Ukulele
Four nylon strings tuned G C E A, a body you can hold in one arm and chords that need one or two fingers: the ukulele is one of the quickest instruments to start songs on. This course covers its history and parts, tuning, the first chords, strumming patterns, changing chords in songs, and more chords and keys. Every unit has a ukulele neck you can press and strum, and most units also play chord progressions on it or add a tap-along rhythm test.
About this course
Four nylon strings tuned G C E A, a body you can hold in one arm, and chords that need one or two fingers: the ukulele is one of the quickest instruments to start songs on. The course begins with its history and parts, when Madeiran immigrants arrived on the Ravenscrag and Nunes, Espírito Santo and Dias were later credited as the first makers. Every unit has a ukulele neck you can press and strum.
The six units are the ukulele's history and parts, tuning, the first chords, strumming patterns, changing chords in songs, and more chords and keys. Without a tuner you can tune the ukulele to itself once one string is right: press the E string at the 5th fret to get A4 and match it to the open A. The first chords are written as fret numbers on strings G C E A, C = 0003, Am = 2000, F = 2010 and G = 0232. Every strum pattern is a rhythm made of eighth notes, and in the island strum the strokes start at 1, 2, 2 &, 3 &, 4 and 4 &. A tap-along rhythm test checks your timing.
Changing chords is taught with anchor fingers, fingers that stay in place from one shape to the next. Am to F keeps the middle finger on the 2nd fret of the G string and just adds the index finger. Aloha ʻOe is the best-known song of Liliʻuokalani, later the last queen of Hawaiʻi; her manuscript says she composed it at Maunawili in 1878, and it was published in 1884. In the last unit, in C the I, IV and V chords are C, F and G, in G they are G, C and D, and moving a song to another key is called transposing.
Before you start
Counting numbers and the spaces between them helps with the strumming patterns later in the course. The opening units explain the instrument and G C E A tuning before chord changes appear. Each unit includes a playable ukulele neck, where you can press frets and hear a strum.
When you finish
You can name the open strings G C E A, explain why the G sounds higher than its neighbour, and read the fingerings for C, Am, F and G. You can keep a down and up strumming motion, change from Am to F while holding a shared finger, and see how a movable shape produces B♭.
- 1The ukulele: history and partsIn late August 1879 the ship Ravenscrag reached Honolulu from Madeira; among its passengers were the cabinet makers now credited with building the first ukuleles.
- 2Tuning: G C E AThe G string is tuned higher than the C next to it, so the four open strings sound G4 C4 E4 A4: 392, 262, 330 and 440 hertz.
- 3First chords: C, Am, F and GC needs one finger, on the 3rd fret of the A string; with C, Am, F and G you can already play hundreds of songs.
- 4Strumming patternsDown on the numbers, up on the "and"s: the hand swings eight times a bar in 4/4 even when it only touches the strings on some of them.
- 5Changing chords in songsGoing from Am to F you lift nothing: the middle finger stays on the G string and one more finger joins it.
- 6More chords and keysSlide the A shape (2100) up one fret and barre the first fret and you have B♭ (3211): many ukulele shapes move.
Sources for this course (15)
- Wikipedia "Ukulele" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukulele): Portuguese machete, cavaquinho and rajão brought by immigrants from Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde
- Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo and Augusto Dias credited as the first makers
- SS Ravenscrag, late August 1879, Hawaiian Gazette report two weeks later
- King Kalākaua’s support
- "jumping flea" and the Edward William Purvis legend
- 1907 Metropolitan Museum catalogue
- Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915
- Jazz Age popularity and uke chord tablature in 1920s sheet music
- four common sizes with total length, scale length and tuning table (soprano 21 in / 53 cm and 13 in / 33 cm, concert 23 / 58 and 15 / 38, tenor 26 / 66 and 17 / 43, baritone 29 / 74 and 19 / 48)
- concert size developed in the 1920s, baritone in the 1940s
- standard re-entrant G4 C4 E4 A4, "My dog has fleas", low G G3, D tuning A4 D4 F#4 B4 common in the early 20th century, baritone D3 G3 B3 E4. Hawaiʻi State Archives, "Music from Queen Liliʻuokalani Manuscript Collections" (ags.hawaii.gov/archives/online-exhibitions/music-from-the-queens-collection): Aloha ʻOe composed 1878
- Wikipedia "Aloha ʻOe" (manuscript note "Composed at Maunawili 1878. Played by the Royal Hawaiian Band in San Francisco August 1883")
- Smithsonian Magazine 2019, "How the Music of Hawaiʻi’s Last Ruler Guided the Island’s People Through Crisis" (published 1884, more than 200 works)
- Houghton Library blog 2016 (San Francisco editions as early as 1884)
- Open Music Theory (viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory) for meter and chord vocabulary, ideas only.
Checked: 2026-10-18