“Higher Ground” is one of my favorite hymns — mostly because of the tempo and ease of three chords.
History of Hymn “Higher Ground”
History of Higher Ground can be found at Bible Study Charts. It’s interesting to note “Count Your Blessings” was written by the same person.
Ukulele Tabs for “Higher Ground” hymn
You can purchase the ukulele tabs for Higher Ground as part of Ken Middleton’s ebook, 12 Hymn Tunes for Ukulele.
Ukulele and Native American flute duet for “Higher Ground”: Finger-picking vs. Strumming
Practicing the three chords F, Bb, C7 becomes a joy with this song. It doesn’t seem like practicing at all.
This is a great song for either strumming or finger-picking. Finger-picking takes a bit more practice but I prefer it with the hymns. However, if you are performing this song and get nervous with crowds, finger-picking is harder to keep steady.
You can hear the difference it makes to finger-pick your ukulele vs. strumming in this sample. I am using a low g string on a soprano ukulele, but the hymn sounds good on high G or low g. Download a pdf of Higher-Ground that contains ukulele chords and Native American flute fingerings.
Chordie: A good resource for Ukulele chords
If you want to change the 3 chords that you use, then you can go to Chordie. Look on the right side of the page and you can change the key of the song by raising or lowering by your desired number of semitones. You can select which ukulele tuning you will use – C, D, or baritone. The chords are shown to you on Chordie or you can download a pdf of ukulele chords to print out.
YouTube: “Higher Ground”
Ken Middleton has a ebook of hymns for ukulele if you’re interested.
The Gospel Ukulele 