Get started on Ukulele! Easy chords, strumming and songs! (Uke Beginner Lesson UK-001)

Yep, I'm going to do some Ukulele lessons! In this little video I show you how to tune your uke, hold it, play four easy chords, strum it and and teach you a '1564' chord sequence which is used in hundreds of songs. Hope you enjoy the uke as much as I do and I'm planning a whole course on it cos I'm enjoying it so much!

The Uke I'm playing is made by Maton, the same company that makes all my acoustic guitars, check them out on the link below. In my humble opinion they make the best acoustic guitars and the student models are the best 'bang for buck' you'll find!

http://maton.com.au/product/maton-ukuleles

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

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Hey, how you doing? Justine here!

Today we're gonna do a
lesson on getting started on a Ukulele.

Great fun little instrument these are.

I’ve only been playing a few months but
it’s really really good fun.

If you play a bit of guitar, the skills
kinda transfer over pretty easy.

That's kind of a cool thing!

And if you’ve never played a musical
instrument before

it’s a nice little starter one this one.

It's got nylon strings so it's
easy on the fingers.

The chords are pretty simple to play.

Small, portable - great for parties you know

it’s a really good little instrument

In this lesson I want to show you

how to tune that thing,

how to hold it, how to strum it
and I show you

four really simple chords

and give you some progressions to put
those chords in

so you can play some tunes.

That’s the aim of our little lesson today.

So first thing, getting your Uke in tune.

Really really important, nylon
strings tend to go out of tune a bit.

So I would recommend getting something
like a clip on tuner

or something that is there all the time.

So you can tune up really quick you know

rather than having to get a tuner out and do
all of that sort of stuff.

Either a little clip-on tuner.

This particular Uke has a built-in
tuner,

This is a Maton Ukulele
Australian Guitar Company

makes great instruments all around
you want to check them out its Maton.

Maton.com.au is their website.

If your looking for a uke this is a great one.

Doesn’t matter what one you do this one as
I should mention is a concert size Uke.

There's a soprano Uke which is a lot
smaller - same tuning.

Although sometimes they tune the
smaller ones up a tone from what

I'm going to show you. And there is
a couple of bigger ones as well

this one is a concert one if you want
to get one of this size.

So the tuning is C, oh sorry, G, C, E, A

and it seems to be commonly called
when I looked it up “My dog has flees “

I don’t know where they get that name from

But you can hear that the fourth string
which is the one closest to the ceiling

is actually the highest note.

So it’s kinda high - low - getting higher

It’s going from the top down okay you
know I mean physically down

The string closest to the floor is the
one I call the first string

So first string, second string, third
string and fourth string

So from the ground it would be A, E, C
and G

and from the ceiling down G, C, E, A. Okay?

Now like I said I really recommend
that you get a tuner

If you don’t have a tuner

I'm gonna play the notes for you now so
you can tune up

So, this would be the top
string or string four. It’s the note G.

Okay, and now to the third string just
the note C. It’s the lowest note on the Uke

And to the second string which
is the note E

And now to the first string, the
one closest to the ground, the note A

Okay, so when you pick it up and strum it.

“My dog has flees” that’s what you
want to be hearing. Okay.

So that’s first really important thing
getting your Uke in tune

Second thing - holding the Uke. Now

It makes sense to me that you should
be stable not supported by this hand

so that means I have to support
it with this hand

But just supporting it with this hand

and leaving this one free means
I've got to hold it so tight

I can't strum very freely and that’s
no good

and if I just support it with this hand
then I can’t change chords

So really it’s a bit of balancing act where

Some of the weight of the neck is held
by your hand that is fretting the chords

which is quite different to guitar

On guitar you would never be
holding the neck

The neck should just be completely stationary

and it does make changing
chords a little trickier

when you have to support
the neck a little bit, Okay?

and otherwise it’s just your
forearm kind of holding the Uke down

I have seen a few people talk about
being able to hold the Uke like that

and play quite freely but I haven't been
able to get it together that quickly

so it might be difficult for you too

one thing I do find - especially for the very
first time - I just rested the Uke in my lap

like it was a guitar and now my strumming
hand feels quite free

and I’m not going to hold the
neck up so much

So you might want to try that as well

Doesn’t really matter whichever
way you really want to do it.

you going to be holding it up
quite high it's not like a guitar

where you would be playing it right down
on your lap that feels pretty weird

So going to have it a little bit further up

So it really is what’s comfortable for you

If I was going to play it standing up
I would almost certainly use a strap

It’s so light and small you could
use a bit of string

It wouldn’t be big deal

So generally, you’re just using you’re
forearm to hold the Uke against your body

and a little bit of support from the left hand.

