I am Learning to Play The Ukulele!
When you say the word Ukulele to people they generally think about guitars and come up with the idea that the Ukulele is a miniature guitar. It is similar to a guitar but it isn’t just a smaller version. For a start the Ukulele has 4 strings and a standard acoustic guitar has 6 strings.
Why learn the Ukulele?
You should only start to learn an instrument if you are going to enjoy it. And the Ukulele is fun! The Ukulele is also really easy to learn and there is a massive wealth of material available for it. If you type ‘ukulele tabs’ into google millions of pages offering tabs – which are a form of notation for ukulele and guitar – for all the songs in the charts today.
4 chord songs
Many songs that are in the charts today are made up of four chords only, this makes them incredibly easy to learn on the ukulele. This video of the band Axis of Awesome shows just how many songs are made up of just the four chords.
It is really easy to find 4 chord song tutorials on YouTube, many people make them! This is a particularly good one as it shows you four songs you can sing with the same set of four chords.
Personally I find the Ukulele very useful as a song writing tool, especially if you aren’t anywhere near a piano. All you need to know is a handful of chords and away you go! The Ukulele is also useful to take with you when you are on the go, its a good, fun tool to use when you go camping for campfire sing songs. I quite often use mine just for messing around and learning new songs. The Ukulele is also great for anyone who hasn’t learnt an instrument before, because the Ukulele only has 4 strings there isn’t much stretch when it comes to hand positions and chords are easy to swap between.