Alistair Wood

Article / Updated 09-20-2023

You play a bend on your ukulele by grabbing the string and pushing it across the neck. This action increases the tension in the string and therefore raises the pitch. To play a bend: Fret the note with your ring finger and also put your index and middle fingers on the same string. The additional fingers act as support. Pluck the string. If you’re playing the E- or A-string, push the string up towards your face. Your hands look something like this: If you’re playing the g- or C-string, pull it down toward the ground. Bend the string until you reach the target pitch and hold it. Bring your thumb over the top of the fretboard to give you some extra leverage. Bends are a tricky prospect on the uke. Unlike on steel-stringed instruments, the nylon strings don’t take kindly to being bent. Bending notes to get them in tune can be a trial. In tab, bends are shown as a curvy arrow with a number at the top. The number refers to the number of steps the note increases. So when a bend has a “1/2” at the top, you need to bend by half a step (one fret higher). When the tab says “Full” at the top, that’s a bend of a whole step (two frets): In standard notation, a bend is shown as a pointed line between the note being bent from and the note being bent to: When you’re practicing bends, try playing the note you’re aiming for before attempting your bend to get a better idea of what note you’re shooting for.

Video / Updated 09-20-2023

Barre chords form the basis of many ukulele songs. A barre chord (pronounced "bar") is any chord where you fret more than one string with a single finger. They’re represented in chord diagrams in the same way as conventional chords. The only differences are an arch over the strings you press with the same finger, as in the chord diagram for B flat: If the chord is played a long way up the neck, a number at the top right indicates the fret at which the chord diagram starts. Playing a B♭ chord on your ukulele The B♭ chord requires you to fret two strings with one finger. To start, take your index finger and use the top third of it to fret both the E- and A-strings at the first fret. When you can hold this fingering down so that both strings sound clearly when you play them, move on to the full B♭ chord by placing your middle finger on the C-string at the second fret. Then bring your ring finger over to fret the g-string at the third fret. When you’re done, your hand should look like this: When you’re playing the B♭ chord, make sure that your thumb is central on the back of your uke’s neck. This technique helps in two ways: Your middle and ring fingers arch high above the E- and A-strings so that you don’t mute them. You can get more pressure on the chord so that the strings ring clearly. When you have the B♭ chord under your fingers, you can use the three-chord trick in the key of F. The I–IV–V progression in F is F–B♭–C. These chords form the basis of the country song “Man of Constant Sorrow,” whose notation is here: Playing a D7 chord on your ukulele The D7 chord takes the idea of a barre chord one step further than the B♭. To form this chord, you barre across all the strings. Start by laying your index finger across all the strings at the second fret so that the tip of your finger is just past the edge of the fretboard. Position your thumb at the back of the uke’s neck so that you can squeeze the chord a little. The amount of pressure to use is a delicate balance. The priority is to ensure that all the strings are sounding. When you have the barre down, test each string to make sure that you can hear it clearly. You may well have to fidget your finger and change the pressure until you get it right. But be careful not to use more pressure than you need. Squeeze too tightly and your hand quickly gets tired. When you’re confident in your barre, add your middle finger to the A-string at the third fret. Playing a B minor chord on your ukulele To play the Bm shape, start off exactly the same way as D7: barring across all strings at the second fret with your index finger. This time, though, you reach over the strings with your ring finger to play the g-string at the fourth fret to create the D7 shape:

Video / Updated 09-19-2023

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. 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.

Video / Updated 09-19-2023

Picking two notes on your ukulele at the same time creates a beautiful shimmering effect. As with regular picking, in simultaneous picking, you pick down with your thumb and up with your fingers. In standard notation, the letters for two fingers stacked on top of each other indicates picking with both those fingers, as shown in this nice picking pattern: To play this pattern, pick the g-string with your thumb at the same time as you pick the A-string with your ring finger, then the E and C strings separately. An interesting aspect of this pattern is the arrangement of notes: first, a group of three; second, another group of three; and then a group of two. This gives an emphasis to one of the off-beats in each bar. This is known as ‘three against four’, and it creates an interesting and unexpected color to the pattern. You need a bit of practice to get used to this technique, but the effort is well worthwhile. As well as simultaneously picking with your thumb and one finger, you can simultaneously pick with two fingers. Once you're comfortable with this pattern, you can put it together with a chord progression and make a nice little song:

