5 Things Every Uke Player Should Have

These are 5 things every Uke player should have other than a Uke. I wrote this because some of you have no idea what to get other than a Uke, and there's some pretty important stuff. You should be able to find all these things in your local music store. Here we go:

-A tuner. These are the things that get your Uke sounding right, and so your chords don't sound off. If you have a good ear for notes, then you don't need this. I'd advise a chromatic tuner which means you can tune to every note, even the ones that aren't regular tuning. Snarks are a really good company. I have on beside my keyboard right now.

-A capo. Capos are those little things that clip on your neck to change the tuning without a tuner (They aren't accurate and you can't capo strings separately). There's three main types. The cord capo works with a cord (obviously) around it and some rubber where the to squeeze the strings and change the tuning. However, these often untighten after a few songs, so obviously the cheapest. The type I have is a clamp capo and the way it works is it you screw a screw witch pushes the rubber that touches the strings. I like it 'cause you can adjust it when it untightens. The third type is a spring capo. It's basically the same as the clamp capo, just it uses a spring instead. Allot of my friends use them.

-A case. They're pretty self explanatory, being a case for your Uke. There's a few different types, and it depends witch one you may want to get depending what you're gonna be doing with your Uke. If it's gonna go under a bit of abuse while traveling, then I'd advise a strong, heavy duty case. These ones also tend to look very nice, being made of tweed with a furry interior or something like that. There's also just plain cases, witch are lighter than the fancy cases, and still provide allot of protection, but look a bit less fancy. That really doesn't matter, and I have one that's great. Also, they're great for somebody who's transporting them by walking. Then there's an Uke bag, witch'll be good if you're mainly keeping it at home and occasionally transporting it.

-A chord book. These are also self explanatory. They're a book of chords. You won't need one of these for Ukulele Central, but they're good for finding out different ways to play a chord (e.g. barre) and for other sites and books that don't use chord diagrams, or are for guitars.

-Access to the internet. There are so many great sites for chord diagrams, tabs, and, of course, YouTube for James Hill videos, (Look him up if you haven't. He's insane) tutorials, music videos, and other stuff. Trust me, I wouldn't be where I am right now in music if it weren't for the internet.

12 Bar Blues

I think that Blues pretty much made modern music possible. Artists such as Robert Johnson and B.B King paved the way for all the songs on this blog, except for All Ye Faithful, 'cause I'm pretty sure it was made pre-1800. Anyway, here's how to play the 12 bar blues!

The 12 bar blues is called the 12 bar blues for a reason. You play it in sections of 12 bars, then repeat it. Here's a formula for what chords to play: I  IV  V. If that made any sense to you, then good for you! If you didn't, then here's how it works. You'll plug any chord, say, A, into the slot where it says "I". Then you'll take your A and go 3 steps up, so it's D. and then take your D and put it another step up, so E. You can do it with any key, this one being A, so for G it would be G in the I, C in the IV, and D for the V. But if you play either of those, just like that, it won't sound anything like the blues, so here's a diagram-thing to show you where to plug the chords into and what to do to them:
Bar 1: I
Bar 2: I
Bar 3: I
Bar 4: I
Bar 5: IV7
Bar 6: IV7
Bar 7: I
Bar 8: I
Bar 9: IV7
Bar 10: V7
Bar 11: I
Bar 12: I
You might be wondering those 7s are for. Well, they mean that the chord you play on that line is a seventh chord. So in the key of A, the chords will be A, D7, and E7. The reason I keep on using the A key is because the chords are really easy and you can do a cool thing at the end instead of the last I called a walk up easily. The way you do it is you go to D7 in this case, and then walk it up to D#7, and E7. It's common in allot of blues songs. Have fun!

The C Major Scale

First of all, whats a scale? A scale is a pattern of notes starting in one note and ending with that same note, going through every note (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) in order before going back to that note. The note that it starts and ends with is the key. The C major scale is very important because with it you can figure out allot of riffs, and it's what you play on the piano, starting at C and playing only on the white keys. The order of the notes is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Here's how you play it:
----------------------------0(A)-2(B)-3(C)-
------------0(E)-1(F)-3(G)-----------------
-0(C)-2(D)---------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
You can make this scale into any key by moving it the appropriate number of steps up. Steps are how many notes between notes. Up one half step means turn it up to a #/b (A-A#/Bb) or on B-C or  E-F you go only one half step up, so no B#/ Cb or E#/Fb. And one step up means to the next note, so A-B or F-G. You don't play on your G string because it's your re-entrant string, which means it's higher than the string below it, unlike guitar, which doesn't have a re-entrant string. I'll give you a ex ample for what I was talking about earlier, about figuring out allot of riffs with the scale. Here's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:

-----------0-0-------------------------------------------------------------0-0-----------------------
------3-3------3-1-1-0-0--------3-3-1-1-0-0---3-3-1-1-0-0-------3-3-------3-1-1-0-0-----
-0-0-----------------------2-2-0---------------2--------------2-0-0-----------------------2-2-0-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notice how every note in it is in the C major scale. Have fun!

