A 10-minute starter for new students

In my Tuesday 4 pm piano/ukulele group, we set a metronome to 60 bpm, clap four bars of quarter notes, then play the C pentascale while saying do-re-mi and labeling I and V — simple, musical, and theory-friendly… What quick warmups help your beginners connect their fingers to the idea of tonic and dominant without losing the joy?

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I run a 60-second call-and-response over a C drone: I sing/play do–sol–do, they echo with I (blocked) → V (open 5th) → I, making V staccato and I legato so ‘V wants to go home’ is felt, not lectured. On ukes, if chords are clumsy, we just pluck C–G–C on open strings first; would a quiet drone or a simple backing track fit your vibe?

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