Learning to play the ukulele is a fun and charming experience that can bring joy to your life. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to brush up on your skills, this video guide will help you get started on your ukulele journey.

To download a PDF that will support you with today’s lesson, you can get that here.

First and foremost, it’s important to choose the right ukulele for you. Ukuleles come in four different sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone. Soprano is the smallest size and is perfect for traveling, for children, or for those with small hands. Concert ukuleles are slightly larger, making them a great choice for beginners of all ages and sizes. Tenor ukuleles are even larger, making the fret spacing wider. If your fingers are short, you may feel like the tenor is too big. With that said, one of the benefits of having a tenor ukulele is that it is easy to rest on your lap as you play.

Baritone ukuleles are the largest and have the lowest pitch (they sound more like guitars than ukuleles). Baritone ukuleles also require you to learn new chord charts and shapes.

In this video I was playing a concert ukulele by Enya. This ukulele has fluorocarbon strings, which feel much easier on the fingers and have a sweeter sound. If you’d like to see this ukulele and order one for yourself, click here.

Most ukuleles are shaped like a figure 8, but if you’re interested in a pineapple-shaped ukulele, you can see a great one here.

Once you’ve chosen your ukulele, it’s time to learn the basics.

First, learn the parts of the ukulele. The headstock is the part of the ukulele where the tuning pegs are located. The neck is the long part of the ukulele that runs from the headstock to the body. The body is where the sound hole and sound chamber are located. The sound hole is where the sound comes out, and the sound chamber amplifies the sound. The frets wires are the metal bars that run along the neck.

Next, learn how to tune your ukulele. The strings of the ukulele are tuned to G-C-E-A (from your nose to the floor). You can use a tuning app like pano tuner or a clip-on tuner to help you tune your ukulele. Here’s a tuner like the one that I was using in my video.

It’s important to keep your ukulele in tune, so make sure to check the tuning often. If you’d like to see my more in-depth tuning tutorial, you can find that here.

Once your ukulele is tuned, you can start playing! The first thing you should learn is how to play a few basic chords. There are many chords to learn, but some of the most common chords for beginners are C, Am, F, and G7. Start by learning these chords and then move on to more advanced chords as you become more comfortable.

Another important aspect of playing the ukulele is strumming. Strumming is when you use your hand to make the strings vibrate in a rhythmic pattern. We will learn a strumming pattern in this video, but if you need a slower course for this, click here to go to that 5-day course.