10 Quick Tips for Ukulele Beginners

Well, you’ve just got your very first ukulele. What are you going to do now? What should a beginner learn? How can they avoid getting bored with the instrument or stuck in a rut?

In this article, I’ll give you ten quick tips to make sure your ukulele playing gets off to a great start.

1. Spend as much as you can on a ukulele – having a nice ukulele will be much more encouraging than one that sounds awful whatever you do.

2. Learn three chords then start playing songs – once you start playing songs that people can recognize you’ll feel a lot better about your playing.

3. Get in tune – nothing is going to make your playing sound worse than having your ukulele out of tune. So make sure you learn how to tune up.

4. Hold the ukulele right – start getting the good habits in right away.

5. Join a ukulele orchestra – If there isn’t one near you, even better. You can set one up yourself.

6. Start slow – by far the best way to practice is incredibly slowly. So slowly you can’t possibly make a mistake. Get the moves ‘under your fingers’ and things will be much more easy to speed up.

7. Invest in some good strings – a good brand of strings (such as Worth or Aquila) will serve you very well. It’s the cheapest and easiest way to improve the sound of a ukulele.

8. Use your ears – take a careful listen to your favourite songs. What appeals to you about them?

9. Use your eyes – watch how the master ukulele players do it. Watch how the hold the uke, strum it and pick it. There is no shortage of videos of these players online. Take a look at players like James Hill and Roy Smeck.

10. Love playing – if you don’t enjoy playing the ukulele, sooner or later, you’ll give up. There’s a huge array of music out there for the uke. Explore new avenues and new techniques. Have fun with your playing and don’t take it too seriously. After all, it’s called ‘playing’ music. Not ‘working’ music.