Best Ukulele for a Child

Numerous studies have shown that kids who are exposed to music in an interactive way (music lessons, tinkering with mom or dad's instruments, etc) have boosted IQ's.  I'm a big proponent of getting instruments in your children's hands at an early age and the ukulele is a great place to start!  The chief reason being that the ukulele is small and can fit into those little hands.  Not to mention, it's a fun instrument!

Sounds good so far, right?  But wait a minute...every parent knows that anything they put in their child's hands is at great risk of being destroyed.  So what's a good (and cheap) starter ukulele for a young child?  Here's some inexpensive and durable options....

5 beginner baritone ukuleles

Lately I've been thinking a lot about baritone ukuleles.  About 10 years ago, I walked into a music shop in the Kansas City area and found a lonely baritone.  It was used and slightly beat up with a price tag of only $20.  I, of course, took it home with me and it was a real joy to play.  Not knowing a whole lot about ukuleles at the time, I honestly don't remember the brand.  That ukulele ended up in the closet at some point.  It eventually ended up being sold in a garage sale.  Any time I've sold an instrument I always end up regretting it. 

Anyway, I'm starting to think about buying another baritone uke.  There's a lot of great entry level models out there that won't break the bank.  So if you're thinking about getting into the world of baritones, here's 5 starters to consider.

 Lanikai LU-21B Baritone Ukulele

 I actually have the concert ukulele from the LU-21 series and it's a fine instrument.  I wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger and grab this baritone from that series.  You can get one new for around $100.  These also come up

How to change your ukulele strings

A couple of weeks ago I put new strings on a couple of my ukuleles.  I thought to myself, "why haven't I blogged about this?".  Changing your uke strings for the first time can be sort of intimidating, but it is in fact a very simple process.  Here is a fantastic "Uke Minutes" video from the nice folks at Ukulele Underground that shows you how to re-string your uke with both kind of bridges.  They do a much better showing you how to do than I ever could, so why try to re-invent the wheel, right?

The Uke Minute videos are a really fantastic source of all kinds of information, so I encourage you to browse through them a bit.

Hope this link helps and happy uke'n!

How to pronounce "ukulele"

In my neck of the woods (northwest Missouri), the common pronunciation of "ukulele" is "yoo-ka-lay-lee".  When I started getting more and more into the ukulele, I discovered that the actual Hawaiian pronunciation is "oo-koo-lay-lay".

So...I started to try to pronounce it "correctly".  To be quite honest, I felt completely ridiculous saying it the right way.  On top of that, if I go to a local music store to ask for "oo-koo-lay-lay" strings, I tend to get a strange look coupled with a reply of, "Do you mean yoo-ka-lay-lee strings?".  So I gave up trying the right way and just settled for the pronunciation that I've always known and heard around here.

5 ukulele songs for a beginner to learn

In the last post, we talked about and diagrammed 5 chords on the ukulele that I consider to be the most important building blocks in your ukulele journey.  Those chords are C, Am, F, G, G7.  If you missed that post, check it out here.

Now that you have the groundwork laid down with those 5 basic chords, you can start to put 'em to use and strum along with a few songs.  Here's 5 songs that you can start to work on with just those 5 ukulele

5 ukulele chords for a beginner to learn

This will be a two part-er specifically geared at all you beginners that are just picking up the ukulele.  In this first part, we'll cover 5 basic chords that I consider to be the most vital "first" chords to learn. Here's part two where we cover 5 beginner songs that use these 5 chords.

I sometimes contemplate what I would do differently if I had a Delorean and I could travel back in time to when I first started playing the ukulele....of course, I would also need a flux capacitor, but anyway....

One of things that I keep coming back to is what chords I would have chosen to learn at the beginning of my ukulele journey.  As I thought about this, I narrowed it down to 5 chords that I believe are most important and essential for a beginner to build around.  It's my hope that these 5 basic chords will be a good foundation

Ukulele Dm7 chord - tips and alternatives

courtesy of ukulele-chords.com

That pesky Dm7 chord shows up in a lot of ukulele tunes.  It's especially prevalent in songs in the key of C.  It can be hard to transition to this chord due to the crowded space.

From everything I've seen, the suggested fingering method for the Dm7 is to place your middle finger on the G string (2nd fret), your ring finger on the C string (2nd fret), your index finger on the E string (1st fret), and your pinky on the A string (3rd fret).

However, a lot of people (myself included) have learned to play this troublesome chord with that same structure, only with the placement of the middle and ring fingers reversed (so that the ring finger takes the lead on the G string 2nd fret).  Really, it all comes down to how you've learned to finger the Dm chord, which is the same placement minus the pinky finger (the A string is open - 2210).  Coming

Ukulele won't stay in tune? Here's some ideas...

If you're ukulele won't stay in tune, it's probably the strings or the tuning machines.  This is a common problem and can be very frustrating if you've never dealt with it before, but before you go bashing your uke into a wall out of frustration, here are some ideas that you can try....

1. New strings take time to settle in - If you recently restrung your ukulele, the strings will naturally slip out of tune for a while as they stretch and settle in.  Exercise some patience and keep retuning them every time they fall out of

Ukulele Finger Pain Tips

You started playing the ukulele for fun, right?  So why all the pain and discomfort?  Unfortunately, it's just something that you'll have to go through, but believe me, it will get better!  In time, your fingers will get used to the new exercise that you're putting them through, and those sore fingertips will develop calluses and stop hurting all the time.  And that's probably the best advice that can be given to a beginner on the uke...just stay the course and play through the pain.

While there's not much that can be done to alleviate those growing pains, here's a few tips that might help you get through

Ukulele E chord tips and tricks

Does this chord look familiar?  Perhaps it's because it shows up in your nightmares....the terrible terrible E chord.
Coming from a guitar playing background, this chord type wasn't all that uncommon to me when I started to play the uke...but just like with the guitar, it was and continues to be very unpleasant to play for me.  Not impossible, just difficult and unpleasant.  It's best to keep practicing with this chord and train your fingers to form it...but in case you're a bit more impatient like me, here are some ideas on how you can produce this chord and avoid this exact structure.

You can try reproducing it by playing 1-4-0-2 (that's from the G string to the A string).  With this you'll be producing the notes Ab, E, E, B.  This has a neat chorus type of effect since you are producing that same middle E with

Picking a Ukulele Tuner

Playing an out of tune instrument can be one of the most annoying things in the world.  It can even cause physical pain for some people.  Maybe more annoying than that, is tuning an instrument by ear.  While learning to tune your ukulele by ear is a very important trait, even more important is spending your free time with your uke actually practicing a song...not just sharpening your tuning skills.  There are a wide variety of electronic tuners on the market (some catering specifically to the ukulele) and for the most part they all do the same thing.  But before you go rolling the dice on one that you're not sure about, here's a couple of very trusted tuners to take a look at...

Snark SN-2 All Instrument Clip On Chromatic Tuner

This little Snark clip on tuner is a good choice if you're worried about misplacing your tuner.  I can't even count how many I have lost over the years.  Of course, as the name implies it is chromatic.  It has a built in flash metronome, a bright display, a transpose function, and it rotates 360 degrees.  The best part is the price tag.  You can grab one for around the $10 mark (plus

What ukulele is best for a beginner?

Thinking about picking up the ukulele? You're certainly not alone! The ukulele, by all accounts, is one of the hottest instruments out there right now. But before you head to your local music store or hop on ebay to pick out your first...there's a few things that you should know.

When I was 15, I spotted a ukulele at the local music shop. All I knew at the time is that I WANTED one! It was made by Samick...and while I don't remember the name or model, I do