Can we substitute chords from guitar to ukulele?

Rider

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Hi, I am a beginner ukulele player. In fact I have just ordered my first Ukulele and it has not arrived yet...I am reading up up and learning though and have a question...If I have a song like Twinkle Twinkle Little star here with the chords written for guitar...

C F C
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
F C G7 C
How I wonder what you are.
C F C G7
Up above the world so high,
C F C G7
Like a diamond in the sky.
C F C
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
F C G7 C
How I wonder what you are.

Can I just substitute in the correct ukulele finger placement for the C, F, and G7 chords then play it as written? Or what do I need to do to transfer it to a ukulee ? Wanting to know so I can play other songs written for guitar but on my Ukulele.
thanks
 
What comes to chords with same top 4 string frettings in guitar, they often have same chord names to a baritone ukulele with DGBE tuning.
Normal ukulele has gCEA tuning that is a "fourth higher", so depends how you mean't, you may need to transpose.

Use something like https://ukebuddy.com/ukulele-chords that allows to change the tuning to either one as a help, or for to find alternative chord forms to a specific chord.
There is on side of the head the tuning selection.
 
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You aren't substituting anything. A chord is a chord.
 
You aren't substituting anything. A chord is a chord.

THIS^

If it says play a G chord, it does not matter if it is played on guitar, piano, ukulele, medieval lute, cavaquinho, etc, they all finger it differently as per the instrument, but when sounded out, all the notes are of that chord, or are 'enharmonic', regardless of instrument that the chord is played on...

Major, Minor, 7th variants, etc, you just PLAY on whatever instrument the fingerings for the NAME of the chord.

'Music' is portable to any instrument.

How else would an orchestra or an ensemble work? Spell-casting and Rune Magick?

I will crawl back to my cavern now...and work my way back towards the Eye of Sauron...MUAAHHHAAA!
 
No. The fingering for ukulele chords is different to guitar chords. If you know how to play chords on the uke and you see chords listed for guitar, just play them with the fingering that you know for the uke.
 
But then I read stuff like this. It makes me want to tear my hair out. I'm a beginner as well and a lot of songs I look at are using guitar chords. I'm not sure if I should be changing ie a Bm on guitar to an Em on uke.
The more I try and read on music theory this way makes me more confused.

https://takelessons.com/blog/convert-guitar-chords-to-ukulele-chords-z10
http://www.theoreticallycorrect.com/From-guitar-to-ukulele/

Are you a guitar player? Those sites are for guitarists who are trying to make the transition to playing ukulele. Those poor guitarists are transposing because the chord chart they've already memorized in their head is playing the wrong chords. When guitarists pick up a GCEA-tuned uke and play the chord fingering they know as a G-major chord, the uke will sound a D-major chord because the strings are tuned differently.

This only matters if you are taking guitar fingerings and playing them on a uke.

A C chord is a C chord, but the diagram for finger placement on the fretboard will be different on different instruments. Use the diagrams on an ukulele chord chart and you do not need to transpose anything.

Not until you buy a baritone uke ;-)
 
But then I read stuff like this. It makes me want to tear my hair out. I'm a beginner as well and a lot of songs I look at are using guitar chords. I'm not sure if I should be changing ie a Bm on guitar to an Em on uke.
The more I try and read on music theory this way makes me more confused.

https://takelessons.com/blog/convert-guitar-chords-to-ukulele-chords-z10
http://www.theoreticallycorrect.com/From-guitar-to-ukulele/

Those links are done by people who like to write, or perhaps they are preparing themselves for a lecture :)
It would be just easier really to say simplified that normal ukulele is tuned a fourth above guitar top 4 strings and be done with it. No need really to mention re-entrance.

But I can't resist myself of giving a link to the circle of fifths and say that "guitar's best keys come in my opinion an hour later than ukulele ones". Anyone can interpret that saying as they please :p
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths
 
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But then I read stuff like this. It makes me want to tear my hair out. I'm a beginner as well and a lot of songs I look at are using guitar chords. I'm not sure if I should be changing ie a Bm on guitar to an Em on uke.
The more I try and read on music theory this way makes me more confused.

https://takelessons.com/blog/convert-guitar-chords-to-ukulele-chords-z10
http://www.theoreticallycorrect.com/From-guitar-to-ukulele/

You are over-thinking this.

Forget those links for now. They focus on remapping the finger positions and notes and telling you that chord shapes have different names. This will lead you to infinite confusion. Just learn the ukulele chords, and play the chord name (no matter if it is on a fake-book lead sheet, guitar chords, or piano music) and you'll be fine.

Perfect explanations are above.

Don't make it harder than it needs to be.

You can transpose later when you are more comfortable with ukulele.
 
You are over-thinking this.

Forget those links for now. They focus on remapping the finger positions and notes and telling you that chord shapes have different names. This will lead you to infinite confusion. Just learn the ukulele chords, and play the chord name (no matter if it is on a fake-book lead sheet, guitar chords, or piano music) and you'll be fine.

Perfect explanations are above.

Don't make it harder than it needs to be.

You can transpose later when you are more comfortable with ukulele.

Thanks! That makes more sense. I figured I was overthinking. I have a tendency to do that. I tear apart mopeds for fun and instead of just doing mechanical stuff I want to know about all the technical minutiae. I guess it's one of those I'm trying to run before walking things.

OP this wasn't meant to be a hijack. Sorry.
 
