How do I start playing the ukulele?

The ukulele is the fastest instrument for an adult to get real music out of. Four nylon strings under low tension are kind to fingertips, the chord shapes need one, two or three fingers rather than six, and a beginner can accompany a song properly within a couple of weeks. The obstacles are all small and all specific.

What you'll need

• A soprano, concert or tenor ukulele
• A clip-on tuner
• A spare set of strings (optional)
• A song with three or four chords you actually like

Step by step

1. Understand the tuning before you tune.Standard tuning is G, C, E, A. Critically, in the usual re-entrant tuning the G string is tuned high, not low, so the strings do not run from low to high across the instrument. A clip-on tuner removes all ambiguity — clip it on and tune each string to its letter.
2. Expect to retune constantly for the first week.New nylon strings stretch a great deal and will go flat repeatedly for several days. This is normal and not a fault. Stretch them gently by pulling each string away from the fretboard and retuning, several times.
3. Learn C first, because it needs one finger.One finger on the third fret of the bottom string. It is a complete chord and it sounds good, which means you can strum along with something on day one.
4. Add F, Am and G7.Two fingers, one finger and three fingers respectively. Those four chords in combination cover a very large proportion of popular songs, and there is no benefit in learning more until you can change between these fluently.
5. Practise the changes, not the chords.Everyone can form a chord given ten seconds. Playing music requires forming it in under a second, repeatedly. Set a timer and swap between two chords for a minute at a time. This is the actual skill and it is what beginners skip.
6. Press just behind the fret, with arched fingers.Not on the metal fret and not in the middle of the gap. Fingertips coming down vertically so they do not mute the neighbouring strings. Almost all buzzing and dead strings are finger position rather than pressure.
7. Keep the strumming hand simple and constant.Down strums on the beat, all the way through, without stopping for chord changes. A steady rhythm with a slightly late chord sounds like music; a perfect chord with a stopped rhythm does not.
8. Play along with actual songs immediately.Find something you like with three or four chords, slow it down if you need to, and play through it badly. Playing real music from the first week is the difference between people who continue and people who stop.
9. Add a strumming pattern once the changes are automatic.Down, down, up, up, down, up is the pattern that fits an enormous number of songs. Learn it with one chord held down before combining it with changes.

Tips

• Soprano is the traditional small size with the classic sound; concert and tenor are progressively larger with more space between the frets, which suits larger hands. All three tune the same way and every chord shape transfers.
• Leave it out on a stand where you sit. The single biggest factor in adult progress is how often the instrument is picked up, and an instrument in a case in a cupboard gets played once a week.
• Fifteen minutes daily beats two hours on Sunday. Motor skills consolidate between sessions, so frequency matters more than duration.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the strings run low to high — In standard re-entrant tuning the G string is high, which makes people think their tuner is wrong or their instrument is faulty. Tune each string to its letter with a clip-on tuner and ignore the ordering.
• Practising chords in isolation — The skill that produces music is the transition between chords. Practising each shape perfectly and never the change means every song stops dead four times a bar.
• Stopping the strumming hand to change chord — It destroys the rhythm, which is what listeners actually hear. Keep the right hand moving and let the chord arrive slightly late — nobody notices.
• Learning a dozen chords before playing a song — It postpones the reward indefinitely. Two chords is enough for real songs, and playing them badly is the point of the first month.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask