A wonderful small instrument I fell in love with. I even built my own banjo-ukulele. The is already plenty of information about the ukulele so I will provide some of my favourite links and also something about my ukulele journey.
Links
I could probably just start and end this section just by Top 50 Ukulele Sites 🙂. I actually don’t play the ukulele since 2016 so the list can be a little outdated, but I would pinpoint UkuleleHunt and Ukulele Underground. Some more links I found useful:
- Chords
- Ukulele Chordfinder: a great tool for finding specific chords on the ukulele, their positions and variations. Just don’t forget to set the correct tuning on the right side (“C soprano” for a standard gcea tuning).
- Most common chords: a set of the basic chords you can get by. In C tuning (gcea).
- Tablature (tabs)
- Dominator Ukulele Tabs: best tabs I found. You can also check out this great musician on his YouTube channel Dominatoruke.
- UkuleleHunt Tabs & Chords: loads of tabs sorted by genre and difficulty.
- A few tabs I created (the link contains both pdf and power tab version):
- Video
- UkeToob: video blog of UkuleleHunt. Quite an active web with interesting videos and other material which can help with learning ukulele and inspire you on your ukulele path.
- YouTube – Ukulele playlist: my (quite outdated) list of ukulele videos that I found inspiring.
Strings
I just have to add a brief note about strings. Strings impact ukulele sound a lot. Good strings can brighten up even a low-quality instrument. Each ukulele can benefit from a different set of strings so it requires trying some different sets. I was always satisfied with Aquila (Nylgut) strings.
My ukulele path
I love music. I attended guitar lessons for like 10 years, starting when I was in elementary school I think. Playing the guitar was always fun but I never was a keen player. After I finished the guitar lessons (after high school) I just occasionally played/refreshed some songs. But then I found The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. I was excited by this little instrument and I just had to try it (in 2010). Ukulele wasn’t widely known here and mine was actually just catching dust until I found another video – Jake Shimabukuro – While My Guitar (Ukulele) Gently Weeps. I was fascinated when I found out what can be played on a ukulele so I started learning Shimabukuro’s version.
When I was satisfied enough with my version of While My Guitar, I posted it on YouTube. Yeah, just like a big show-off. But then I gained a few subscribers. I thought they must be expecting more content so I suddenly felt somehow obliged to create more videos 🙂. So I started searching for new songs and practising. Later I focused on classical pieces and adapted a few songs I used to play on guitar for the ukulele. I was a keen player then. Playing almost daily. I even got a little nervous when I made a playing break for a few days. I think my biggest achievement is Bach’s Toccata:
I was playing for several years until I got a chance to try a bass ukulele and started playing in a band. So I said farewell to the classical ukulele in 2016 and since then I’m exploring the world of bass. Perhaps I will get back to the classical ukulele again, one can never know.