Ukulelists of any level can improve their playing with Yousician. Whether you’re a beginner hoping to pick up the basics or already advanced, our missions and exercises are perfect for developing a wide range of skills. Learn chords, strumming, plucking, melodies, fingerpicking, slides, hammer-ons & pull-offs, and so much more!
Our ukulelists are motivated by a huge inventory of videos and lessons, Weekly Challenges against existing users, and comprehensive progress tracking as you learn. You don’t need any additional cords or cables for your ukulele, just a desire to play the ukulele!
Ukulele is almost a certain way of bringing a smile to someone’s face. The unique sound and appearance of the ukulele makes it notable anywhere, and the small size lets you be the cheer up at any beach party or another social evening. We will get you quickly started, so you can begin to strum your way to master the ukulele. Let’s see how you should get started!
This one simple step can prevent your playing from sounding out of tune or otherwise incorrect. Especially when you only have four strings to play with, a string out of tune will immediately play through of your chords. Yousician’s built-in ukulele tuner will help you to stay in tune. If you are practicing on your own, you can use our ukulele tuner to get your uke in tune.
The standard tuning for ukulele from top string to lowest string goes G C E A. The top string means the string that is the closest to you. As you progress, you will develop an ability to hear if a string is in tune or not, but it saves time to use a tuner in the beginning to check your ukulele’s tune.
Reading tablatures is like reading the notes for ukulele. The numbers on the tablatures indicate which fret you are supposed to press, or if you are going to play an open string. Yousician uses a tablature layout in its app, so you will get comfortable with reading them. You can also change the view to look like regular notes, but we recommend starting with tablatures in the beginning.
Sometimes you can see special symbols in the tablature. Those symbols can indicate a string-bend, a slide to your next fret or a pull-off. You will get familiar with all these terms as you proceed with Yousician. We will explain the required techniques and how to implement those in your playing.
With any instrument playing a chord means playing multiple notes at the same time. The chords are read from a diagram, which shows you how to build the chord. The layout is very similar to one from tablatures. You can see from the chart which frets you will have to use, and which finger to have on which fret. The diagram will also show if you have any open strings to play.
Let’s have an E7 chord as an example. You can have a look at the finger positions from the diagram below. As ukulele’s neck is very narrow, pay attention to the angle of your fingers so you can fit them on the fretboard. The zero on the second string means that you will play it open. When you have positioned your fingers, play each note separately to make sure they are ringing.
Yousician will teach you how to play the most common chords and the primary methods for building a chord. Watching the videos will get you familiar with the chord’s sound and notes. You will also learn how to change chords with as little effort as possible and to strum them efficiently. When you have to use chords in a song, Yousician will show you the chord diagram above the tablatures.
Practicing scales helps you to find notes on your ukulele, but also with building the chords. Our example will be a C major scale, but the tips are easy to implement for other major scales as well. Being familiar with the musical alphabets will get you a long way with scales. The alphabets are A B C D E F G.
When we start playing a scale, the root note will be the first one to play. For the C major scale, that note is C, which is the open third string. If you are not sure where to find the required notes yet, you can have a look at the picture below. As you practice, your fingers will memorize the pattern in a way that you won’t have to think about it anymore.
With Yousician’s song library, you have access to a wide range of popular songs to play. One very well-known ukulele song is I’m Yours by Jason Mraz, but it is also a good practice song for a beginner. You can choose whether you want to focus on playing the chords or melody on that particular song.
If you want to challenge your finger-picking a little more and play something unpredicted, you could try Hurt by Johnny Cash. The song is originally played on acoustic guitar, but we have made the tablatures suitable for ukulele as well. Remember that in practice mode, you can adjust the speed of the song to your liking.
Are you ready to cheer people up by playing ukulele? Yousician will help you to learn how to play the ukulele. The different missions and exercises will develop your skills from playing single notes to strumming through multiple chords and beautiful melodies. The lessons adapt to your skills, and you will keep learning with relevant content and lessons.
Grab that ukulele and get ready to play. Our free trial for the premium plan will get you a proper kickstart for that. This will be an exciting and motivating learning journey. Have fun with Yousician, we will see you at the next beach party!