Ukulele Articles

Article / Updated 08-27-2021

The ukulele may be the patron saint of whimsical instruments, but there's still thought and method involved when it comes to playing! Read on to learn how to strum your uke like a pro. You use your dominant arm (that is, the right arm if you’re right-handed) to strum your ukulele. The fretting hand may get all the glory and do all the fancy work, but the strumming hand is most important. You can finger a few fluffed notes or wrong chords without anyone really spotting them, but everyone is sure to notice when your strumming speeds up and slows down. Strumming is such a fundamental part of a song that strumming patterns vary between genres much more than chord patterns do. To assume strumming position, put down your ukulele for a second — you can pick it up again in a minute. Put your strumming hand (right hand for right-handers, left hand for left-handers) in front of the middle of your body where your stomach meets your chest. Make your hand into a light fist so your fingertips are touching your palm but not pressing into it. Now use your index finger to point at your left shoulder (right shoulder for left-handers) and rest your thumb between the first and second knuckle of your index finger, as shown in the strumming position video. Resting your thumb on the finger is important: it gives your finger an extra bit of stability so it makes a cleaner sound when you strum. Strumming your ukulele in the right spot Pick up your uke and position it so that your index finger is just above the g-string, where the neck of your uke meets the body. This location is known as the sweet spot. Each ukulele has its own sweet spot where the strumming sounds best. For soprano ukes, this spot is around where the neck meets the body. For larger ukes, the sweet spot is between the soundhole and the end of the body. Experiment with your uke and see what feels and sounds right to you. Strumming your ukulele the right way The best advice for strumming — and life in general — is to stay loose. Tightening up is a surefire way to sound robotic and tire yourself out quickly. The second-best piece of advice is to strum with your wrist rather than with your arm — moving your arm up and down gets tiring very quickly. So you want to move your wrist and do no more than rotate your forearm. You don’t need to strum much more widely than the strings. Try not to make your strums too wide because maintaining a steady rhythm then becomes harder and you tire more quickly. When you strum down, your nail hits the string first. When you strum up, the pad of your finger hits the string first. This pattern creates a nice balance between a more forceful down-strum and a softer up-strum. Stay relaxed, not only in your hands and arms but also in your whole body. When you concentrate too hard on your playing, you can easily tense up without noticing, which can lead to getting tired and achy. So every so often, consciously relax your arms and shoulders before you get back to playing.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-12-2021

To enable you to translate music on the page into music that you play on your ukulele, chord diagrams and tablature – or ‘tab’ – help to make life easier. This Cheat Sheet explains these handy helpers and serves up a selection of the chords you’re most likely to use when playing your uke.

Step by Step / Updated 03-11-2021

The more songs you play on the ukulele, the more the common chord progressions start to feel, like old shoes you can slip into easily. But as comfortable as they are, sometimes the occasion calls for something fancier and dazzling. That’s when you’ll want to pull out one of the great-sounding chords in this article. The chords here are designed to be used in place of a standard chord anywhere you feel the need for more pizzazz. So, for example, you could replace a G7 chord in a song with the G9 chord in this article and give the song a new feel. This is known as chord substitution. A change of just one or two notes can make a chord tense, mellow, bright, or moody. Test this out in songs and let your ears tell you whether it’s the right place for one of these chords. So warm up your fingers, prick up your ears, and get ready to try some of the greatest chords on your ukulele.

