3 Chord Thursdays at 3 Archive

Posted on April 1, 2020 by Anne Ku

Please visit the web page for 2024 dates and themes. It’s amazing how many songs you can play with just three chords. Recall the KISS principle, like the instrument itself: Keep It Simple Silly. What can you do with four strings and three chords?

Join the new public group of Facebook! Subscribe to our YouTube Channel! Get on the Ukulele Enthusiast e-blast!

We aim to fit 10 songs per one-hour session. As such, we welcome volunteers to request songs they’d like to perform. Once full, we start a waiting list for cancellations or continuation on a future date to be scheduled (for that theme).

All sessions are recorded for review for education purposes.

The team that won the Anniversary Ukulele Jeopardy Game on 1st April 2021 – caricature by Eve Myles (TX).

2023 Themes

2022 Themes

2021 Themes

2020 Themes

The Programme

Here is what you can expect (all times in EDT):

  • Before 2:30 pm Participants can enter zoom meeting to check on sound, lighting, chit chat, mingle.
  • 2:30 pm Performers arrive (no later than 2:30 pm) to ensure time for sound and lighting checks. Newcomers to introduce themselves. Everyone else to join to ensure everything works.
  • 3:00 pm Warm-up. Everyone is muted except the instructor.
  • 3:05 pm Sunglass ritual. Make sure you have your sunglasses and ukuleles.
  • 3:10 pm Song session begins. The host mutes everyone. The performer unmutes himself/herself and introduces himself/herself and the song (composer, artist etc) while the song sheet is shared on the screen for everyone to see. As soon as the screen is UNSHARED, all participants UNMUTE themselves to clap, cheer, show appreciation for the performer. Use the CHAT to show your support or ask any questions.
  • 4:00 pm End of session

Themes and thematic

In my (complete) beginner course for the ukulele, we leap into two-chord songs in our first session. By the time we meet again, we are ready for three chord songs. We linger there for several sessions, to appreciate the variety of three-chord songs. In my first published book on the ukulele, I list three chord songs in different categories: golden oldies, popular music, holidays, nursery rhymes, 21st century, reggae, etc.

The 12-bar blues, for instance, uses just three chords. Many traditional Christmas songs only require three chords. Happy Birthday is the most well-known one. It’s possible to reduce a lot of well-known songs to just three chords.

However, just because a song has only three chords doesn’t mean it’s easy to play it. In “Walking on Sunshine” for instance the chord changes are fast and frequent. Furthermore, the strum pattern is not trivial.

The goal of the song session is to build your repertoire across genres and eras, which we can categorize in several ways.

Three Chord Thursdays 60’s hits

Warm-up Lesson

By focusing on three chords, we reduce the challenges of switching chords and may even attain the goal of not looking at our chord fingering hand. By freeing our attention to the left hand, we can then explore different ways to strum and pluck with the other hand. Here are some possibilities which I cover in my weekly strum workshop , boot camp, and pluck & strum series.

Right hand techniques

  • basic strokes: down, up, etc.
  • combination strokes
  • percussive effects: wham, CHK, mute
  • syncopation
  • texture

Left hand techniques

  • Best fingers for a chord
    • For quality sound
    • For comfort
    • For switching
  • Chord transitions
  • Alternative chord positions
  • Substitute chords
  • Deriving unknown chords
  • Barre chords
  • Hammer and pulloffs

Other musical items:

  • Tempo and rhythm
  • How to make a song interesting
    • Intros and outros
    • Melodic riffs or what defines a song
    • Modulate
    • Repeat
    • Fade
    • Slow down, speed up
    • Add color by adding chords
    • Modulate
  • Transpose to find a better key for your voice or skill level
  • How to lead others in a singalong
  • How to find song sheets

Participation

Everyone is welcome anywhere in the world to participate in one of several ways:

  • sing and play a song (solo) unmuted, with video on
  • sing and play a song with another or more (relay – sequential duo), video on but taking turns on muting and unmuting
  • sing and play with video on but muted
  • watch with video on but muted
  • or simply lurk (video off) and muted, even as background music

Logistics of Zoom

We encourage you to arrive early to get used to the online environment, introduce yourselves, chit chat, tune-up, etc. Most of all, if you arrive early, you can get into the line-up for song leading as a soloist or shared “relay” singing.

