Learning how to play the ukulele chords is easy; you don't need to learn how to read music before you can understand how to play the ukulele. Beginners can simply learn how to play the chords in the ukulele by looking at the provided pictures; this picture is the ukulele chords chart, and it shows you how to play chords and where the fingers need to be played. Ukulele chord charts are convenient and the easiest method of learning how to place your fingers on the fretboard; it is intuitive and below is an explanation of the ukulele chords chart to make it easier to understand.
The ukulele chords chart is designed like a grid and presents four vertical lines that represent the four strings that can be found in the ukulele. The first line of the left side represents the top string on the ukulele, which is the G string; it is followed by the C string and the E string, with the A string being the last on the right side. You can picture this betting if you imagine the fretboard of the ukulele.
The next part of the ukulele is the horizontal lines; these lines signify the frets located on the neck of the ukulele. The first horizontal line is usually thicker than the rest and is marked by a double like; it symbolizes the nut of the ukulele. If the ukulele chords chart presents frets that are higher than the fourth fret, then the first line will not be thick or marked by two lines. The thin horizontal lines signify the frets, with the first line following the thick horizontal line being the first fret and the last line being the fifth fret.
Another item found on the ukulele chords chart is numbers that can be placed on either side of the ukulele chords chart; these numbers represent fret numbers that show when a chord is to be played higher than the fourth fret or not.
There are also black circles on the ukulele chords chart; they could be represented by dotes on the lines, and it usually means that line needs to be fretted or, instead, pressed down using a finger. Some chord charts signify which finger needs to be used for the fretting, and they do this by adding numbers to the black circles. Below is a breakdown of what each finger represents:
- 1 is used to indicate the index finger
- 2 indicates the middle finger
- 3 indicates the ring finger
- 4 indicates the pinky finger
It is rare to see the thumb being used to fret, but some chords chart shows a T within the dot, and this indicates that the thumb needs to be used for fretting. When there is an 'o' or '0' sign on some strings, it indicates that such strings are not to be fretted. There are times when these signs are represented by an 'x'; it also indicates that these strings are not to be played or fretted.
Another term in the ukulele chords chart is the Barre chords; they are chords that are indicated with a solid or curved line that runs from the first note to the last. Barre chords are to be fretted with one finger at the same time. Sometimes, it is indicated with many black dots in one fret with the same finger number. Note that minor chords in a ukulele chords chat are represented with a lowercase m.
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of classicalite.com