Article / Updated 03-11-2021

One of the best things about playing the ukulele is the community associated with it. Perhaps because the ukulele has been so disparaged in the past, all players are very supportive of each other. A friendly culture surrounds the ukulele that you don’t get with many other instruments. If you ever need a question answered, some inspiration, or just an encouraging comment, you can find it in the ukulele community. Most cities around the world have a vibrant ukulele scene with clubs, gigs, and festivals. Even if you’re in the middle of nowhere, you can log on to the internet and get involved. This article offers you ten ways to get out into this community, meet uke players, make music, and have some fun. Join a Ukulele Club The main reason for going to ukulele clubs is because they’re a huge amount of fun, and they’re always very welcoming to new members and accepting of beginners. Joining up is also a great way to improve your playing. You can pick up tips from other players and get the motivation to learn new songs and brush up your technique. New ukulele groups are cropping up all the time. No matter where you live, a club is bound to be near you. The easiest way to find a group is to search the internet, using your nearest city plus the word ukulele as your search terms. Most groups have a Facebook page, which makes it easy to contact them and keep up to date with meetings. If you can’t find a ukulele club near you, start one. You may have to start out small, but before long the word is sure to spread and you’ll have a vibrant group of people attending. Visit a Ukulele Festival From Paris to Palm Springs, Melbourne to Helsinki, an international city can’t be “happening” without a ukulele festival. Festivals come in all shapes and sizes: some are big, some small; some are free, some charge a fee. But they all give you three things: Inspiration: Watching the pros gives you lots of ideas for your own playing and may even inspire you to start writing your own songs. Testing: Ukulele festivals usually have a few ukulele makers and shops showing off their wares, providing a great opportunity to try out lots of ukes, find what you like, and plan your next purchase. Meeting up: Festivals are a magnet for ukulele players and so you have plenty of opportunities to make friends, chat uke, and jam. Make a Video Ukulele players such as Meghan Trainor, Dodie Clark and Mxmtoon have gone from making videos in their bedrooms to signing record contracts and touring internationally. But you don’t have to be a star to record a video and upload it to the internet. Go on to YouTube and you can find loads of beginners playing and singing. Include the word ukulele in the title of your videos and leave plenty of comments on other ukers’ videos. In this way, you soon find that you have friendly subscribers and lots of encouraging comments. Play Live Whether you’re on your own or part of a group, playing live in front of an audience can be a great—scary, but very rewarding—experience. Playing in front of people is also the fastest way to become a better player. The fear of screwing up gets you practicing harder than you ever have before and removes any complacency. When you just play for yourself, a tendency can creep in to practice only until you can play a piece through successfully “most of the time." If you’re playing that piece live, however, you need to practice until you can get it right every time. Good players practice until they play it right. Great players practice until they can’t get it wrong. You don’t have to dive in at the deep end with performing. Begin by promising to provide the accompaniment for a family Christmas singalong. Starting out playing with other people around you is much less daunting so why not play with your local ukulele group or start up your own band. After you build up your confidence a bit, you can start taking on open mic nights at uke clubs. Go Online You can find plenty of ukulele players on social networking sites. Facebook has a huge number of groups for ukulele players from local groups to those campaigning for Tiny Tim’s inclusion in