How to Maintain Your Ukulele
Playing your ukulele regularly is the best thing you can do to keep it in good shape. Ukuleles are meant to be played, and a good uke opens up (sounds better) the more you play it. That said, to keep your uke sounding good, a certain amount of care and maintenance is required:
Clean it after you play it. You can buy all sorts of fancy instrument-cleaning products, but simply giving your ukulele a quick wipe-down with a soft cotton cloth (avoid anything harsher, including paper towels) is all you really need to do. This wipe-down prevents your sweat getting mixed with dust and gunking up your uke.
Store it properly. Even if you never take your uke out of the house, invest in a bag or case. Even the flimsiest one gives protection from dust and light dings.
Temperature is the big issue with storage. Avoid leaving your uke in direct sunlight, steer clear of heaters altogether, and avoid leaving it in a hot car. Cold is less of a problem, but if you’re traveling by car, stow your uke inside with you rather than sticking it in the trunk.
Under normal circumstances, airlines let you take your ukulele with you on the plane. However, security concerns may force you to check it. If you fly with your uke, definitely invest in a hard case for it.
Maintain the right humidity. Wood is a natural, breathing material and reacts to the surrounding environment. Therefore, you have to be careful if you live in a particularly dry or wet place:
If the air is very dry, the wood on the uke can crack. Invest in a humidifier to avoid this problem. Just put this little device in your ukulele case and it keeps the conditions more uke-friendly. Humidifiers are simple and fairly inexpensive, and so if you’ve invested in a nice uke, the investment is worthwhile.
If the air is very damp, the uke can warp. Leave a silica gel pack in the uke case to avoid this problem, which is more likely with solid wood ukuleles because laminated ones tend to hold up better in humid conditions. Ukes quite often come with silica packs anyway, but they’re also cheap and easy to buy separately.
Ukulele Glossary
aDF#B tuning
A tuning method in which each string is tuned two frets higher than the standard gCEA tuning, producing a higher pitch and closer tuning to a guitar.
Ukulele Glossary
barre chord
A chord played with a finger pressed across more than one string.
Ukulele Glossary
bridge
The part of the ukulele attached to the front that holds the strings below the soundhole. The two main types of bridge are one where you tie the strings to the bridge, and one where you knot the end of the string and thread it through a slit.
Ukulele Glossary
capo
A device that straps around the neck of a ukulele and holds down all the strings.
Ukulele Glossary
Ukulele Glossary
chord
Two or more notes played simultaneously.
Ukulele Glossary
chord diagram
A graphic that shows where to place your fingers in order to play a chord on a stringed instrument.
Ukulele Glossary
chord family
A group of six chords with each containing notes from the same scale.
Ukulele Glossary
fret
n. A strip of metal placed vertically across the fretboard of a stringed instrument that marks different pitches of the notes. The higher up the fretboard, the higher the note is musically. v. to press down on the strings of a stringed instrument to play certain notes.
Ukulele Glossary
fret marker
A dot on the fretboard of stringed instrument that makes it easier to locate frets. Typically, ukuleles have fret markers on the 5th, 7th, and 10th frets.
Ukulele Glossary
fretboard
The strip of wood that runs along the neck of a stringed instrument just behind the strings.
Ukulele Glossary
fretted string
A string you play while holding it down at a certain fret.
Ukulele Glossary
friction tuner
A mechanism for tuning stringed instruments in which you turn a peg that tightens or loosens the strings and keeps the strings in tune through friction.
Ukulele Glossary
gCEA tuning
The current most popular method of ukulele tuning, in which the fourth string is tuned to a high g note, and the subsequent strings are tuned to C, E, and A, respectively.
Ukulele Glossary
geared tuner
A guitar-type tuning mechanism in which the tuning pegs are geared. Geared tuners allow for more precise tuning than friction tuners.
Ukulele Glossary
hammer-on
A technique in playing stringed instruments in which you bring a finger down on a string sharply and swiftly to sound a note.
Ukulele Glossary
headstock
The place at the end of the fretboard of a stringed instrument that holds the tuning pegs. (It shows the logo of the instrument’s maker.)
Ukulele Glossary
low-G tuning
A ukulele tuning method in which you replace the high, thin g-string with a low, fat G-string, then tune the other strings to C, E, and A.
Ukulele Glossary
moveable chord
A chord in which you fret every string.
Ukulele Glossary
neck
The long piece that sticks out of the body of a stringed instrument.
Ukulele Glossary
nut
The piece the strings sit on as they go from the fretboard to the headstock.
Ukulele Glossary
open chord
A chord with at least one string played open, or not fretted.
Ukulele Glossary
open string
A string you play without fretting.
Ukulele Glossary
pick-up
A device that detects sound and turns it into electrical impulses which can then be amplified.
Ukulele Glossary
re-entrant tuning
A method of tuning in which the two outside strings produce the high notes, in contrast with typical low-to-high tuning.
Ukulele Glossary
root
The first chord in a chord family.
Ukulele Glossary
saddle
The thin, usually white piece that the strings rest on near the soundhole.
Ukulele Glossary
scale length
The length of the part of the string played.
Ukulele Glossary
soundhole
The round hole on the front of a stringed instrument that lets the sound out.
Ukulele Glossary
staff
A set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that represent musical notes.
Ukulele Glossary
standard notation
A method of representing the melody lines of songs on staves.
Ukulele Glossary
Swiss army strumming pattern
A down, down-up, up-down strumming rhythm.
Ukulele Glossary
tablature; tab
A method of representing musical notes for stringed instruments with lines and dots, indicating which string to play and which fret to use.
Ukulele Glossary
time signature
Musical notation that indicates the number of beats in a measure and the value of each note.
Ukulele Glossary
tremolo picking
Picking the same note repeatedly at a rapid tempo to produce a fluctuation in volume. This method allows you to play very long notes that otherwise would stop sounding.
Ukulele Glossary
tuner
1. The part of a stringed instrument that holds the strings. 2. A device used to calibrate the strings of an instrument to the correct pitch.
Ukulele Glossary
vibrato
A warble added to the end of a note accomplished by repeatedly picking a string very quickly, varying the pitch.
