Instructions: – Grab a piece of paper – Display your uke knowledge – Check the answers here (no peeking) – Leave your score in the comments along with your dangs/woohoos. Name That Chord What chords are these on a standard C-tuned (gCEA) ukulele? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Name That Celeb Which famous person is […]

I was in the process of updating the Songs with Chords You Know page and became curious about the most used chords on the site. Here are the results (click it for the full size image): And here’s one showing all chords used four times or more. The first thing that struck me was that […]

The amount of ukulele stuff on the net is swelling rapidly. I spend most of my day trying to keep up and I still miss loads. So here’s a list of uke goodies you may have missed because they are nowhere near as popular as they should be. If there’s something you think I should […]

The most awkward question I get asked is, “What’s the strumming pattern for this?” Because there’s no real answer to it. It’s not like a chord progression where there’s a right chord and a wrong chord. You can use different strumming patterns and it will still work. It’s an important skill to be able to […]

I’ve had quite a few people contact me recently with barre chord problems. My main advice is: practice and lots of it. But here are a few more pointers to help you on the way. What’s a Barre Chord? A barre chord is any chord that involves playing more than one string with the same […]

In what was intended to be a very straight-forward tab for Crazy, I couldn’t resist throwing in a few bent notes in bar 21. I’ve had a couple of people struggle with it so I thought I’d put up a brief post about bending. The Basic Idea You bend a string by pushing it upwards […]

When I posted Diane Rubio’s version of Under Paris Skies it prompted some discussion of her vibrato technique (which she chipped in on). So I thought it was about time I put up a post about it. Vibrato is making the note quiver by varying the pitch slightly. You hear it a lot in the […]

There’s more than one way to play any chord. You can find different versions of every chord up and down the neck (known as ‘chord inversions’). And it’s well worth using them. Playing different inversions makes any song more interesting. Particularly if you’re playing with other ukuleles. Having different people play different inversions will open […]

This is a technique people have been asking me about since my Rockabilly Roustabout video although it’s a technique I use often. But if you want to see how it’s really done you have to check out James Hill. Strum blocking is a way of playing single notes with strums. You block off the strings […]

A few ideas for people who want to start making their own arrangements of tunes. For this post I’ll be using Ode to Joy because the melody is very simple and you can play it against one chord (in this case C). Here’s the snippet: MP3 You’ll have to forgive any sniffles, coughs and hocked […]