When you go to learn how to play the ukulele all you want to do is strum out your first song. While you really can play your first simple song in your first session and learn to really play this great instrument faster than most others, it is important to take the time to learn how to do things correctly now so you don’t start things off with bad habits for later down the road. That first song that you can figure out how to play on your first day is certainly going to sound a lot prettier a few days, a week, or a month from now when you’ve been making some progress playing the chords correctly. To this end it’s good to take your time to get to know this great instrument.

To get yourself started, you can start working on playing your three basic chords: C, F, and G7. There are a lot of songs out there that you’ll be able to play just using these three chords (like the Happy Birthday song, for instance) and you’ll be hard pressed to find songs where you won’t be using any of these chords in the future. Learning how to play the ukulele is all about getting your fingers used to playing the strings, getting your chords down, strumming, and getting a good sound. These three chords are a great place to start getting used to strumming, get your fingers used to holding down the strings and switching between chords, and get a good sound going.

How long this will take you really depends on how long you spend practicing, how often you do it, and how your fingers adjust to playing. Expect that if you haven’t played a string instrument before your fingers will be sore and take a while to get used to playing. If you practice for a twenty to thirty minutes a day, you should have these three chords down, and your fingers adjusting, within a week. That may sound like a long time, but is really pretty fast compared to most instruments, and once these chords sound good coming out, you can start working on putting them together to play some songs, and work on learning how to play other ukulele chords.

One of the first things you will want to consider when you buy a ukulele is price versus quality. Prices vary wildly. You can find really cheap ukuleles for around twenty dollars, but if you plan on making any real music with it you’ll be sorely disappointed. Quality handmade instruments and cost over a thousand dollars. When looking to purchase your first uke you should be willing to spend fifty to one hundred dollars to be sure you are getting decent materials. If you want something to learn on and play for your family a good starter instrument is the Lanakai LU-21.

I briefly mentioned materials earlier and they are a major factor in the price when you buy a ukulele. A big part of the price is the type of wood that is used to build the body of the instrument. Koa is a Hawaiian wood that is the traditional type that was used for the very first ukes. Koa produces a very bright sound and has a beautiful grain pattern. If you are considering a more middle of the range instrument you may want to consider the striking Koa made Oscar Schmidt OU5 Concert Uke.

Either of the two instruments above would be a good investment when you buy a ukulele for the first time. They both come from respected instrument manufacturers with proven track records for building quality ukes. However, if you will be around other uke players and want something that will stand out in the crowd a bit more without breaking the bank you may want to consider the Luna Tattoo Concert Uke. It’s still a quality instrument, but it has a little more flair.

So, now that you understand that the uke is more than a silly toy and that with a fairly small investment you can get and instrument you can be proud of aren’t you excited to buy a ukulele?

Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam isn’t well known for it, but he is a great player! A lot of his solo work uses this instrument and the song “Can’t Keep” is a great example of what he can do. It still has his distinctive voice and sound that you hear in Pearl Jam, but definitely different than what you’re used to hearing from him if you haven’t heard this before.

Amanda Palmer doesn’t always play the ukulele, but she has certainly done a lot with it! She has done a number of songs with it on her normal albums, she does last minute free shows when she’s touring (which she calls ninja gigs) where she plays her songs on the uke in parks and coffee shops, and she did a full album called “Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on Her Magical Ukulele”. Check out her cover of “Creep” in this video.

It seems like every song that Jack Johnson does on guitar gets covered on the uke, but a great song that really does use this instrument is “Breakdown”. Don’t believe me? I found a video of him playing it live so you can see. Not to say that all his songs don’t sound great covered on this instrument, because they do!

Sara Bareilles recently became famous for the song “Love Song”. She usually plays the piano. At her live shows, however, she is well known for pulling out her uke and playing lots of great music, including things she hasn’t yet released. This song “Free Ride” sounds great!

Ingrid Michaelson is another great musician who is well known for her songs that usually star the piano. She does however have a number of ukulele songs, and her album “Be Ok” is mostly full of songs featuring this great instrument! The song “Be Ok” has it, but to give another example, check out “You and I”, a great song done only with the uke.

