A Simple Ukulele Guide For Beginners

woman playing the ukuleleFirst and foremost, you can’t start without having a ukulele of your own. While you could pick up on certain theory and concepts through observation, you’d find learning easier and more enjoyable through more hands-on approaches.

If you’re looking for the one that is just right for you, you can consider some of these factors as guidelines: the size of the ukulele, price range, sound quality, and brand. At the end of the day, have a go with whatever you’re most comfortable with.

Tune Your Ukulele

Why Do We Have to Tune Our Ukuleles?

Tuning can be quite the hassle most of the time, especially when you have to do it so often but there are valid reasons why we do them. With proper tuning, musical instruments retain their clarity in the sounds they produce while also ensuring that whatever is being played does not sound any different than how it was intended.

How To Tune Your Ukulele?

For most ukuleles, the universal standard of tuning would be G-C-E-A, from the top working your way downwards. This is called reentrant tuning, where the strings are not tuned in order of highest to lowest pitch or vice versa. Tuning it this way keeps the chord shapes simple, making it easy for beginners. Eventually, you can play around with alternative tunings and run wild with your creativity.

Finding The Right Position To Hold Your Ukulele

Similar to how a guitar is played, the more conventional build for ukuleles is made for right-handed playing. Your left hand would hold up the fretboard while also pressing down on the strings at different frets when playing to produce different desired sounds.

On the other hand, you will be strumming or picking depending on how you want your piece played. In most cases, it would be situational and dependent on you. By identifying your most comfortable way of holding the ukulele, it’ll be easier to navigate through different chords and hold your strumming steady.

If you’re left-handed, you can always look out for other ukulele builds that are designed especially for left-handed playing.

Learn How To Strum Your Ukulele

hands playing the ukulele

Fingerpicking

When utilizing this technique, your ukulele will yield soft and gentle sounds. This method requires your hands to remain loose so you’re able to rapidly go from one string to another. Therefore, it’s important to keep yourself from feeling tense.

Going beyond just the basics of fingerpicking patterns can be quite the challenge to some but you will gain a lot of experience as well as technique once you’ve got enough practice in. Even so, fingerpicking may not be a one-stop solution as the gentle tones may not be suitable for every song.

Using a pick

For using a pick, it’s important to note that it shouldn’t be held too firmly or too loosely. When you get it just right, playing with a pick will give you a loud and clear strum that your fingers will have a hard time doing. It will also allow quicker strumming with more control over single notes.

The downsides of playing with a pick do become evident when you have to pull back on the loudness as it does enable a lot of the amplitude in the volume. Unlike fingerpicking, this technique does not match up when it comes to skipping strings.

Pick Up The Ukulele At Harmony & Pitch

At Harmony & Pitch Singapore, we offer music classes for both the guitar and ukulele. Our lessons are made to cater to your needs and the pace you’re most comfortable with for learning. We believe that learning an instrument can be fun and there are ways to include adaptation and flexibility to meet the expectations of our students. Get started today and contact us to find out more about our ukulele classes.

 

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