How long did it take you

newtou

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I know everyone is different but how long did it take you to feel comfortable with your ukulele as far as transitioning chords and strumming?
 
I know everyone is different but how long did it take you to feel comfortable with your ukulele as far as transitioning chords and strumming?

I started in December 2015, & I'm still not good at this strum & sing thing - but that's mainly because I prefer to pick melody lines. ;)

I can swap between the easy chords reasonably well - & I did take about a year out, whilst I was learning to play my chromatic harmonicas.

I would estimate that if you practice for half an hour a day, you'll have the easy ones nailed within a couple of months.
 
I'm sure everyone will give the generic answer of "Practice, practice, practice" and that's definitely the best suggestion. I liked Uncle Rod's Bootcamp download/booklet when I was starting out. I'd say 3-6 months if you're practicing regularly.
I'll say though that playing and singing at the same time is even more confusing!
 
http://ukulelebootcamp.weebly.com/uploads/2/2/4/8/22489722/ukulele_boot_camp_2013.pdf

If you haven't seen this.

Start playing these sheets and you will learn chord progressions as a bonus without thought. When I first started playing getting thru the first line was tough then after a few days I moved onto the second line. When I got stuck I would identify which chords I was having an issue with and concentrate on switching to that chord only for five or ten minutes.

Pick a song and play in and play it and play it till you make it your own and can play it asleep. At least that was my plan thats been working for me.
 
I agree with Igor--3-6 months to really feel comfortable with enough chords to play a good number of interesting tunes. Less time probably for songs that have very basic three or four chord progression. Even then, a few weeks of practice at a particular tune might be necessary to cement a solid performance.

Learning new and more complicated chord shapes eventually becomes easier once you have developed some flexibility and dexterity in your fingers. If you are a beginner, you will be much more adept at learning new chords in year two than you were in year one.

Playing music well is a challenging endeavor, but the journey is both arduous and fun, and the rewards are fruitful for the rest of your life. Keep at it. You won't regret it.
 
Yeah, 3-6 months sounds realistic. Obviously there will be a lot of room for improvement after that, but that is about how long it takes to get comfortable with basic chord transitioning.
 
I practice about half an hour a day and it took me about 4 months to be able to strum and sing my first song.
My buddy practices 2-3 hours a day and he is infinity better than I am even though he only started 6 weeks before me.
 
The ukulele is the first musical instrument I’ve played, other than drums many years ago in high school. I’ve been playing about 9 months now. I play at least 30 minutes a day. I don’t really follow any structured practice routine. The first 3 months I played I just learned stuff from YouTube. Then I found a regular group to play with at a monthly jam. I also started going to a weekly workshop with a small group of people and a good teacher. Finding these groups to play with and learn from has helped me a lot.
 
Another variable to this question is one's intention/goal. It takes three to six seconds to learn to strum the C6 chord. A raw beginner could learn the three shapes needed for any pop song in a day. Beyond that, it all depends on how expansive your goals are. For example, after a year's intermittent practice I can fumble along in any key. I can duplicate some jazz guitar on the ukulele as long as the youtube musician says what he is doing (i.e., I can't watch a guitarist's fingers and know what he's doing, but if he calls out go to Ebmaj7, I can do that). So, in general, I agree that in half a year, a strummer should be well along the path.
 
I know everyone is different but how long did it take you to feel comfortable with your ukulele as far as transitioning chords and strumming?

Under an hour.

But I'd been learning guitar for a year at that point, and recognised that the chord shapes were the same, so I picked basic uke chords up very quickly.
 
Another variable to this question is one's intention/goal. It takes three to six seconds to learn to strum the C6 chord. A raw beginner could learn the three shapes needed for any pop song in a day. Beyond that, it all depends on how expansive your goals are. For example, after a year's intermittent practice I can fumble along in any key. I can duplicate some jazz guitar on the ukulele as long as the youtube musician says what he is doing (i.e., I can't watch a guitarist's fingers and know what he's doing, but if he calls out go to Ebmaj7, I can do that). So, in general, I agree that in half a year, a strummer should be well along the path.
I agree, it really depends on where a person thinks that they have to be to start. When someone picks up a ukulele for the first time and asks me to teach them something, I show them a C and a G7 and then teach them There Ain't No Bugs On Me. It is a fun song. It is easy to play and easy to sing. I've yet to run across anyone who couldn't just pick it up pretty quickly and sing it while they play along. Ten minutes most of the time. So many people say that they just can't learn to sing and strum at the same time, but I find out most of the time they are trying to sing and strum some crazy hard song to sing and strum. I mean, if Hotel California or House of Gold is where you start, it is going to take a long time to get there, Ain't No Bugs On Me, not very long at all.
 
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I started Ukulele playing in last August, so I have now studied ukulele about 6 months. I had guitar background.
Now finally I start feel comfortable. Yesterday I added Bmajor/G#minor to my sequence practice keys. So I now can play quite easy all basic chords in keys of 4 flats to 5 sharps. Meaning also to able to make changes fast enough, in normal tempos.

What I mean with basic chords? I give them as example in C/Am: C, Dm, Dm7, Em, E, E7, F, G, G7, Am. There are still chords outside major, minor and their dominant 7th chords that I need from time to time to look in the chord sites, depending of the key played in. Like sus, 6ths , major sevenths, diminished/augmented fifths, 9ths etc. But basic chords I have now covered. Also in those other 2 keys that I still lack the sequence practice knowledge from the total of 12.

To be a good strummer with ukulele one needs to be able to play the lowest available notes in every chord, to keep them nut close and to avoid some immediate from maybe guitar knowledge got barre/movable chords higher up the neck, if possible, in my opinion. To keep the chords at the same approximate level and the sound that way balanced. It takes a lots of chords to learn even with only those above mentioned basic chords.

I am not the most technically capable person, so besides knowledge I have needed also to learn physically to play the needed changes and that is still a work in progress. But I feel quite comfortable now. I seldom touch my guitar because my uke chord knowledge is now better. I guess that has been one aim with my uke practice that I needed to reach.
 
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I know everyone is different but how long did it take you to feel comfortable with your ukulele as far as transitioning chords and strumming?

For me it wasn't until I recorded myself and critically listened to all my mistakes and problems, that I started down that road. Didn't realize how bad my playing was until I recorded and listened.
 
I think that it is all pretty much subjective. When I first started learning going from C to F seemed like a big challenge. But after practice I now do that with ease. However, as we learn there seems to be several chords that are a challenge. Mine right now is B minor either transitioning in or out from that one.

For me, the fun of this instrument is hitting the occasional speed bump but then later realizing that it wasn't that big of a deal.
 
Ahoy

learning to read sheet music
bit of picking simple tunes
nine chords, few different strums

20 min to an hour practice every day
ten months

mind still not good enough
to be heard in public

am enjoying myself

yours truly
mac
 
I was lucky, strumming and singing just seemed to fall into place.

To learn C, F, G7 a one hour beginners workshop.

To add a few more chords so I could play in more keys than just C and to make clean chord transitions 3-6 months definitely seems about right. To play a couple of bar chords - 5 years. Mainly because the songs I sing and the chords needed for them did not need me to play bar chords so I didn't really put any effort into them for about 4 of those years. I'm still not proficient at bar chords but am getting better.

To be really good - the rest of my life. There's always something new to learn. I learnt to play recorder when I was 11 and played it on and off for a few years then picked it up again when my children were at primary school. I've now been playing recorder regularly for over 30 years and there is still plenty to learn. I've been playing ukulele for about 7 years so I've a long way to go.

In the end it's the pleasure that making music gives me that matters. I love doing it so I'm always trying to improve.
 
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