About

In 2014 the UKE Can Do It! Ning network began providing a way for interested music educators in different places to connect about the ukulele. At that time ukulele programs were not as widespread as they are today and very few classroom resources or training opportunities were avaialble. The network grew to include the profiles of over 800 music teacher members from 47 U.S. states and 23 countries, who taught hundreds of thousands of students the ukulele in school for the first time during this period. It spawned a Facebook group of the same name which remains the largest teachers-only (closed) group on this topic. The site eventually outlived its original networking purpose and was converted to this traditional website in December 2020.

Philip Tamberino (site administrator) became a music educator in 2006 and was the first teacher to introduce classroom ukulele programs to schools in the New York metro area. From 2010 to 2014 he gave workshops at local, state, and national levels in order to promote the ukulele as a classroom instrument to other music educators, including the first NAfME National Conference workshop on classroom ukulele in 2014. In addition to administering the original Uke Can Do It! Ning network and now this site, he is the author of Uke Can Do It!: Developing Your School Ukulele Program (2014), a guidebook for teachers, and Uke Can Do It 2!: Classroom Ukulele Method (2016), a beginner student method book for ages 8 and up, both co-published by NAfME. He is currently an administrator in Fire Island School District and is  preparing a second edition of the original Uke Can Do It!, which will include a formal page-by-page teachers guide to the Uke Can Do It 2 method book.

CONTACT: philip@ukecandoit.org