the Ukulele Hall of Fame. Twitter is packed with ukulele players too, including famous ukers such as Amanda Palmer, Jake Shimabukuro, and Ingrid Michaelson. And Reddit has an active ukulele community. Spread the Uke News The ukulele boom hasn’t been spread by big TV stars or rock gods; it’s built up by word of mouth, through groups of friends seeing each other play and loving it. Now that you know the joy of the ukulele, get more people involved. You’ll soon be the local ukulele expert. With the speed that the ukulele is currently spreading, before long you’re bound to have friends, family members, and colleagues looking to you for advice. Enter a Contest Ukulele contests are a great way to show off your uke skills, spread your music, and perhaps pick up a prize. The contests are usually sponsored by ukulele makers who offer up their wares to the best video submitted. Small contests go on all year round. Many ukers themselves start their own mini-contest and challenges. Although winning is nice, that’s not what the contests are about. Contestants always check out each other’s videos and leave encouraging comments, and so contests are a chance for you to get your music heard and make contact with other players. Teach Someone Ukulele Skills Teaching someone else to play is a great way to tone up your ukulele skills. After all, you have to make sure that you’ve got a technique mastered so that you can pass it on effectively. Don’t worry if you don’t feel like an expert; even as a beginner, you have important information to pass on to other beginners. When you start playing and people see how much fun you’re having, they may well want to join in. If you want to teach more formally, an increasing number of schools are replacing recorder lessons with ukulele lessons. Write Your Own Songs Covering songs you love is the perfect way to get started making music—and it’s always great fun—but writing your own songs (or your own tunes if you’re not a singer) adds a whole new level. Coming up with your first song can be difficult, but here are a few tricks you can use: Remix: The writers in ABBA used to take the lyrics to another person’s song, write new music to fit those words, and then write new lyrics. This trick is useful because it gives you a starting point to work from. And it means that you already have the arrangement before you start. Repurpose: Steal a chord progression: the Law states that you can’t copyright a chord progression. So, find a progression you like, speed it up, slow it down, change the rhythm and/or change how fast the chords change. “Pretty Green” by The Jam uses chords taken directly from The Beatles’ “Taxman.” Reverse: Take the chords of a song you know, mix them round, and see what you can come up with. Also, try playing songs backwards. John Lennon wrote “Because” to the sound of Yoko Ono playing Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” backwards. Of course, you may not need any of these tips, but if great songwriters such as John Lennon, Paul Weller, and Benny and Bjorn used these tricks, no one’s going to blame you for doing the same. See a Show An increasing number of ukulele acts are touring. These include big bands like the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, accomplished soloists, like James Hill, Jake Shimabukuro, and indie stars, like Beirut and tUnE-yArDs. One of the best learning experiences you can have is watching a professional player up close. You don’t have to visit ukulele-only shows. I find watching all talented musicians hugely inspiring, even if for some baffling reason they choose not to play the ukulele. You can find out a huge amount from players of other instruments. Even if they don’t play a string instrument, you can listen to how they use phrasing, vibrato, and pauses. More and more ukulele players have taken techniques from other disciplines and brought them to the ukulele. A popular one is the banjo technique of clawhammer picking. Flamenco techniques work great on the ukulele, too. A good example is Jake Shimabukuro’s tune “Let’s Dance," which includes Flamenco strumming techniques, rhythms, and scales.

