‘Ukulele for Beginners

As backwards as it might seem, being a beginner at playing music (the ‘ukulele) is one of the fastest levels to progress through. That is, if you work at it. If you don’t feel that you need to go beyond strumming “White Sandy Beach” that’s fine too. My own process was a little unorganized in my opinion, so here is roughly how I would do it over again.

First of all, listen to a lot of ‘ukulele music. If you haven’t heard it, you won’t be able to play it. Check out the Recommended Stuff page for a list of my favorite ‘ukulele records. Also if you have a Hawaiian radio station or show that you can pick up in your area, listen to that. Almost all traditional Hawaiian music has simple ‘ukulele in it. It will give you an idea of how you want to sound, what song you’d like to learn, and if you even like the sound of the ‘ukulele.

Buy an ‘ukulele. Unless you are lucky enough to have a friend with an ‘ukulele that you can borrow until you’re hooked, you will need to invest in an ‘ukulele. I see a lot of people on the forums who are just beginning to play and they go out and invest in a custom built Ko’olau. I don’t like this approach personally. Don’t get me wrong; good quality ukes are the bomb, but you need to have an idea of what kind of great ‘ukulele you are looking for. That knowledge comes from playing a not-so-fabulous ‘ukulele for a while. You’ll learn what you don’t want, and will hopefully have a chance to try some different ‘ukuleles and learn what sound you like before you buy your next ‘ukulele. My order of ukes went: $40 soprano that I learned the basics on, a $120 tenor that I got better on (by this time I had played many ‘ukuleles and picked the brains of every employee at the local music stores), then, when I had done a lot of research (and got a job!), I bought my current ‘ukulele – a Kamaka tenor. Check out the Buying Tips page and Byron Yasui’s “What I look for in an ‘Ukulele” for some buying tips.

How to hold the ‘ukulele. I see so many “strummer” level players struggling with basic things because they are holding the ‘ukulele in such an unnatural way. The exact way you hold your ‘ukulele depends on the size. It’s a hard thing to explain, but here goes…

• Hold the ‘ukulele against your chest with your forearm on the top edge of the body so that your strumming hand (right hand for rightys, vice versa for lefties) can reach the 12th fret easily. If it’s a bigger sized instrument you might want to place it on your leg when sitting. When standing, the friction of your arm across the soundboard should be enough (with minimal help from your fretting hand) to keep the instrument under control and not falling on the floor.
• Hold your strumming hand in a “pistol” shape like you were pretending to shoot somebody and relax so that your index finger curls back to a loose 90 degree angle to the rest of your hand and the thumb rests (lightly) on the index finger’s 1st knuckle. This is the strumming position. Twist your wrist clockwise a bit when you strum down so your index finger hits the strings at an angle and rotate back counter-clockwise when you strum up. You don’t have to twist your wrist a lot – just enough so that you don’t jam your fingers into the strings.
• With your fretting hand (left hand for rightys, vice versa for lefties), put the pad of your thumb on the back of the neck somewhere in between the nut and third fret. Make sure your thumb is not curled over the top of the neck – that will restrain you from changing chords quickly. Your thumb should be placed like in the picture below, with only a little bit of the tip visible. Your fretting fingers should be close (give or take 10-15 degrees) to parallel with the frets. It helps a lot if you trim your fingernails short on this hand. Otherwise your nails will be holding the pad of your finger off the fretboard.

Left or right handed? Most people play the ‘ukulele right handed, using their right hand to strum. There are a few who feel it is more comfortable to play left handed, and strum with their left hand. There is no “best” way. I am left handed and I play right handed – I don’t know why, it’s just what feels comfortable. But if you do decide that playing left handed is for you, you will have some learning challenges to overcome. First of all, there are two stringing options: play the ‘ukulele how it is, just upside down (A string closest to your face), or take the strings off and put them on backwards (G string closest to your face). Again, you will have to decide what is right for you, but the former is going to give you the ability to pick up any ‘ukulele and play it. All chord shapes and tabs will be mirrored and when instructions say “left hand” think “right hand”.

Tuning. If you wish for any music that you play to be recognizable, you need to play in tune. Learn how to tune up on the Tuning Your ‘Ukulele page.

Strumming. Before you can learn chords you must learn at least one strum: the D U (D=downstrum, U=upstrum). To strum, pretend you are giving somebody the “so-so” hand wobble, then turn your hand vertical, loosely curl up your fingers, and point your index finger towards the body of the ‘ukulele. Use your index finger to strum down and up. Instead of using just your wrist to strum, twist your wrist and move your forearm up and down 3-4 in. You can strum D U like a clock’s pendulum, where you strum exactly on the beat. ex. beat: 1=D 2=U 3=D 4=U repeat. Or you can do kani ka pila style and play with a swing, where it takes your finger longer to come up then go down. So it would be like this: D  UD  UD  UD etc…. For more, go to the strumming page.

Learning chords. Now that you have an idea of how to position your ‘ukulele and hands, and how to strum, you can go about learning some of the basic chords. With these chords you will be able to play your first songs! Start with “C”, “F”, and “G7″. You can find those chord shapes in our major and 7th files. Remember, thumb on the back of the neck, fingers parallel to the frets, and use the tips of your fingers to hold chord notes. As a basic rule, use your index finger to hold 1st fret notes, middle for 2nd fret, 3rd for 3rd fret, etc… Once you nail those, learn a simple song that uses them, like “Island Style“. Then move on and learn all of the major, minor, and 7th chords, working on new songs as you go. You can find songs here.

Vamps. Vamps are the glue that holds most Hawaiian music together. They go between verses (or whenever nobody knows what to play! *laughs*). Learn some vamps here. Work on just the common vamps for now.

New strums. Now you should be able to play a few songs, and the D U strum is getting a little plain. Spice things up by learning some new strums off of the Strumming page. Work on whatever looks interesting to you.

Simple Picking. Most beginners think of picking as something that is really hard – it’s not. You use many fingers to hold chords, you only need one to pick a single note. Start working on picking with something like a simple picking vamp:

A |-------------2-3-
E |-2-3-2-3-1-3-----
C |-----------------
G |-----------------

That’s a “C” vamp, you can play that vamp along with D7// G7// C////.

The numbers and lines are called “tab”. It’s a way of writing out music without knowing standard notation (think piano music). Learn how to read tab here.

When picking you will still use the one finger per fret technique. Start with songs like “Happy Birthday” and the “Jeopardy” theme. You can also find more picking vamps here

That should get you going. Jam on!