- Read Me First: Ukulele Buyer’s Guide – Part I
- Read Me First, Too: Ukulele Buyer’s Guide – Part 2
- The Ukulele Strum – coming soon!
Read Me First: Ukulele Buyer’s Guide – Part I
I don’t pretend to know everything about ukuleles and all their brands but I have learned some useful things since taking up the ukulele. These are things I would like to have known before buying my first ukulele. So here are few words of advice for choosing your first ukulele.
1. Don’t buy a ukulele online. Never buy an instrument without playing it. I know of too many people who really were not happy with their long-distance purchase. I went against this rule once and bought a banjo ukulele from an exciting, upstart company halfway across the planet. Want a good deal on a hardly used banjo uke?
2. Never buy an instrument without playing it. It doesn’t matter what your ukulele looks like. All the colours, carving and mother-of-pearl inlays will not improve the sound of your ukulele. So, if you can’t yet play the ukulele, ask someone from the music store to play the ukuleles for you. Good music stores have hired people who can play the instruments, and they don’t mind being asked. Listen!!
3. In general, I have found that guitar makers make wonderful guitars but not necessarily wonderful ukuleles. Okay, there is Martin;- but they have been making ukuleles since the 1920’s!
4. I have never purchased a plastic ukulele but if you are not taking it into the shower, on a canoe trip or to a beach BBQ, it is probably better to buy a wood or laminate one.
5. Do NOT buy a baritone ukulele at the start, especially if you are already a guitar player. Some people will try to convince you that it is best, because it is so much like a guitar. However;- It is tuned differently from the other 3 ukulele sizes. You will not get the full ukulele experience by playing a baritone because it really sounds just like a small guitar. Most material on the internet and in workshops only applies to the smaller ukulele sizes. Realistically, if you get bit by the bug, it makes sense for your 3rd or 4th ukulele purchase to be a baritone.
Read Me First, Too! Ukulele Buyer’s Guide – Part II
IMPORTANT – All the buying considerations below assume that you go to a music store to look at what ukuleles they have for sale.
You need to hold the ukulele, examine it and hear it before you decide to buy it.
What size to buy?
Ukuleles come in 4 basic sizes. The smallest size, soprano, is most common. This gives the lively, plunky sound. The next size, concert, has a slightly larger body and longer neck. The frets are a little bit longer and there are a couple more of them. It still sounds classically ukulele. The third size is the tenor. Again, bigger body, longer neck, longer frets but a rather fuller sound. If your fingers are not long, you may find the tenor too big of a stretch. You need to hold a ukulele to decide which size is most comfortable for you. The length of the fret gets longer as the size increases and you may think that longer frets give your fingers more room. This is true to some extent, but the width of the neck is also important and this depends on the manufacturer and model of ukulele. I really prefer the concert size but often play soprano as well, and sometimes my 6-string tenor. Another ukulele, even bigger, is the baritone – do not get this as your first ukulele.
If price is your main concern:
Check out the soprano ukulele offerings. You should be able to find a good beginner ukulele for a price between $60 and $100. If you are a guy, don’t worry that it is too small. Israel Kamakawiwo’ole was one of the most famous ukulele players and he had fingers like sausages but could play the soprano size. (Of course, he started playing around the age of 3…)
What to look for?
Examine the ukulele carefully. Does it appear to be nicely finished? – no rough edges or gouges. Run your finger carefully along the side of the fret board. This should be really smooth with no sharp metal poking out. Look inside – does the construction look neat? – no globs of glue or extra bits of wood. Gently jiggle the tuning pegs – these should be firmly attached. Does the stringing appear to be neat?
DO YOU LIKE THE SOUND?
Trust your ear, you are going to be listening to your ukulele for a long while to come.
Don’t be fooled by cute, trendy ukuleles!
I love my little kiwi soprano ukulele but there is no way that I could have held that round, slippery thing when I was a beginner player. You want to buy a ukulele in which the manufacturer has put effort into sound production, not decoration.
Buy a Tuner!
With the plastic strings, you will find that a ukulele needs to be tuned often and a clip-on electronic tuner is very useful. You do not need a lot of bells and whistles here – the simplest tuner is probably the best. Note: It is normal for the strings on a new ukulele to need frequent retuning for the first week or so.
Final thought:
I started with a $40 ukulele. I only played it for two weeks before realizing that I needed a better one. My next purchase was a Kala Ukedelic for about $120. I have since moved on to other ukes but I still play that Ukedelic and like the way it sounds. Early on, I participated in a summer camp with some other newish players who had high-end ukuleles (priced over $1000). Their instruments didn’t sound any better than mine;- they had great ukuleles but they weren’t great players. The lesson? – moderation, I guess – aim for a ukulele that is a little better than you and your playing.
The Ukulele Strum
Which finger to Use?
There are no hard and fast rules, really, when you play a ukulele. I am giving you advice.
Most beginners start by using their thumb – don’t. You don’t have good control or crispness using the thumb.
There are roles for the thumb in strumming:
- It is excellent if you are plucking each string in a chord separately so that you can identify any muddled strings in order to improve your chord-playing.
- It is useful when demonstrating the sound of a new chord
- It is used for strumming when you want to start a chord off with one chimed note
- Best of all, using the thumb to strum is lovely for lullabies or any song you want to play softly and quietly.
In general, use your index finger to strum. In the down-strum, the strings are mostly in contact with your fingernail. In the up-strum, the strings are mostly in contact with the pad of your finger. This makes up-strums naturally a bit softer than down-strums. Keep your wrist loose. The motion for strumming comes from the wrist not the forearm and elbow. Watch the attached video for an explanation and visualization exercise. When you want louder, you can use more fingers – you could strum with 1, 2, 3, or all 4 fingers of your hand.
Where to Stum on a Ukulele:
It might be a surprise to you, but don’t strum a ukulele over the sound hole. The “sweet spot” for strumming is usually by the place on the fretboard where the neck connects to the body of the ukulele. Of course, if you are fingerpicking or melody-playing, you will want to do this over the sound hole. Here there is more room for you fingernails, so they don’t come in contact with the wood of the ukulele.
A note about Picks:
You don’t need a pick to play the ukulele, even for melody-playing and finger-picking. If you want, there are thick felt picks that don’t damage the plastic strings. You can even use regular guitar picks but they are a bit hard on your strings as they are designed to be used with metal strings. The biggest problem with a pick is it causes your hand to tense up and with the ukulele, the looser your hand and wrist are, the better.