Song Help Request Confused by chords described like this: F/A D/F#

I've been looking at some guitar chord sites when I can't find a song I'm looking for on an ukulele chord site.

I noticed this line on the one I'm working on now:

F/A A G D/F# Em D A/C# G/B

So the question is related to the chords are not described the way I am used to, but the ones that have a " / " between two chords.

What does that mean? I looked at the tabs for guitar on the site that I found this, and the F/A tab does not look like the tab for F or A on their own.

Thanks for any help,

Lincoln

Notation like this is used to demonstrate which bass note in the chord-shape is to be emphasised.

F/A, for example, effectively can mean don't play the 6th string in the F chord, which would normally be a bass F in a full 6-string chord shape, but limit your picking/strumming to the other strings, with an open 5th (A) string.

D/F# emphasises the need to fret the 6th (bass) string at the 2nd fret in the D chord ... a lot of players wrap their thumb around for this ... else limit your playing to the top four strings with all four strings fretted

etc. etc. ... things can change a bit when you move away from the first position and wander up the neck, it's all down to context !

Obviously most of this is purely hypothetical on a re-entrant 4-string ukulele but might be emulated to a degree on a "low-G" instrument or one tuned in 5ths (GDAE)

Hope this helps

Those are called slashed chords. I just play the first one listed.

My understanding is not about emphasis, but rather bass or lowest note in the chord. In your F/A chord the lowest note should be an A. This would be a first inversion (the third in the bass).
With only four strings, we must ignore these inversion (almost always). It's nearly impossible to fit them in.
Here's a previous thread which includes discussion of inversions.
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...ons-Shapes-and-Positions&highlight=inversions

Oh, ok. Thanks for the info.
Enough of that made sense for me to move forward. I'm fairly new to ukulele, and never played the guitar.

Seems like you all agree that at least on a standard high G ukulele I can just pay the first chord listed and it should be ok. Right?

UkuLincoln said:

Oh, ok. Thanks for the info.
Enough of that made sense for me to move forward. I'm fairly new to ukulele, and never played the guitar.

Seems like you all agree that at least on a standard high G ukulele I can just pay the first chord listed and it should be ok. Right?

Click to expand...

Yes. Have fun!

Some slash chords tell you what VOICING you're supposed to play.

So, if it says C/E, you just play a C chord (consisting of C, E, G), with an E in the bass.

However, on a ukulele, you usually don't have the luxury of choosing a certain voicing. That's because you usually need every string, and there aren't that many frets. A guitar is a whole different story. So just play a C, however you play it usually.

But there are also slash chords that add a note that's OUTSIDE the chord. For instance, if it said C/D... then you'd play a C chord with a low D added. (These chords might also have other names, but that's beside the point.)