Are you a guitar player? Those sites are for guitarists who are trying to make the transition to playing ukulele. Those poor guitarists are transposing because the chord chart they've already memorized in their head is playing the wrong chords. When guitarists pick up a GCEA-tuned uke and play the chord fingering they know as a G-major chord, the uke will sound a D-major chord because the strings are tuned differently.

This only matters if you are taking guitar fingerings and playing them on a uke.

A C chord is a C chord, but the diagram for finger placement on the fretboard will be different on different instruments. Use the diagrams on an ukulele chord chart and you do not need to transpose anything.

Not until you buy a baritone uke ;-)

Not a guitar player. Thanks. I thought it was telling me that you needed to move chords from one to the other when playing the same song on guitar and uke.
 
I’ve been playing ukulele for 10 months. No previous musical experience. I started playing in my church worship band a few months ago. We have a piano, an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, several singers, and me. We play from lead sheets. These have lyrics and guitar chords. Most of the chords are familiar to me. Some I have to look up on chord charts. Some don’t seem to translate to uke chords, or at least I can’t find them??? I can always play the root chord if nothing else and it sounds just fine. I find Chordify.com very helpful. It plays the music while showing the chords. You can set it to show ukulele chords. I have learned a lot and expanded my “chord vocabulary” since joining the band.
 
Rider,

I’m not sure if you are still checking in with this thread, but I’m wondering if you previously played guitar or if you are new to the instrument.

That particular version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” is great for beginning ukulele players...but it would be rough for beginning guitar players. I was reading an article recently where a large number of beginning guitar players quit at the F chord, the first partial barre chord that guitarists tend to learn (and GCEA ukulele players would recognize the shape as B flat). If you can play that version of Twinkle, Twinkle on guitar—the ukulele will be easy to adapt to, even with chord names.

On a very much related note, I find a bigger issue to be the original key of a song when written by a guitarist, and trying to work that into ukulele. Yes—you can play ALL of the major and minor chords, sevenths, and diminished chords on the ukulele. That said, some chords are trickier than others. I personally face “tricky” chords head-on and try to learn them...but there are a number of players who will struggle with chords like E or Ab on the ukulele. Yes, there are answers—but not at the beginning stages of playing, and you can’t always substitute a 7th chord for a major triad.

This is why I suggest starting off in ukulele friendly keys, such as C (which is what your Twinkle, Twinkle is in), G, D, F, and A, and their related minors (Am, Em, Bm, Dm, Fm) depending on the chords that are used. Therefore, if you find a song that you like and it has wicked chords, see if there is an easier key. If you can find the song on ukutabs.com, you can even transpose it on that website and see if things work better.

Yes, eventually you want to be able to use barre chords and moveable chord shapes as mentioned by Ubulele. But if you are just starting out, you want to be successful. I’d also suggest looking at ukeability.org and checking out the play along videos we have been creating...it’s a fun way to get started, and ukeability can help you sort the videos by the chords you can play.
 
I second what has been said much earlier in this thread;
a chord,is a chord. I have played guitar and uke,with
other guitars and/or ukes, and so long as they are playing
the SAME CHORD on their respective instruments, it will
sound okay.
 
Online chord apps and beginner chord charts/dictionaries are sadly limited. It's actually quite simple to derive almost any chord shape you need from the four main movable dominant 7th shapes (corresponding at the nut to G7, C7, E7 and A7—notice a familiar pattern?) just by moving the various chord components up or down in very consistent ways. I haven't had to look up a chord in years, and I play all over the neck and in a number of fleas tunings. It's sad that few beginning and intermediate players are taught how to do this until they've pretty much figured it out themselves.

ubulele, I admire your analytical mind in many ways. I am not sure though if I had been able to construct chords from those. Also as I previously mentioned I want keep my chords as low as possible. I have now progressed to all 12 keys in my sequence practices of I iim(7) iiim III(7) IV V(7) vim chords. So now I know all major and minor chords and their 7ths, of course also then their movable ones :)

The ukebuddy site I have often given a link is one of the good ones. It does not give my fave for major 7th from F form that omits the 5th, F# is then 3421, but recognizes it with the chord namer. I have not got used to the 3424 from your E7 shape, that I assume you maybe fret with a barre even if only one string to fret. But that C# is already too high for me, at the moment.

The only chords I need to look up are some fancier ones in ukebuddy. I could maybe construct them by myself too knowing the theory, but easier just to look up.

Worse basic chord then for me is Cm, with root so high and with your non uke traditional linear tuning, you manage much better with your barre chord. It just is what it is and in general I'm more towards what choirguy told above. In general though I appreciate the re-entrant tuning so much. What comes to strumming.

I'm almost 60 year old and while not any real problems with my fingers yet, I do get some fatigue and sore finger pain sometimes after my 12 key practise or even with songs in not so favorable keys. Your linear tuning might be also needing more those voicings that you need for your movable chord playing. For me it is just the fun of strumming and getting that rhythm. I'm certainly not as advanced as you :)
 
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You speak from what you don't know and haven't tried; I speak from what I do know and have done. Who better knows the advantages? You're welcome to your own impressions and self-imposed limitations—not my problem. I've wasted too much of my time trying to help and reason with people like you.

I think your problem is not understanding that people are different? You think that your method is the right one and want to impose it on others. And when obviously and most likely in real life you will find out that your method is not the one that works for others or that they even appreciate even it, you get sad?

It would be better for you to accept the differences and remember also the aloha spirit. See I at least tried somewhat to understand how your mind works.
 
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