Weird Sounds and Modulations
Despite the ‘ukulele’s beautiful “fretted-note” sound, there are plenty of quirky noises and modulations that you can discover. Many of these have to do with the individual instrument, so just FYI, I make these noises with a Kamaka tenor. Your ‘ukulele might have some unique sounds hiding in it that a Kamaka couldn’t make. Here we go…
Behind the nut – Pick the strings on the wrong side of the nut; the side of the tuning pegs. This produces a very high note because of the short string length. I have used a tuner to figure out these notes on my ‘ukulele – a Cm7 chord.
Tapping on the ‘ukulele – Using the flesh or nail of your finger and tapping anywhere on the ‘ukulele, you can produce a wide variety of percussion sounds.
Cricket – Grab a pencil or pen and bounce it on the string the wrong side of the nut (I find that the outside strings work best). If you can get it to bounce a couple times (strike and hold the pen down lightly, that way it will hit again after it bounces) you should hear something like a cricket sound.
Arm-wah – Poor mans wah-wah pedal. An interesting way to modulate chords and notes.
Mute – Strike one of more of the muted strings.
Soundboard screech – This one takes some finagling and might only be possible on ‘ukuleles finished with a gloss coat. Pull one of your hands up the soundboard below the bridge. You should be able to make the soundboard screech. Try varying the pressure of your hand.
Bending behind the nut – Pick or tap a note so that you don’t have to use your fretting hand. Take your fretting hand and pull on the ringing note’s string behind the nut. You can bend notes quite a bit using this technique, but it does whack out the tuning a little bit. My favorite use for this is to play a set of harmonics on the top three strings (maj), bend the second (E) string up a half step to sus4, and then back down to the major.
Congas – Aside from tapping on your ‘ukulele, you can also create a conga or other Latin percussion sound by picking muted strings. To change tones you can move your muting hand up and down the fretboard or pick different strings.
Neck bend – Warning: this technique can break your instrument in half – really. Use in moderation. It sounds cool, but I take no responsibility if you get happy and bend the neck too far and break it. Strum a chord and then hold the body of the ‘ukulele to yourself with your picking arm across the top of the soundhole. Then gently push out on the back of the headstock (towards the audience). This works very well with harmonics and is a favorite technique of artists like Led Kaapana and Barry Flanagan.
Bells - Lift the C string down over the E string and fret the C string somewhere around the 10th fret in between the E and A strings (it’s a bit unorthodox). Pick the E string at slow even intervals. Bong! Bong! Bong!
Wrong side of the string – you can play many different notes on the nut side of your fretting hand to get a super-thin tone. The distance between notes and intonation is off in most places, but if you work at it you can figure out “right” notes.
Screaming pickups – SBTs will pickup your voice if you talk into your ‘ukulele.
