But there are times when that doesn’t work out. It’s then I bust out the running man:

You pick the string (the E-string in the case) alternately with your index and middle finger. That dramatically increases the speed you can play things at.

Here’s what the technique looks like when you have to swap between strings:

When you really have to bust out the speed, you can bring your ring finger in for support.

The tab for that last clip is in the How to Play Ukuleles for Peace ebook.

It’s used in fingerpicking pieces to play full chords. It sounds like a strum but it’s just done by picking individual strings in sequence.

Here it is played twice slowly then up to speed.

Why bother?

Instead of doing this, you could just strum the strings and get the same effect. However, doing it this way keeps your fingers in position for picking individual notes. Making for much easier and smoother playing.

Here’s a quick video combining picking and fake strums.

In Tab

There isn’t any established tab for this as far as I know. I haven’t been distinguishing between fake and real strums in the past. But from now on I’ll be representing fake strums with a wiggly line like this:

You can do fake up-strums as well (although it’s more tricky and I can’t remember ever using one). But if one crops up I’ll be tabbing it like this:

Step 2: Learn the chords C, F and G7. Play four bars of C, two bars of F, two bars of C, a bar of G7, a bar of F and two bars of C. Repeat.

Step 3: Noodle around with the blues scale.

Step 4: Learn the BB King blues faces.

Step 5: Read How to Play Blues Ukulele.

OK, you knew that was coming. If you haven’t got your hands on a copy yet, you’ve got until midnight on Friday to buy one at the discount price of $15. Click here to find out more.

On the guitar, it’s almost always the case that the lowest note played is the root note (the note the chord is named after). Slash chords are used to indicate where the lowest note is not the root of the chord. The first part of the slash chord is the chord played and the second part is the lowest note. In the example D/F#, the chord is D and the lowest note is F#. So it could be played like this on guitar:

It’s often not the case on the ukulele that the lowest note is the root. As there are only four strings, we have to take the notes wherever we can find them. So, what do you do on the uke when you come across slash chords?

That depends on what the bass note is. If the bass note is part of the chord, you can ignore it and play the usual chord shape. If it isn’t part of the chord, you’ll have to add it in somewhere.

Here’s a typical guitar chord progression with a few slash chords:

C – C/B – C/A – C/G – G – C

The first slash chord in this sequence is C/B. B is not part of the C chord so you have to add it in (A string second fret).

The same is true with C/A – there is no A in a C chord so add the open A string.

There is, however, a G in the C chord. So at that point you can play the usual C chord. Giving us this progression:

If you’re not sure how chords are made up and what notes they contain, check out How To Play Ukulele Chord Progressions – it’ll give you a real understanding of how chords work and what you can do with them.

I was watching another enlightening and inspiring tutorial by Mark Occhionero today, this time on Little Grass Shack (you can get the tab on the YouTube page). It set me off vamping around in a Hawaiian style (despite the freezing cold weather) and playing the most Hawaiian lick I know:the Hawaiian turnaround. In its simplest form (in the key of A), it goes like this:

Make sure you play it with plenty of lazy swing.

This phrase can be chopped and changed in many different ways. Here’s a popular one:

Example 2 (MIDI)

It can be extended and messed around with as much as you like:

Example 3 (MIDI)

You reach the end of a song and what do you do? You could just stop. The outro is a great opportunity for a bit of musical invention, as a way to build to a climax or have a little joke to leave them smiling and offset any chin-scratching muso posturing that may have gone on before.

Here are a few familiar codas that you build on or use as they are. All these are in the key of A so transpose as required.

1. The ‘Woke Up This Morning’

Blues midi

This is a very common blues ending. You play this inside-out, upside-down and bass-akward. You can play the strings in any order, you can play them all at the same time, you can let the A string ring open.

2. The ‘Goodnight Cleveland’

Rockabilly midi

Give it the bit rock and fire, explosions and fireworks ending. The notes you play aren’t as important as how fast you play them and how orgasmic you make your face look.

3. The ‘Where Nobody Sucks (Except for Flanders)

midi

As used by Homer Simpson in the I’m Talking Springfield episode (you can download the mp3 on Simpson Crazy). Previously know as The ‘And Many More’ (at the end of the Happy Birthday song). I used this one to end my tab of Baby Elephant Walk.

4. The ‘Whoops, Have a Banana’

Banana midi

A very old-school, fun and instantly recognisable ending. As featured in the tab for I Wanna Banana. The little lick contains the same notes each time but is played it a different position the second time to give it a slight ‘call and response’ feel.

5. The ‘Turned Out Nice Again’

Chord midi

A common chord progression to end a song or to use as a turnaround during a song.

You can even mix and match endings. Play the first bar of the ‘Woke Up This Morning’ then dive into the ‘And Many More’. All of them can be played around with and given your own twist.

1. Holding the ukulele

I’ve seen it suggested that you should hold the uke by smushing it into your chest; that is entirely the wrong way to go about it. Being so small, it’s easy to smother all the tone out of a ukulele. You want to be touching the ukulele as little as possible. You need to allow the front and back of the uke to vibrate as much as possible to wring all the tone and volume out of it as possible.

Watch how the masters like Jake Shimabukuro and Roy Smeck hold it. They have the uke angled away from the body and their forearm resting very gently on the corner of the uke. The area of the uke they are touching is very small and mostly limited to the corners.