Article / Updated 03-10-2021

Restringing your ukulele can seem like one of those jobs to put off as long as possible, like homework, exercising, or visiting the dentist. But changing the strings isn’t as bad a job as it seems, and you’ll feel better afterwards (and unlike those other jobs, it adds to, rather than takes away from, valuable ukuleling time). You need to restring your uke periodically for the following reasons: Old strings sound dull — and so will your playing. Old strings can become uneven, which means they can start to sound out of tune when you play them at certain frets. Over time, strings can wear away at the frets, bridge, and nut. Leave them long enough and you risk breaking them. When to Restring Your Ukulele I can’t give you a set amount of time between string changes. It depends on how often they’re played, what kind of strings they are, and even the chemical composition of your sweat. Some musicians prefer the sound of old strings (and so delay changing them) and some prefer newer strings. Replacing your strings when they start sounding dull to you is probably the best thing to do. A good indication that your strings need replacing is finding notches in your strings where the frets touch them. By this stage, they’ll have passed sounding their best and you’ll start to develop tuning problems. The other time to replace strings is when you buy a new uke only to discover that it has a useless set of strings on it (something I’ve experienced several times). Putting on a high-quality set of strings (such as Aquila or Worth) is the quickest and cheapest way to improve the sound of any ukulele. Never put steel strings on a uke; it isn’t built to take them. Removing the Strings Before putting on your pristine set of new strings, you have to remove the old ones! If you’re in a massive hurry to change strings — such as finding that they’re damaged or sound awful just before a performance — you can just cut them without too much risk. But far better is to unspool the tuning pegs until you have enough slack to pull the strings off. I prefer to change strings one at a time (because the other strings give you something to tune to) but by all means take them all off together. And raise a quizzical eyebrow to anyone who tells you that removing them all at once causes problems with tension. If you’ve removed all the strings, take the opportunity to clean the hard-to-reach areas underneath them. Tying the Strings at the Bridge A bridge holds the strings in place. Ukuleles have two main types of bridges: Soprano ukuleles tend to have a slotted bridge with a slit for each string. Larger ukes tend to have a tie-on bridge with a little tunnel for each string to go through. Both types of bridges have a saddle: a strip – traditionally made of ivory but now thankfully plastic – on which the string sits, and that’s the start of the section of the string you play. Slotted Bridges Slotted bridges are dead simple to use. Just tie a knot in one end of the string (as simple as making a loop and threading the end through) and thread it through the slot so that the knot holds the string in place. Tie-on Bridges Tie-on bridges are a complete pain in the saddle-end. Here are the steps to take: Thread the string through the hole. Then bring it back up and thread it under the string, as shown below. Depending on how thick the string is, thread it back under itself on top of the bridge. Thread the string under itself once more behind the bridge and pull it tight. Then pray that it all holds together and looks like the following figure. The last time the string passes under itself, it has to be at the back of the bridge. If it’s on top, the string will probably refuse to hold its tuning. Looping the Strings Around the Tuning Pegs After you’ve attached the string to the bridge, thread it through the hole in the tuning peg and pull it tight. Ensure that the string doesn’t slip too much by looping the string around the peg and threading through the hole in the same direction. Pull the string taut before you start tuning. The more string you wrap around the tuning pegs, the messier the process becomes and the less likely your uke is to stay in tune. Make sure that the strings leave the tuning pegs on the inside. So, turn the G- and C-string tuning pegs counterclockwise (so that the strings come out under the pegs), and turn the E- and A-string pegs clockwise (so that the strings come out over them). This method gives you the straightest line possible between the tuning pegs and the string’s notch in the nut. Check that the string is sitting neatly in its notch in the nut and start tightening the tuning pegs. As the string does a full circuit, make sure that it goes under the previous row. You want the string to come off the peg lower down so that it leaves the bridge at a steeper angle and is less likely to slip. Very recently, ukuleles have started to be made with classical guitar-style slotted headstocks. If your ukulele has one of these, the process of attaching the string is very similar to the preceding process. The only difference is that, after you thread the string through the hole, loop it around the string (to create a U-shape); the string then tightens down as you tune it up. Stretching the Strings Ukulele strings take time to bed-in and keep in tune, and so make sure that you give them a stretch when you put them on to speed up the process. When the string is on and in tune, pull it away from the body and give it two or three little tugs. The string is likely now to be out of tune. Tune it up and repeat the process until it holds its tuning (or until you’re bored out of your brain-box).

