Aura Lee Study Tips

Melody

Aura Lee, originally an American Civil War ballad, was recorded by rockabilly icon Elvis Presley in 1956 as Love Me Tender, and featured in the movie by the same name. Although the melody roams across the first, second and third strings, Aura's pace is mellow and phrase repetitions lighten technical challenges. Pick the melody with the middle and index (m-i) fingers and accent beats one and three. Aim for a tempo of about 100 BPM.

Listen to the Track

Listen to the track so you can absorb the sound and feel of the melody.

Aura Lee | Peter Kun Frary, ʻukulele

Play the Melody Now!

Practice the melody of Aura Lee until silky smooth. Read the music—don't just copy the finger movements in the video. Play along with the audio track or video to help keep your rhythm honest.

Once the melody flows smoothly, work on the chords.

Chords

Better Transitions

The challenge of Aura Lee lies in the use of six different chords. Spot practicing troublesome chords will always yield improvement, but application of better technique can make transitions even smoother. For example, holding the fingers as near as possible to the fingerboard results in faster and more efficient finger placement for chords.

Chords with Shared Notes

Lifting the fingers off and back down for a new chord is labor intensive and may result in a disconnected sound. However, fluidity of some chord transitions may be improved by leaving down shared notes. For example, F and Dmin share two fretted notes (red arrows below). Thus, the move from F to Dmin is smoother if the F chord is left intact and a free finger—the 3rd finger—is placed on the second fret of the C string, thus forming the Dmin chord. The move from Dmin to G7 is smoother when the F (first fret of the second string) is retained during the transition.

Chord Tones | Leave down shared notes (red arrows) during chord changes.

overlapping_chord_tones

Whenever possible, hold down common fingerings and chord tones.

Elvis ʻUkulele | KALA-LTP-C-ERB | Photo courtesy Kala Brand Music Co.

Elvis Kala Uke

Flat-Four Strum

The Flat-Four Strum is recommend for Aura Lee. It has an old timey vibe and sounds great if you're careful not to cover up the melody of your duet partner.

Aura Lee Chords | First line of Aura Lee with Flat-Four Strum.

aura_lee_flat4

I prefer the mellow sound of a thumb strum played over the end of the fingerboard, but you may use a brighter index finger strum if so inclined.

Thumb Strum | Beginning of the strum stroke

Thumb Strum ©S FRARY

If the Flat-Four Strum is too busy for you, the Down 2X Strum is more laid back but still works well. If you wish to forego strums entirely, consider learning the P-i-m-a 2X arpeggio introduced with Betty Lou of '52.

Aura Lee Chords and Melody Demonstration | Professor Peter