2. Use good strings

The quality of strings you use can have a huge effect on the sound of the ukulele. Buying top of the range strings is far more affordable than buying a top of the range uke and can yield almost as much of an improvement in tone. Aquila and Worth strings are generally considered the best ukulele strings around. But I still love my pink KoAloha strings. Find more about ukulele strings here.

3. Find the sweet spot

The place where you strum the uke can have a big impact on how it sounds. If you strum close to the bridge (where the strings are tied on), then you’ll get a very thin, reedy sound. Each uke has it’s own sweet spot but it’s usually somewhere around the point where the neck meets the body.

4. Don’t use a guitar pick.

The number one mistake guitar players make when transferring to uke is hacking away at the uke strings with a thumping great rhino’s toenail. Guitar plectrums are far too hard for nylon uke strings (you can just about get away with it on steel strings) and as a consequence they make a harsh sound. If you have to use a pick, use the dedicated ukulele felt picks.

5. Look after your uke.

Ukes react very badly to humidity. If you’ve got a cheap instrument you may not want to fork out for a humidifier but don’t leave your uke on a sunny windowsill or near a heater. The latest edition of UkeCast (episode 222 – the number of a third of the beast) has a list of tips for looking after your uke (I did not know that suncream can damage ukuleles).

So you might not be able to make a Mahalo sound like a vintage Martin ukulele (that was just an excuse for a very tenuous pun) but you can certainly improve the sound it makes.

Do you have have any other tone tips?

I’ve been asked about this by maduke and there have been discussions about how to work out chords for the ukulele on Ukulele Cosmos and 4th Peg so I thought I’d weigh in with my 5 steps to working out chords.

Step 1. Don’t play your ukulele: At the risk of winning the Ric Olia Award for Pointing Out The Bleeding Obvious, it’s difficult to transcribe a song if you don’t listen to it. Firstly, listen to the structure of the song: where the chords change, where bits are repeated. Try picking out whether chords are major, minor, 7ths.

See if you can recognise a chord progression from a song you know. A huge proportion of songs will include the Louie, Louie chord progression. Not necessarily those chords, but the same relationship between the chords (the I-IV-V progression). If you recognise that progression, you’ll easily be able to work out about half of all songs.

Step 2. Don’t listen to the ukulele: If the song you’re trying to work out has instruments other than the uke in, listen to those. The ukulele can be a tricky instrument to work out. The harmonies are close; it’s not always obvious what the root note is – sometimes it’s not even played at all.

The first thing you want to work out is the root note of each chord – the note it is named after e.g. the root note of Am7 is A. If there’s a bass on the track, you’re in luck. The bass will usually be playing the root note. You might want to work this out using a different instrument (guitar, bass or piano might me useful) but, if not, it’s perfectly possible on a uke.

If it’s just a uke playing, the root note may not be so obvious. Usually, it’s possible to play an imaginary bass line in your head along with the song. Hum (aloud or in your head) each note, then find it on whichever instrument you are using.

Step 3. Now you can play your ukulele: By this point you should have the root notes of each chord and an idea of the overall structure of the song. Here’s where a little theory can come in useful.

There a certain chords that will sound right when put next to others. What chords sound right depends on the ‘I chord’ (usually the one at the start and end and the one that feels like home). All the other chords will relate to this in some way. The list of harmonised chords can tell you whether the chord for a particular root note is likely to be major, minor or diminished.There’s a handy list of all the harmonised chords at the bottom of this page. Also, take a look at this post on Guitar Teacher’s Lesson Notebook comparing chords to The Brady Bunch.

Step 4. Listen to the melody: With a bit of luck, by this stage you’ll know the the basic chord structure of the song; you’ll have the root notes and you’ll know if each chord is major or minor. If you play this along with the song it will probably sound just about right but, particularly if it’s a uke song, there will be notes that you seem to be missing.

Firstly, try to recognise the sound of the chord. 7th chords are common enough that you might be able to spot them in a song. The more you listen, the more chords you’ll be able to pick out.

If you can’t recognise a chord, try working out the melody. It’s easier to work out single notes than chords. Also, if the melody is familiar to you, hum the notes more slowly – give yourself more time to find them on the uke. The melody notes may form part of the chord and give you a much better idea of what the chord is.

Step 5. Finishing touches: There is a good chance you’ll have worked out the song by this stage, but there may be a few chords that remain elusive. At this point I start to get desperate. Listen carefully for notes that stay the same through the chords, notes that descend or ascend (maybe chromatically). Try to focus on a single note in the chord that you’re missing. In short, do anything you can until you get it sounding right.

I’ve tried to present it in as non-technical a way as possible. But knowing some chord theory will give you a better idea of what chords might be playing.

Test Yourself

Now you’re all experts. Try to figure out these chord progressions. 100 cool points for anyone who posts the correct answer for any of these. And a million cool points for anyone who posts the right progression for Example 6.

Example 1: Only major chords in this one. A recognisable progression.

Example 2: Major and 7th chords.

Example 3: Major, minor and 7th chords.

Example 4: A more involved chord progression.

Example 5: Hardly any changes at all.

Example 6: Very tricky. There’s a melody here to help/distract you.