Hey how you doing.
Justin here for another ukulele lesson for you.
and today we are checking out shape one of the
moveable chords.
Okay, so. Hopefully by this stage you're really hip with all of
the open chord shapes on the uke that we've covered so far in the course.
And now we're going to look at the chord shapes that move
up and down the neck.
Okay, and this particular one that we're looking at today
I've called shape one.
Now, the root note for that is on the first string. Okay?
The one that start with the note A. Okay?
So, you need to be familiar with the notes on the first string.
Okay? Particularly the ones kind of early on from the nut,
say the first 5/6 frets particularly. Ok?
So let's get to a close up.
Check out this chord and what the root note is,
and see if we can't change the chords around a little bit.
Okay, Here we are with the first of our moveable chord shapes ...
for the ukulele.
This one I call Shape One.
We're going to start with the third finger
on the fourth fret of the fourth string.
Then we put the second finger down in the third fret of the third string,
and we use our 1st finger to cover 2 strings in the 2nd fret.
That'll be the 1st string and the 2nd string on the 2nd fret.
Some people prefer to put the fingers down in order, so 1st finger 1st,
doing a little mini-barré there, 2nd finger down on the 3rd fret
of the 3rd string, 3rd finger down on the 4th fret of the 4th string.
♪
That's what it sounds like.
♪
For those of you who're curious where it comes from, if you remember our A chord,
♪
Open chord, we've re-fingered that using strings 2 and 3,
if we move that up one fret and then our 1st finger replaces the nut,
♪
That's where we've got it! So, that's (♪) A chord,
Up one fret from A chord would be A sharp (♪), up one more would be B (♪)
And here is our root note. So, that was the note A.
♪
If we wanted to play a B chord, - A, A#, B - (♪)
There's B, (♪),- B chord!
What would it be if we move it up one more fret? (♪)
What's this note here? (♪) 3rd fret of the thinnest string.
That would be the note C (♪) So that would be a C chord (♪)
We already got a C chord like that. But we can play it ( ♪)
It's another way of playing a C chord now,
so, we could do that (♪), way, or that way (♪)
Same chord. You can hear it sounds slightly different, but it's essentially
the same chord. Anyone figure out where we'd put it if we wanted to play a D# chord?
Think about it! So, we had an A there, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#
Right up on the 6th fret (♪) That's how we'd get our D# chord (♪)
Okay, so, make sure you get that!
So we've got A,- would be the open chord,- up one, A sharp/B flat, up another one B.
C, C sharp/D flat, D, D sharp/E flat, E.
Okay, so it's a moveable chord shape.
Very-very cool little idea, you'll learn lots of different chords this way.
So, it get's cooler. 'cause that's the major chord, ok? If I move it back to B.
So, 1st finger's in the 2nd fret.
♪
That's the major chord. If we take off the 2nd finger,
and move the bar over, so it's covering now
3 strings, so we've got: 4th fret, 2nd fret, 2nd fret, 2nd fret.
Now I'm kind of moving my 2nd finger other way, so you can see, I'd normally
just leave it hanging around. Okay, so 4th fret, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd
That would be a B minor chord.
Ok? So, major..minor...ok?
Now, the same idea just moves around.
So, if we wanted to say, take it up to a D chord at the 5th fret,
that'll be a D major chord. That'll be a D minor.
Ok? Major...minor...major...minor...
Ok? So, if I wanted you to play a B flat minor chord, you'd start with A,
find the root note first, so that'd be A, A#/ B flat,- ok, there's the root note,
now, we know, that was the major shape, oh, there's the minor shape!
There's B flat minor (♪)
What, if we wanted to play a D flat minor?
Ok, 1st of all, you find where the D is, so, A, A sharp, B, C, C sharp, D,
Then we want a D flat,- we said, D flat minor, so, D, flat, we put down the shape
and we want D flat minor. So, we'd use that shape (♪) - Ok?
If you're really clever, you could 've gone straight to the D flat, there, and then
put down the minor grip - ok? So, a really good exercise is to try
playing a few songs, just using these shapes. See, if you can find some tunes that
are just using these (♪)
Ok? there's all sorts of different little things that you can find that're just using
these one-shape kinda grips moving around.
Ok, so, we've looked at major, and minor,
There's also another really cool one which is dominant 7 (♪)
Ok? So, we're just barring the whole neck now. Ok? So, this is more like a proper barré chord
that we'd have on guitar; covering all 4 strings with the 1st finger,
and then we add the 2nd finger in the 3rd fret of the 3rd string.
♪
2-3-2-2
Root note's still here, this would be a B7.
♪
If we wanted a D7: ok, find B, C, C sharp, D.
Put the shape down!
♪
Ok? it's really important that you get used to this idea of finding
the root note on the thinnest string and then putting down the appropriate shape.
Either major, minor, or 7.
It's very likely, that learning these moveable shapes on the uke are
a little bit more challenging then the regular open chords and require
a little bit more finger strength, but it's just practice!
Particularly on ukulele, the fact that strings are nice and soft and you don't
usually have to press'em down too hard, should make it relatively easy.
It's definitely not as difficult as learning barré chords on the guitar.
The big deal is, making sure that you know those root notes. 'Cause without knowing the
root notes, the notes on that thinnest string,
you're not gonna be able to use these shapes.
But what this has done, in case you hadn't realised,- is given you a whole lotta chords.
You've got 3 chords on each different fret that you know know, a maj. chord, a min.chord
and a dominant 7th on every fret, all the way up, as far as you can get
your fingers still in the frets - ok? That's a whole lot of chords.
I don't know exactly how many, but a LOT. Depends on, I guess, how far up the neck
you feel like you can get to. But this gives you access now to
all of those chords that you couldn't play before. if you see C#min. or E flat7
or whatever, these kind of chords that you might not have been able to play in an
open position, you can now play them using this shape one.
There's five shapes alltogether. But this particular shape is the one that
I recommend you spend quite a bit of time with first-ok? And it's got that root note
on the thinnest string, which is in some instances is the easiest string
to remember the note names of - ok? So, get to grips with that solidly first,
before you even think about learning more shapes, but when you're ready,
join me for the next one, and we're gonna be looking at Shape Two!
Take care of yourselves! Bye-bye!