Tuning a Ukulele - The Easiest Way…
My brother had always played guitar, so had my dad, so I kind of knew that tuning a stringed instrument was both important and, if you didn’t know what you were doing, tuning a ukulele could prove quite tricky for the earnest beginner.
So I thought I fire out a quick post covering the basic and the easiest way to get your ukulele tuned in double quick time.
A ukulele is typically tuned to GCEA - That covers soprano, concert and most tenor ukulele tuning, with the exception of a Baritone ukulele which is tuned to DGBE.
When you get your new ukulele delivered (or picked up at the store) you’ll quite often find it comes with something called a pitch-pipe. This is a simple wind device that allows you to blow into one of four tubes, each sounding a single pitch GCEA so you can tune your uke by ear.
At some point down the line you’ll get used to tuning a ukulele by ear but until that point you’ll not want to be bothered too much with the trickier methods as a beginner, you just want to get on with your strumming right?
My personal favourite way to tune a ukulele is with my trusty old smart phone. I found an app (Free!) called Tun.d - It’s really simply to use, obviously easy to transport around and you simply crank it up and it listens to your plucking, letting you know when you’ve nailed the note, easy! (I’m not affiliated with them at all - just find it useful!)
Happy strumming.
How to Find Chords for Ukulele
A brief guide to some great chords for ukulele websites:
I first picked up a ukulele about 6 months ago. I was sat at home, a little drunk, somewhat inspired the fabulous Eddie Vedder album ‘Ukulele Songs’ and amazon was open on my iPad in front of me. So obviously a I bought a cheap $20 uke, fell asleep and thought no more about it.
Then, one morning not long after, the postman delivered my first ukulele. “What the devil is this contraption, I don’t recall ordering this?!” I may have uttered. But arrive it had so I decided it was only right and proper to learn how to play the darn thing. Obviously some kind of web instructional video was the order of the day; you can learn how to do anything through the power of YouTube and a world full of instructional experts with webcams don’t you know.
To cut a long and slightly dull story short, I learned the basics of strumming. And I fell in love with the addictive little thing pretty much right away. With a few chords under my belt I was away. The problem was, and often remains that chords for ukulele are few and far between on the web. There are a few ukulele chords books to be found in the usual places but finding the stuff I really wanted to play proved to be quite tricky to find.
So I though if I found it hard to find chords for ukulele, then others probably found it hard to find chords for ukulele so why not crank out a list of useful chords for ukulele websites??
- Ukulele Hunt - An amazing website, really well put together and probably the finest place to start. Easy to understand, easy to follow and clearly a labour of love.
- Chordie - A terrific repository of chords. Just find the chords you want and chose to see the ukulele chords.
- Alligatorboogaloo - Great songbook full of songs to wow your listeners (both of them ;))
Trust me, they’ll keep you going! Happy strumming dudes!
The First Post…
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on July 31st, 2009
Thanks for dropping by….
This blog is an outlet for a variety of expressions, passions, interests and passing fads. I’m into all sorts of things; sometimes for a long time, often just for 5 minutes. If it grabs my attention for long enough then it might get thrown up here. There might also be guest posts from….. well, just about anybody I find interesting!
So that’s it, just a short intro. Time for a green tea…