The first thing you want to get sorted out,
is just how you going to hold it

Now strumming - normally with Uke
you strum with your first finger

There are other techniques, you
could do fingerstyle and all sorts of stuff

To start off with you want to be
just using your first finger

and interestingly you strum kind of around
where the neck meets the body of the Uke

It’s not like a guitar where your back here

it’s more here

Now I recommend just starting off,
just doing four down strums

with your first finger

and then get used to doing some up
strokes and

make sure your fingers not getting caught
in the strings

and going down, up, down,
up, down, up, down, up

A really common kind of pattern
could be like

one, two, and three and four, down - down
up - down up - down, that kind of a pattern

Works really great on the Uke

But there’s lot s of different kind of
strumming patterns

you can use - like on the guitar

that's one of the things you
want to be studying as you progress

is learning different strumming patterns

and different ways of playing them

To start of with, don’t feel stress

just first finger strumming around
the joint of the neck

and the body of the Uke strumming
it up and down

That’s all you need to really be
worrying about

To start off with

So let's get to a close up and check
out your first four chords

The first chord where looking at
is a C chord

And all we need to do to play a C chord is
to put our third finger

in the third fret of string one

The string one is the one
closest to the ground. Okay?

so - open , open, open, third fret

This is a C chord

Okay. Very very easy

Okay now the really really easy
one - A minor

All we need to do is put that
second finger

in the second fret of the top string
or string four

Okay. So it's second - open - open - open

Just make sure your second finger
is not laying over

and muting the third string

Nicely using the tips of your fingers

that would be an A minor chord.

C
(plucking the chord)

Am
(plucking the chord)

From A minor we can get to F really easy

I know the F chord on guitar is a
bit of nightmare. But on the Uke,

all you do is to start with A minor

you put your first finger down
in the first fret of the second string

and you leave your second finger down

You got second fret, open, first fret, open,
and we got an F chord.

Okay, so start with the first finger
first fret, second string

second finger, second fret, fourth string

The one we got that's an F Chord

Okay and the last chord we look
at today is this one

and this one is a G chord. I can
here some of you guitar players say

no it’s a D chord! Well, it looks like a
D chord but on the Uke its a G chord

open, first finger is going in the
second fret of the third string

third finger is going in the third
fret of the second string

and the second finger is going down
in the second fret of the first string

Okay, first finger,

second finger

third finger

(plucking G chord)

Okay, this is a G chord

So we got
C

Am

F

G

(plucking C, Am, F ...)

I recommend doing that as a little exercise

to getting used to those chords,

C

Am

F

G

and back to
C

Just using those four chords that
we learned, there are hundreds

and I actually mean hundreds of
songs that you can play

Now all you want to do is to start
off learning some chord sequences

I cant teach you the actual
songs and name them

because the I get into copyright
problems, I got to get clearances

it gets all complicated

So I'll put a list of songs upon
the website, okay

and use this particular chords because
I can get away with that.

So the first really common chord sequence

that you going to get

is going from the C chord

to the G chord

to the A minor

and to the F

C

G

Am

to F

I’m using my thumb here just because
it's really easy for me to hold the Uke.

and kinda strum with my thumb.
You probably want to use your first finger

(strumming with first finger)

Okay. C, G, A minor, to F, okay

This chord sequence is used so much it's insane

You might have seen the Axis of Awesome
doing these little four chords

in a medley of different songs that used it

So this is that chord sequence right

So if you want to dig that video out and
check out all the songs that they do

Again you can google it and I'll put a list
up on my website

that chord sequence, actually called
a 1-5-6-4..Okay, 1-5-6-4

that’s the name of chord sequence

But there’re others even the
chord sequence I’ve showed

you at the beginning there’s
lots of songs that use this

having this 1 chord - the C, the A minor, F to G

Hundreds,maybe, it cant be a hundreds
but there’s lots and lots of songs

that do use that chord sequence

So that’s what I would recommend for the Uke, to start. If you going to get started on the Ukulele

Rather than trying to learn to learn loads
of different chords,

and any sort of fancy stuff, check out
those four chords

get really comfortable with them
and confident with your strumming

Once you got
that together that’s kinda of the thing

you need if your playing on a party or whatever
you want to have a good repertoires of tunes

that are really easy. That you can play
if you had a couple of beers

It’s not going to stress you, not kinda
get complicated you know

That’s what I recommend to
starting off with on the Ukulele

I’m going to say I’m planning more lessons,
some Uke songs and some

more videos and some more complicated chords

but as I said for getting started on
the Uke you got enough to get yourself going

So, have fun on that fantastic

I really really enjoying the Uke

It's such a laugh.

I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do

and I'll see you for plenty
more lessons very soon

Take care of yourselves!

Bye-bye.