Article / Updated 03-10-2021

Classical music is one of the last things people expect to hear coming out of a ukulele, which is what makes classical music so much fun to play on the uke. Perform a classical piece and people think, “I didn’t know you could do that on a ukulele!” This article shows you how to go about creating this surprised response in listeners. So, put on your best suit or classiest frock because you’re going to the concert hall! Strumming Up the Classics The strum up technique (that is, strumming down on a chord and adding the melody note at the top) is an effective way to arrange more simple classical tunes. For example, the following figure shows the tab version for Brahms’s “Lullaby” (a tune familiar from every music box ever made). The melody is built around three main chords: C, G7, and F. At the start of each bar, the relevant chord is strummed down (using the thumb) with the melody note on the last string you hit. After the opening chord of the bar, the thumb plays the single melody notes. The fretting hand fingering is pretty straightforward, but bar seven requires a bit of thinking ahead. I indicate using your fourth finger (the little one) to play the note at the third fret. Although using your third finger may look more natural, you’d then be stranded for the next note. The next tune, “Greensleeves," uses the same technique as Brahms’s “Lullaby” but adds a couple of elements. The following figure contains the arrangement. First, this piece makes use of notes farther up the uke’s neck, which means a few big jumps in the positioning of your fingers. “Greensleeves” is a slow piece anyway, but don’t be afraid of practicing it even more slowly; make sure that you focus on playing slow enough that the large jumps don’t stop the flow of the music. When you can play it smoothly at a slow tempo, increasing speed is relatively easy. The second thing to watch out for is the up-strum in bars 13 and 30. Here, instead of strumming down with your thumb, you need to strum up with your index finger. When you’re playing in this way, the ear interprets the last note you hit as the melody note. Earlier in the piece the last note was played on the E- or A-string, but here it’s on the G-string, and so that needs to be the last string played. Also, in bars 13 and 30, the melody notes are hard to play while holding the E7 chord. So, you can break the rule about letting the chord ring through the whole bar and release the chord in order to play these notes. Picking the Classics — Classical Guitar Pieces for Ukulele Classical guitar tunes tend to transfer well to the ukulele. Quite often they contain picking patterns and arpeggiated chords (chords played one note at a time). The most famous example is “Romanza” (also known as “Spanish Romance”), which is shown in the following figure. Here’s a really simple way to transfer guitar pieces to ukulele: just play the tab for the top three guitar strings on the top three strings of the ukulele. So, for example, if the guitar tab tells you to play the top string at the third fret, play the top string of your ukulele at the third fret. The top three strings of a guitar have the same relative tuning as the top three of the ukulele. This technique, however, doesn’t work perfectly for every piece. One common problem is the lack of bass notes. To overcome this difficulty for “Romanza”, I add an A minor chord at the beginning. The tune is in the key of A minor and playing the chord at the beginning sets this up for the listener for the entire piece. This tune uses three fingers – middle (M), index (I), and thumb (T) – on the A-, E-, and C-strings, respectively. The picking pattern is as follows: M I T M I T M I The A-string of this piece carries the melody while the E- and C-strings provide backing. Give the A-string an extra-strong pick so that the melody pops out. Here are a couple of bits of fingering to look out for. In bar 7, make sure that you use your little finger to play the note at the eighth fret so you’re ready for the next bar; and in bars 10 and 11, use the tip of your index finger to play both the E- and A-strings. Doing so allows you to play the big stretch up to the eleventh fret. One of the most famous composers for guitar was Ferdinando Carulli (a 19th-century Italian composer who wrote more than 400 pieces for the guitar). The following figure is an arrangement for ukulele of his “Andante." This arrangement uses the same technique of transferring directly from guitar to ukulele as used to play “Romanza." Again, you lose the bass notes, but that doesn’t stop the tune from being rewarding to play. Two elements are important to note in this piece: single note runs (picked using the “running man” alternate picking technique) and the pairs of notes (picked with index and middle fingers). Playing Campanella Style The method of directly transferring pieces from guitar to ukulele discussed previously doesn’t always produce great results and never takes full advantage of the uke’s idiosyncrasies. The campanella method of playing, however, uses all of the uke strings and produces a much more pleasing sound. Campanella (meaning “little bells”) uses the re-entrant G-string of the ukulele to produce a harp-like sound of notes ringing into each other. In the tunes that I describe in earlier chapters, notes are played up and down the strings so that each string has consecutive notes played on it. In campanella, notes are played across the strings so that each string is never played twice in a row. John King developed this technique for the ukulele, and you can hear him using it with wonderful results on his album, Johann Sebastian Bach: Partita No. 3, BWV 1006 for Unaccompanied Ukulele. The following two figures illustrate how the campanella idea works. Both figures are of the same tune: the opening line of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The first figure shows how this piece is usually played, with consecutive notes sometimes being played on the same string. But the E-string, third fret, is the same note as the open G-string. So, you can replace the E-string third fret with the open G-string to produce the preceding figure. Now every string of the ukulele is being used for one note only, which allows all of the notes to ring into one another, producing a C chord. When you play this figure, hold down the familiar C chord shape and make sure that all the notes ring as long as possible. Assign one picking finger to each string (thumb on the G-string, index on the C-string, and so on). Compare the two methods and I think you’ll agree that the campanella version sounds much richer. As good as campanella sounds, the downside is that it can be much more difficult to play. Compare the following two figures. Again, these take a familiar tune: “Gran Vals” (much better known as an annoying mobile ringtone). The first figure below takes the standard approach of transferring directly from guitar to ukulele, while the second figure takes the campanella approach. As you can see in the standard notation, the notes are exactly the same. But in the preceding figure, each note in the bar has its own string, which allows all of the notes to be ringing at the same time. For the campanella technique to be effective, you must hold down the notes as long as possible. To do so, you need to prepare your hand into the correct shape. Look at all the notes coming up in that bar and position your fingers ready for them at the start of the bar. So, for example, at the beginning of bar 1, you hold the following down: G-string: Ring finger, tenth fret C-string: Middle finger, ninth fret E-string: Index finger, seventh fret A-string: Little finger, tenth fret And keep that shape held until the end of the bar. The usual technique in playing single note passages is to stop the note playing when you move to the next note. In campanella style, however, you’re playing more like you do when you’re strumming by holding all the notes down and letting them ring into each other.