For the best quality experience, we mute everyone else when someone is performing on a single microphone. For the best experience in ZOOM, please close other applications and windows. Hard-wired Internet (into your router) is better than WIFI. Use the biggest and most power computer device: a desktop computer is better than a laptop which is better than an iPad which is better than an iPhone. If you’re not in an entirely quiet location, best to use headset (earphones) and microphone.

We record these sessions so we can remember, hear and see ourselves afterwards to improve for the next time. We also edit these videos to share with the community (through community television). It helps to hear yourself if you have performed. If you do not wish to appear, please switch off your video.

To allow others to see you, please ensure light falls on your face and not on your computer or device screen. If you plan to perform, do ensure your ZOOM audio setting is set to ORIGINAL SOUND, otherwise, ZOOM treats any other noise (including your instrument) as interference and playing and singing means your ukulele strums are clipped.

Curious about “original sound”? Watch this video below. It’s particularly important for performers to set their Zoom audio setting to “original sound” otherwise Zoom treats your ukulele and any accompanying instrument or sound as noise to be filtered out.

Original Sound in Zoom

The Zoom application was designed for the human voice. As such, it filters out any other noise, including traffic and your ukulele. To hear your ukulele, you need to ENABLE ORIGINAL SOUND. To do so on your iPhone see below. It’s always good to test your audio by recording yourself in Zoom afterwards. You can also watch this video tutorial about setting it up.

How to enable Original Sound on your iPhone Zoom app

DON’T FORGET YOUR SUNGLASSES!

Three Chord Thursdays Location theme (part 1)

“There’s no end to themes,” said Marco, who leads the weekly Morristown Ukulele Jam (MUJ) sessions in Zoom and who has created most of the themed song sheets, songbooks, and video tutorials on Youtube. “Feel free to check out ours in dropbox and share.”

Three Chord Thursday 21st Century Pop Songs

All sessions are recorded for review for education purposes.

We are always looking for help to index the video recordings, share your screen to scroll song sheets, edit video recordings, help find song sheets, help edit song sheets, and help spread the word.

WANTED

Volunteers to share screen and scroll song sheets so others can be hands free, please watch these two video clips.

Advice from Neil (UK)
Tips from Anne (MA)
Editing and transposing in OZBCOZ.COM (Duration 3:06 minutes)

How to index a video recording

What does indexing mean? Just give the time and topic to make it easier for the viewer to navigate the video recording. Below YouTube screen, click on the blue text SHOW MORE which opens up more text. Watch this short video below.

NEXT video on enabling original sound and how to look good in Zoom

Unassigned themes

We started with weekly sessions in 2020 and moved to 1st, 3rd, and 5th Thursdays in mid-October 2022. Since 2024, we schedule 1st and 3rd Thursdays only, according to national and international observed days. Where there’s no “designated” or “observed” day, we may choose a specific music genre: blues, classical, children’s songs, country, folk, pop, rock-n-roll, swing, etc.

  • luck & card Games (Note: the factors of 2023 are 1, 7, 17, 119, 289, 2023)
  • copyright free church hymns
  • decisions, chance, regret, indecision, procrastination, uncertainty, fork in the road
  • songs using exotic scales
  • songs using pentatonic scales: Amazing Grace, All Along the Watch Tower, Another Brick in the Wall, Sunshine of Your Love, My Girl
  • songs that use suspended chords: Annie’s Song, Free Fallin’
  • songs in minor keys that end on a major chord (Picardy Third)
  • British (Pop) Invasion: Gerry and the Pacemakers, …. The Kinks, ..
  • British (Pop) Invasion: the female artists
  • tongue twisters
  • bilingual songs
  • Songs free of copyright
  • The second British invasion: the Buggles, Simple Minds, Duran Duran, OMD, A Flock of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, New Order, Eurythmics, Soft Cell, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears, Yazoo, The Smiths, Fine Young Cannibals, …
  • modulation (songs that change keys)
  • positions: sitting, slouching, standing, squatting, ….
  • Reduce the number of chords and simplify a song
  • parodies
  • medleys
This entry was posted in ukulele and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.