Other popular musicians who play the ukulele include The Beatles, Jimmy Buffett, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Zooey Deschanel, Noah and the Whale, and Elvis Presley.

If you’re not used to playing a stringed instruments the complex ways you have to bend your fingers to press on the strings can be quite difficult to master. The uke only having four strings makes in simpler, but still moderately difficult. Most people have heard that there are three chords that will allow you to play hundreds of songs on the guitar. The same is true with the uke. If you learn how to form the G7, C, and F chords you can learn how to play the ukulele in no time.

If you learn those three chords you can play one of the funnest songs in rock history. You can play Twist and Shout by The Beatles. Don’t be discouraged if it takes you a while to be able to bend your fingers in the right way to hit the chords. Keep at it and practice going from each one to the other as you will need to do them in different orders to play different songs.

Once you have your three chords mastered it’s time to move on to the second most important part to learn how to play the ukulele; strumming. Strumming is the way that you strike the strings. It’s what gives the song rhythm. Many songs have unique strumming patterns, but before you try to learn them it’s necessary to learn how to keep steady time. Practice strumming the strings up and down over and over again at the same speed. A simple down, up, down, up strum pattern will work for a lot of easy songs, so keep at it and use a metronome if you need to. Once you have those three simple chords and can keep a steady beat with your strumming you are well on the path to learn how to play the ukulele.

Just Dance Lady Gaga Ukulele Cover
Let’s start with this cover of “Just Dance” because it’s one of the most fun. The singer covered it on Halloween, hence the sailor moon costume.

Poker Face Lady Gaga Ukulele Cover
Where would a Gaga post be without Poker Face, of course. The girl doing this cover is a bit more timid than the one above, but still really fun and I’m in love with her big glasses and sweet voice. With this one I’d like to add that on this video here it’ll run you through how to play the ukulele cover of Poker Face.

Bad Romance Lady Gaga Ukulele Cover
This girl singing Bad Romance has the perfect voice for this song. Also, notice the amusing little “something in french” thrown in, haha.

This post is going to cover those three types of videos for you, with a Beatles theme.

We’ll start off with one of my fun favorites, this is a cover of “When I’m 64” by the Beatles, covered by a woman and her grandmother. The woman has a strong fun voice, the ukulele is loud and clear, and grandma is totally adorable. This is a great example of the fun you can have playing the uke!

Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da is one of my favorite Beatles songs, and this child rocks it. He plays the uke with confidence and he isn’t looking at his fingers the whole time, so you can tell he really knows what he’s doing and plays often. Playing often, and having a lot of fun, is the only way to really get confident enough to play with ease, as this child demonstrates.

Last we have this helpful video that teaches you how to play Yesterday by the Beatles. The video is nine minutes long and starts off with him playing the song for you, and then running you through a tutorial on how to play it yourself.

You can find videos just like these for pretty much any song you want to see played on the ukulele. Learning how to play songs you love, like those from the Beatles, is a great way to get yourself excited about playing and motivated to really learn how to do it well, and online videos are a great way to inspire yourself to keep going.

For another great Beatles Ukulele cover, from one of the great, check out the Learn How to Play the Ukulele post with Jake Shimabukuro playing a cover of The Beatles song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.

Though the internet is a great resource for learning many things it can be daunting to try to find what you need. That’s what this article is for. There is only so much you can learn from text and drawings, so here I’ve gathered a few videos to help you learn to play the ukulele like Jake Shimabukuro. (If you don’t know who he is, you’ll find one of his videos at the end to give you a bit of inspiration.)

Here is a quick video that teaches you one of the basic strumming rhythms that is used when playing the ukulele. This is one of the very first steps to learning to play.

While the above video focuses on teaching you to strum the ukulele, there is also a second way to play; picking. In the video below, Bruce Shimabukuro (Jake’s brother) teaches you the difference and how they work together.

Strumming is the easiest way to learn to play basic songs on the ukulele and here is the proof. This video is a very quick lesson in how to play the ukulele with just a few simple chords. While his singing may not be the best, he does a great job at instructing.

Now that you have a good foundation in the basics, here is a quick peek at what you could be capable of with lots and lots of practice. Here is Jake Shimabukuro playing a cover of The Beatles song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.