Article / Updated 03-10-2021

The holiday season can be the a fun but slightly daunting time to be a ukulele player (uker). It’s the time of year you’re most likely to be called on by your family and friends to provide the entertainment and to lead the singing. So, this article has some tunes to get you through Christmas and New Year. Christmas songs are also great for practicing new techniques. Because the songs are familiar and have bold melodies, you’ll find it easier to follow along with anything unusual. That’s why I’m taking this opportunity to introduce time signature changes and to practice shifting positions. So, slip on your Christmas sweater, deck your ukes with boughs of holly, and get playing some festive favorites. Playing the Twelve Days “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is a great song for a singalong. Who doesn’t love shouting “FIVE GOLD RINGS” at the top of his or her lungs? The chords for “The Twelve Days of Christmas” are very simple. It’s the strumming pattern that requires attention. The tune includes two time signatures: 4/4 and 3/4. The piece starts with two bars of 4/4. The next bar is 3/4, and you repeat that for each gift before the "five gold rings." In this version, I’m going from “Seven swans a-swimming,” so this bar is played twice. Then back to 4/4 time for two bars, three bars of 3/4, and finishing with a return to 4/4. That’s a lot to keep track of. Start out by listening to the song, and try to count along with it. Count 1, 2, 3, 4 for the bars of 4/4, then 1, 2, 3 for the bars of 3/4. Once you’ve got those changes in your head, pick up your uke and play through the chords just with down strums on each count. Ringing in the New Year with “Auld Lang Syne” A good way to get out of mumbling through half-remembered lyrics of “Auld Land Syne” on New Year’s Eve is to play the tune yourself. It’s also a good way to practice shifting positions. The arrangement (in the following figure) doesn’t have any notes played on the first fret, so start off with your index finger on the second fret. The first shift comes at the end of bar 3. You’ll need to cut the note on the fifth fret a little short so you can move your hand up so your third finger is on the seventh fret. In bar 5, you have two strings played at the seventh fret next to each other. So, bring your middle finger into service to play the C-string, seventh fret. The shift down at the end of bar 5 (repeated at the end of bar 13) uses an open string to give you time to move down to the second fret. The shift in bar 8 uses the same trick to move up the fretboard, this time using the open G-string to give you time to reposition your fingers. Making a Noise with “Silent Night” This tab version of “Silent Night” (in the following figure) uses a thumb-strumming technique. So, it’s all played with the thumb on the right hand. You’ll recognize the familiar C and F chord shapes used in the arrangement, but the version of G used in bars 5 and 17 may be new to you. It’s the same shape as an E-flat chord moved up so that your index finger is on the A-string. The G chord in bar 22 looks the same as the basic G chord but needs to be fingered differently. Use your middle finger on the second fret and ring finger on the third fret. That leaves your index finger open to play the note on the E-string, first fret.

Video / Updated 04-06-2017

Video / Updated 03-28-2016

Video / Updated 03-28-2016