How To Read Tab

I'm sorry. I should have made this post earlier, posting up so much tab and for all I know you don't know how to read it! Tab reading is very important. If you don't want to play chords all the time, then you need to know how to read tab. This is just the basics, by the way, and if you want some thing more in depth go here: http://ukulelehunt.com/how-to-read-ukulele-tab/. Tab is when instead of playing a chord (4+ notes) you play just a few. So for example, you play the C note, which is 0th fret, C string, instead of playing the C chord, which is 0003. When tab is written, it's upside down. So the A string is at the top, G at the bottom, etc. The numbers mean what fret you press down on. So    -3-  
                                                                                                                           ---
                                                                                                                           ---
                                                                                                                           ---
means press down on the 3rd fret, A string. When there's multiple numbers below and above each other it means you play them at the same time. Tab is written just like normal writing, from left to right. Hammer ons are when you pick the string and then put another finger on a fret above the one you're currently playing so you make two notes in one pick. Slides are basically the same thing except you slide instead. P.S. s=slide and h=hammer on. Hope this helps.

How To Finger Pick

Finger picking is really hard, let me start out by saying that. It's not easy unless you practice. Do it with a invisible Uke while you're watching TV or something. One of the cool things about finger picking is you can do it with any song, as long as you do the chords with your left hand while picking with your right. Unlike most tabs, you will need to use most of your fingers. Below is the section where I talk about the actual patterns. I will have letters on the left of the tab. They talk about which finger you should use. T means thumb, P means pointer, M means middle finger and R means ring finger.

There are quite a few patterns you can follow. Here are 2 of the basic ones:
R-0-----
M---0---
P------0-
T-0------

M-0---
P-0---
T----0-
--------

You're not play chords in these tabs. Usually you would have them. Remember, you can use these on any song. From Back In Black to Stand By Me, there are no limits. Also, there are other patterns, find your own! Have fun.

How To Make Chords Sound Better

You can play chords just as the are written down, but often they sound better with just a little change of finger placement. When you play these in most songs you'll have to switch between the regular chord and the modified chord. Often when you do this your chord turns 5th chord or something like that, but don't worry, they're almost the same thing. Here's a few examples:

-Instead of putting your ring finger on the 3rd fret on the bottom string for C, you can put it on the 7th or 5th.
-On your G, you can put your pinkie on the the 5th or 3rd fret on the bottom string instead of the 2nd.
-You can take you middle finger of on your F so there's just your pointer finger on the 1st fret 3rd string.
-Put your ring finger on the 3rd fret 3rd string or leave the 3rd string open.

Of course you can find your own, theses just for examples. Have fun!

Other Uke Sites

Whenever I look up the chords for a song, sometimes Ultimate Guitar pops up. And that would be fine if I knew every single chord, and I don't. So whenever I see a chord I don't know, I have to go look it up, which is annoying. Although they might not have an archive like UG, there's some other cool Uke sites out there. There's 3 that I mainly use: Uke Hunt, http://ukulelehunt.com/, very good for harder stuff, UkuTabs, http://ukutabs.com/,  which has a bigger archive, and Chukuleles, http://chukuleles.blogspot.ca/, my school's Uke club's blog. Hope this helps, Pat.

Tips For Begginers

One of the great advantages of a Uke, and I hate to say this because it sounds like you're limited to what you can do on a Uke, is that it can be really easy. That's why it's a great beginner instrument. Here's a few tips if you want to start.
-Learn these chords: C, G, F, D, Em, and Am. They will get you really far. Here are they're diagrams:

            The source for them is http://ukuchords.com/

-Don't use your thumb for strumming too much. It's O.K. if your starting, but stray away from it after a while. I use my middle finger, but most peeps I know use there pointer.
-Vary between chords and fingerpicking, but start out with basic tabs and work your way up.
-Don't stay at easy stuff for too long. Challenge yourself!
-And lastly, have fun. That's what Ukeing is all about.