Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Introduction

I have never played an instrument. And nobody in my family plays an instrument so I always thought it was really hard to do. But it's not. To be good enough to have a lot of fun is easy! Follow this guide and you'll be able to have fun with the Ukulele and music in no time at all!

1. Buy an Ukulele

I bought an Mahalo U30G. It's supposed to be a pretty good starter Ukulele and it's really cheap at around 20-30$.

Mine is yellow :)















2. Tune your Ukulele


Install AP Tuner or buy a tuning device.
Ap Tuner is free and works with any microphone. I use the one that's built in to my laptop and it works fine.

The Ukulele has four strings and they should be tuned in the order:

G
ood
Cooks
Eat
Alot

With the string at the top being the G. It should look like this when you play the top string in AP tuner:



The second string from the top, the C:



The third one from the top, the E:



And finally the bottom one:



It doesn't have to be perfect, but try to get the tuning as good as possible.

Ones your Ukulele is tuned for the first time follow these instructions:



Here is a helpful tool to help you if you want to tune your Ukulele in another way Get tuned.

3. Learn how to play

This is the best beginning lesson I've found. Start with this and follow the instructions!



Original video source where the video can be found in higher quality.
Maaron 5 - Sunday Morning lyrics

It will take a while for you to be able to play at the same pace as the people in the video but with a little training it will be easy.

Here is another good video:



Ones you know these four chords you can play A LOT of music!

You need to be careful in the beginning as the fingertips on your left hand will get sore pretty fast. So play for a while then stop when your fingers begin to hurt so that you don't get any blisters!

4. Learn a few more chords

Here is a few more chords, you already know some but repetition is the mother of knowledge!



And som minor chords:



There is ofcourse a lot more chords to learn. But learn a few at a time, when you need them for a song that you would like to play.

5. Find songs to play and sing!

Here is a good place to start: The Ukulizer.
Make sure that you have C-tuning selected so that you see the correct chords.

Chordie has a good Ukulele song collection.

Ukulele Songs have a lot of songs.

Another nice source to find music, Dr Uke.

Conclusion

So that's it. Hope you have a lot of fun with your Ukulele!
If you have any suggestions or feedback please leave a comment.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, that's good. Now I can start playing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You did a great job of collecting really good information for starting out. Keep going, you are a good organizer. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the mini guide! Hix Bros. Music has a great YouTube site with one of the owners playing the ukulele. They also have a great selection pick from.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you!! Held a uke for the first time today and your post is the first and only one I've read. My first foray into youtube was when I did a piano cover of Sunday Morning. Now I'm playing the same song on my first string instrument. So many firsts, so happy :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. ADM 21 Inch Deluxe Zebrawood Starter Soprano Ukulele from Bizarkdeal

    The ukulele arrived promptly and was well-wrapped with no defects or travel damage. The uke's body is smooth and lightweight, and the zebrawood is beautiful and unique. I especially like the patterning around the sound hole! The gear tuning pegs don't slip as easily as friction pegs (which is good because I'm so bad at tuning!). The strings are Aguila nylon too so they'll last me a while. Of course, the sound is the most important part of any instrument, and I'm happy to say this uke isn't just a pretty face, it also sounds lovely too! I would definitely recommend this shop to anyone looking to get into a new instrument.

    ReplyDelete