The Rules of The Ukulele Alphabet
There are 52 weeks in the year and 26 letters in the alphabet. 26 times 2 equals 52. It all works out perfectly for The Ukulele Alphabet: my 2025 ukulele project.
I had so much fun doing the Taylor Swift Surprise Songs Set Project in 2024 that I wanted to continue my ukulele practice with another structured personal challenge.
And here’s how it’s going to go down.
THE RULES
- I’ll play one song per week and publish each performance in my newsletter1 as well as here on my site. This will be in addition to my regular non-ukulele posts, so you won’t be missing anything.
- Each letter gets two songs assigned to it:
- one by a band or artist whose name starts with the letter in question
- and one song itself that starts with the letter in question.
- All solo artists are categorized in the alphabet by last name (library-style). John Denver, for example, would fall under D.
- If an artist plays in two different bands or has a solo album or side project, they can only appear in the alphabet under one of those projects. So Jenny Lewis could only appear once: either with one of her solo songs OR with the Postal Service OR with Rilo Kiley.
- “The” and “A” do not count in the alphabet. “The Ballad of John & Yoko” and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” would both be categorized as B songs.
- Even though I don’t get any bonus points2 when both the artist and the song start with the same letter, I did include a few instances of those for extra fun.
- There won’t be any Taylor Swift songs this year.3 Not because I’m sick of playing her music, but as an extra challenge to choose other songs in my library for a change of pace.
U ready for the ABCs?
The first song drops the week of January 6, and you can always access the complete archive of The Ukulele Alphabet performances here as well.
- I’m not committing to playing each song live this year because I feel like I’ve already accomplished what I wanted to do with that particular stricture. But playing live is fun, so I might do a few live performances if I feel like it! ↩︎
- I don’t get bonus points for anything, I guess, since I made up the rules. ↩︎
- Oh, but I could easily do a Taylor Swift Alphabet. In fact, off the top of my head in the middle of the night, I came up with a full alphabet list of her songs except for X and Z. And all except J and Q are songs that didn’t appear in my Surprise Songs Set, so I might do this as my own little side thing. ↩︎
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