuning. The book by John King has, to me, pros and cons. He obviously knows his instrument! The music in this book is good but King puts the player up in a lot of higher positions which often seem unnecessary. But perhaps he is trying to achieve an effect which can only be achieved by doing that. He utilizes the 4th string a lot in ways which both impress and confuse me, since I do not usually play with re-entrant tuning and, in fact, think it is a very odd animal.If you want to play something classical, this is a good book. Just prepare to work hard on it!

This is one of the best books I have reviewed for classical music on the ukulele. King's arrangements are particularly notable for his extensive use of the "harp style," in which runs are passed across the strings rather than being played consecutively on one string. Many ukulele arrangements are "guitar lite" arrangements that mimic how the music would be played on the top four strings of the guitar, but King's arrangements make striking use of the unique tuning of the ukulele. The result is settings that are both sonically effective and also include very beautiful, convenient fingerings that make playing them a delight.

Excelentes arreglos y muy buenos temas. El tamaño de la partitura es adecuado para una fácil lectura, buena calidad de la impresión.

Great book. A friend recommended it to me as I was interested in finger picking and classical style ukulele. Lovely pieces such as Jesu Joy of Mans Desiring, Greensleeves, Danny Boy, Fur Elise, Bach Prelude no1 in C. There are also some very nice pieces which I hadn’t heard of before such as Ahe Lau Makania Hawaiian song. A few pieces can also be played as duets. There is a CD with recordings of all the pieces as well which I enjoy listening to anyway. It took a little while to get used to the numbering of the frets and fingers but with practise it becomes second nature. It’s great for beginners and more advanced players too.

Lots of good interpretations to stimulate my mind and fingers.

Das Buch ist der absolute Hammer! Doch Achtung, auf gar keinen Fall für Anfänger geeignet. Dafür jedoch eine neue Herausforderung für jeden fortgeschrittenen Ukulelisten, aber auch sehr erfahrenen Gitarristen. In englischer Sprache gehalten sind die Stücke in Standard-Notation als auch Tablatur nieder geschrieben. An schweren Stellen sind gar die Fingersätze für Greif-und Zupfhand angegeben. Das große Schmankerl: Mehrere Stücke sind komplett als Duette für Ukulele und Gitarre (auch als Fingerstyle) arrangiert. Sehr bemerkenswert auch die beigefügte, vom Meister selbst (beide Instrumente) eingespielte CD. Klare Kaufempfehlung, aber die Stücke sind, wie bereits angesprochen, größtenteils sehr schwer. Nerven zeigen und durchhalten! Leider ist der Autor viel zu früh verstorben. Hätte gerne mehr von John King gehört, respektive von ihm gelernt. Es soll allerdings ein zweites Lehrbuch sowie zwei CDs von ihm geben.

Bellissimi arrangiamenti per ukulele. Alcuni più semplici, altri decisamente impegnativi. Il Cd accluso, nel quale King esegue i suoi arrangiamenti, è un piacere per le orecchie.