Video / Updated 09-18-2023

The way you hold a ukulele is a vitally important part of making it sound good. The uke is such a small instrument that choking all the sound out of it is all too easy. A general guideline for holding your ukulele is to try to touch it as little as possible. You want to make as little contact as you can manage without sending your ukulele crashing to the ground. Watch professional ukulele players and how they hold their instruments. Search out videos of Jake Shimabukuro and Roy Smeck for tips. Positioning yourself to play your ukulele When you’re playing, you have three main points of contact with the uke: The back of the ukulele against your body: Your forearm on the front of the ukulele just behind the bridge (positioned so that your hand falls naturally over the part where the body meets the neck). The underside of the ukulele neck against the crook of your hand (between your thumb and index finger: Don’t smother the ukulele by holding it tightly into your chest because that kills the volume and the tone. Instead, angle the ukulele away from your body so that the headstock is farther away from you than the ukulele’s body. This positioning creates air around the back of the uke, giving it room to breathe and pump out some volume. Standing up to play your ukulele Holding the ukulele while standing up can be something of a juggling act. Each of the three points of contact has to be stronger than when you’re sitting down. Also, you may have to change the balance of the three points. For example, when you’re playing a tricky section with your fretting hand, it can’t hold the neck as firmly and you have to support the uke more strongly with your strumming arm. The smaller your ukulele is, the easier it is to hold. If you’re playing a tenor ukulele, you may want to use a strap. Sitting down to play your ukulele Sitting down makes the juggling act much easier and requires much less contact with the ukulele. Sitting gives you the opportunity for some more stability by balancing your uke on your upper thigh: You still want to maintain the other three points of contact and you certainly still want to angle the uke away from your body. But resting it on your thigh means that each of these three points can support the ukulele more lightly. Holding your uke left-handed If you’re left-handed, you don’t need a special left-handed ukulele. You can just turn around a standard ukulele and flip the strings so that they’re in the opposite order. You should end up with the g-string being nearest to you and the A-string being nearest to the floor. Ukulele strings are so close to each other in terms of their width that you don’t need to make any adjustments to your ukulele. Some people recommend that left-handers just play the ukulele exactly the same as right-handers (strumming with their right hand), reasoning that both hands are required to play the ukulele anyway. But you don’t hear this argument from a left-handed person.

Video / Updated 09-18-2023

When you find yourself stuck for a ukulele strumming pattern, the Swiss Army Knife strum is a good one to rely on. It's named after the Swiss Army Knife because its useful for so many different songs. Plus, you can play it fast or slow. In tab, the Swiss Army Knife strum looks like this: A few elements make this strumming pattern more interesting than some others. The first is obvious when you write out what you’re actually strumming: down, down-up, up-down. Yep, you’ve got two up strums together. So after the first up strum, you need to move your hand down without hitting the strings. If you’re counting, you have to count: “one, two, and three and four.” But you have to remember not to strum on the three.

Video / Updated 09-18-2023

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).

Video / Updated 09-18-2023

To make the most of your ukulele exercises, you need to learn how to play the most common chords on the ukulele fretboard. These chord diagrams show you the 15 most common chords. In each case, the name of the chord is at the top of the diagrams below.

Video / Updated 08-16-2023

You can use a number of different ways to tune your ukulele, depending on what you have available and who you’re playing with. When you play alone, you only have to be in tune with yourself. When you play with other musicians, you need to make sure that you’re all in tune with each other. In tuning instructions — and in the real world — you encounter a couple of key terms: Open string: A string you play without holding the string down. Fretted string: A string you play while holding the string down at a certain fret. The following information assumes that you're going to use a standard gCEA tuning. You can also use a digital device to tune your ukulele. Tuning your ukulele to a guitar If you’re playing with a guitarist, you want to make sure that you’re in tune with each other. Otherwise you end up sounding like a back-alley banjo fight. After the guitarist is in tune, ask him or her to play these notes and match your strings as indicated: Ukulele Guitar g-string E-string third fret C-string B-string first fret E-string E-string open A-string E-string fifth fret Tuning your ukulele to a piano or keyboard Pianos hold their tuning much longer than most string instruments. Electronic keyboards are even better because their notes are produced digitally and are always spot-on. So if you have a piano or keyboard handy, you have the perfect tuning source. The C-string of a ukulele (the fattest one) equates to the middle C on a piano. Two white keys up from the C is E. Up two more white keys to G and up to the next white key for A. Finding the right keyboard notes for a gCEA tuning. Tuning your uke to itself If you’re stuck with nothing to help you tune, you can always tune the ukulele with itself. This method is pretty tricky, however, so if you have another option, use it. Practicing this method of tuning can come in useful, however, because you never know when you’re going to get caught without a tuner or other instrument. You can start with the C-string (the third one up) because it tends to hold its tuning best: Play the C-string at the fourth fret and pluck it. Now play the open E-string (the third one) and compare the sounds. When you’re in tune, these notes sound the same. Adjust the tuner on the E-string until they sound the same. Play the E-string at the third fret and then the open g-string (the first one). Adjust that g-string until it’s in tune. Play the E-string at the fifth fret and tune the A-string (the fourth one) to that note.

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.