10 ways to improve your ukulele playing…

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We often get asked for tips on how to become a better ukulele player.  Here’s a few ideas to help you along and help you to improve your ukulele playing.

absolute beginners ukulele course in London

1.  Get lessons.  Come and learn in a group with us.

We were bound to say that, right?  And yes, there are many other ways to learn to play the ukulele.  You can learn from a book, you can learn via YouTube, you can learn from your pals, or at a jam night.  The thing is, when you book lessons with a teacher, you’re getting their years of experience, with hints, tips and guidance. They’ll watch your technique, and answer your questions and go over it until you’re confident.  When you learn in a group, it’s more fun, you can socialise with your peers and it gives you the impetus to want to play along.  Ukulele is a social instrument, after all.

2.  Do your homework.  Practice playing, (and singing).

Yes, the dreaded P word.  But, all the greats practice for many, many hours to be come accomplished musicians.  You’ll be happy to know that you don’t need to spend quite that many hours practicing to strum along with your chums down the pub, but to play the songs well, you should take some time playing on your own at home.  Practice can be divided up into a few more points…

3.  Practice the things you find hardest most often.

It’s all well and good keep playing a song, but getting stuck at one point.  Practice the point that you get stuck on so that you don’t get stuck and you can play that song you love in it’s entirety, well.

4.  Strumming (and singing).

“It’s a bit like patting your head and rubbing your tummy.”  Yes, it is.  It’s also like driving a car and chatting to your passenger, when you first pass your test.  These things are possible, but first you need to get comfortable with the first thing, and introduce the second as soon into it as you can.  In the case of strumming, strum in a regular even tempo, repeating the strum so you are comfortable, and then sing as soon as you are able to stop concentrating on what your hand is doing.  Keep trying to take away the focus from your hand.

5.  Chord changing.

If that’s the bit that you’re finding difficult, take the two, three, or however many chords in succession that you’re hesitant on switching between and keep looping them until you find it easy to switch between them.

6.  Timing.

If you’re struggling to keep in time, try playing along with the track you like, or grab a metronome (there are free apps available).  Play along and keep in time with the track or metronome and don’t let the previous stumbling points stop you!

7.  Play at a local ukulele jam.  

In London there are loads including Ukulele Wednesdays, every Wednesday. Playing with others is not only fun, but a good way to meet others and get better if you’re in your early playing stages.

 

Ukulele Wednesdays at the Albany, London.

Ukulele Wednesdays, London.

8.  Make audio recordings.

There are many ways to make free audio recordings of your playing.  Voice recorder apps are widely available on most smartphones, free of charge.  Record yourself singing the song, and wait for a week to listen back to it.  You’ll notice any areas for improvement and you can work on them.

9.  Make video recordings.

Very much like audio recordings, you can get a lot from watching yourself a while after you’ve recorded yourself playing and singing.  You can spot any areas for improvement and work on them.  It’s reported that Tina Turner and Usher watch their tapes immediately after every performance.  Whilst we don’t suggest you become this level of perfectionist if you are just playing for fun, it’s good to see where you’re up to by watching yourself after you’ve played.  Hell, if you love your performance, you could pop your cover version on YouTube for everyone to enjoy.

10.  Go and play at an open mic night.

There are many ukulele open mic nights or standard open mic nights where you can unleash your talents on the world.  You’ll be in a wonderful supportive environment, and you’ll know from the audience feedback how your performance is doing.

How to play the G chord, here.

See how to play Bb chord on the ukulele, here.

How to play the E chord, on the ukulele here.

Do you want 6 basic strum patterns to get you going? See more here.

If you’re in London, UK, you’ll learn this in our courses. Book your course to join us in London.

If you’re not, please support us on Patreon so you can get access to all our upcoming online tutorials and challenges.

How to play the G chord on ukulele

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If you are getting stuck with your ukulele G chord, and when you play it, it sounds wrong, make sure you are using the very tips of your fingers to press down on the strings, and make sure you’re pressing down hard enough so the notes within the chord are ringing out clearly.  Here’s a video to help you with this:

More blogs to help you:

See how to play Bb chord on the ukulele, here.

How to play the E chord, on the ukulele here.

Get a free ukulele chord chart (and help with how to read it) from here.

Do you want 6 basic strum patterns to get you going? See more here.

If you’re in London, UK, you’ll learn this in our courses. Book your course to join us in London.

If you’re not, please support us on Patreon so you can get access to all our upcoming online tutorials and challenges.

Ukulele Chord Charts For Beginners and How To Understand Them

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Need to know how to play ukulele chords? What are the chords in the songs you are learning?  When you’re first starting out, it’s best to stick to major, minor and 7th chords as they’re the easiest to play.  Please, download one of these free ukulele chord charts first, and then read on…

Ukulele Chord Chart for Absolute Beginners

Left-Handed Ukulele Chord Chart for Absolute Beginners

Now you’ve got the chord chart that’s relevant to you (use the left-handed one, if you play left-handed though many left-handed people choose to play right-handed, which is another story that you can read about here).

