Ukulele Complete

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February 7th, 2005 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Ukulele Complete
the difference between guitar and ukulele?

i know this is a stupit question but….i wanna learn to play ukulele cause i like its sound, but i Wonder If its possible to play all the tunes or chords like on guitar. Whats the basic difference ? (please dont judge me im a complete noob i play piano but just by ear so i have no idea about music theory ) thanks:)

Most people that already play guitar find it very easy to pick up the ukulele. That is beacuse the string note/tuning relationships are the same — meaning that the chord “shapes” are the same if you are missing the two lower sounding (and usually closer to the sky) strings on a guitar. However, the ukulele is usually tuned five half-steps (three white keys and two black keys) above the guitar. So in the case of a G Major guitar chord shape, you lose the first two fingers from the guitar chord and are left with the pinkie on the first (closest to the floor) string. This, however, is no longer a G major chord but a C major chord (three white keys and two black keys above the G note is a C Note on the piano).

The short answer is: No – the guitar chord diagrams will have too many strings and the chord names will be wrong. However, on most ukuleles the shape of the chord from a guitar will be very familiar — cross out the fifth and sixth strings from the guitar chord diagram and rename the chord five half steps up and you are in business. I think, however, you are better off buying an ukulele chord chart and then recognizing the similar patterns from the guitar.

Now to confuse the issue. Not all ukuleles are tuned the same. Most traditional ukuleles are tuned to the old “my dog has fleas” tuning with a higher sounding note on the fourth string (closest to the sky) than on the third string. This string is a full OCTAVE above the other tuning. In both tunings the note names are g-c-e-a (or and older a-d-f-g style tuning hardly ever used anymore), but the reentrant tuning has a high G note and the “low-G tuning” has a low G note. You can play an easy scale from the low-G tuning starting on the fourth string. This only makes a huge difference when sight reading sheet music — other wise the two ukuleles can play together with the same chord shapes — one ukulele will sound lower than the other.

This all assumes the ukulele is not a britone ukulele — in that case the chords are the same as a guitar but with two fewer strings. Some purists will call this a parlor four string guitar and not a baritone ukulele — but who cares?

UKULELE – COMPLETE CONTROL