Put the headstock to the top of the sheet, by the title of the page, look at the diagrams, next to your fretboard.  The blobs in the diagrams show you which bits of the ukulele fretboard to put your fingers on.

Ukulele Fretboard = Chord Grid… the blobs show you where to put your fingers.

 

Within the blobs, there are numbers.  They show you which finger to use.  Your fingers are numbered, like this:

Index/pointer = 1
Middle – 2
Ring = 3
Little/pinky = 4

 

 Following so far?  Now, here’s how you make a C chord:

Where to put your finger for the C chord

Please share these chord charts with other peoples, and make use it yourself.  If you want to start putting this into practice by playing songs rather than abstract chords, grab yourself a free songbook, with a few hundred popular songs in it, what are you waiting for?  Get yourself along to the Ukulele Wednesdays website and get a copy of their free .pdf book.

If you’re in London, UK, you’ll learn this in our courses. Join us. Book your course.

If you’ve enjoyed this, here are some more posts of ours that might help:

How to play the G chord, here.

See how to play Bb chord on the ukulele, here.

How to play the E chord, on the ukulele here.

Do you want 6 basic strum patterns to get you going? See more here.

If you’re not, please support us on Patreon so you can get access to all our upcoming online tutorials and challenges.

Updated on 25/9/2019.

Buying your first ukulele

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What do you need to think about when you’re buying your first ukulele? There are a few things to consider, and I am clearly biased but I think that you should just grab one that’s cheap yet stays in tune and just do it. You won’t look back, as it’s a fun, sociable and portable instrument. In the first instance, much like you wouldn’t buy a Porsche as your first car, I don’t recommend spending lots of money on your first ukulele. I would recommend that you avoid the really cheap, and completely untunable ukuleles. If it won’t hold it’s a tune, you’ll be annoyed as you’ll essentially have bought an unplayable and awful sounding instrument. It won’t be your playing and in some instances, you can blame your tools. In my experience, Ashton’s, Spongebob’s and those awful ones they sell at Argos are ones I’d generally advise you to avoid. Lanikai, Mahalo, Makala, and Stagg are decent starter ukes. They come with good quality strings (more on this later) and they’ll hold their tune when they’ve settled down after tuning them consistently each day for a week. In order to help tune-up, you’ll also need a clip-on ukulele tuner. You can use free phone apps but I like the clip-on tuners, as they seem to be more accurate if the batteries are charged up.

How much should I spend?

On your first ukulele, I don’t recommend spending a lot of money.  A little bit like a car, when you’re learning you might have a few bumps. Also, until you know for sure that you love it, I wouldn’t spend a fortune.  You can buy a cheap ukulele for about £30-50.  You can definitely spend more, and, if you have musical experience and know you’ll practice and stick with it, then please do that, but if you have no musical experience and you don’t know if you’ll like it, let alone play it for a few years, then it might be advisable to grab a basic ukulele that sounds good.

Here are a couple of brands that we recommend*

Makala is inexpensive and sound good.  Here are a few links to find some Makala ukuleles:

        

Stagg is also inexpensive and sound good.  Here are a few links to find some Stagg ukuleles:

   

  

Here is our Amazon Affiliates shopfront, with lots of other ukuleles and accessories to choose from. In the interests of transparency, we are part of the amazon referral scheme so if hundreds or thousands of you buy based on links you clicked via us, we may make a few pence. In the unlikely event that millions of you click, we may make a few pounds. If you’ve found this information useful, please share it around liberally, as we like the idea of this unlikely instance.

If you’re not careful, you could get Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome (UAS) and end up with a bunch of other (possibly more expensive) ukes, but for now I’d say you should start small until you know you’ll stick with it, and do stick with it so you can treat yourself to more as a reward for practicing!

ukuleles on the wall

After that, try to resist buying lots of brothers and sisters for the new addition to your family, though.  Ukuleles are very addictive and this habit could get pricey if you’re not careful. Again, there’s a ‘thing’ – Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome. (UAS). This is me trying to warn you…

If you’ve enjoyed this, here are some more posts of ours that might help:

If you are left-handed, see here.

Already got a clip-on tuning device? It’s better than using your phone. For more about that and how to tune your ukulele for the first time, see here.

How to play the G chord, here.

See how to play Bb chord on the ukulele, here.

How to play the E chord, on the ukulele here.

Get a free ukulele chord chart (and help with how to read it) from here.

Do you want 6 basic strum patterns to get you going? See more here.

If you’re in London, UK, you’ll learn this in our courses. Book your course to join us in London.

If you’re not, please support us on Patreon so you can get access to all our upcoming online tutorials and challenges.

*in the interests of transparency, we are part of the amazon referral scheme so if hundreds or thousands of you buy based on links you clicked via us, we may make a few pence. In the unlikely event that millions of you click, we may make a few pounds. If you’ve found this information useful, please share it around liberally, as we like the idea of this unlikely instance.

Updated on 25/9/2019.