Since I was not sure if this belongs here or in the "UkeTalk" forum, I will put it here and let the moderators move it if inappropriate here.
The contents of this post may be new to some, familiar to many, depending on how long you have been playing the ukulele. I hope nobody takes exception to this post - it is NOT meant to talk down to or otherwise attack anybody. My intent is only to provide some useful information for those who might want to make use of it.
I used a technique to learn the notes on the guitar fretboard that worked very well and was painless. I have done the same thing on the ukulele and it has worked equally well and is even more painless becasue there are fewer strings. Note that in both cases, the notes repeat themselves starting at the 12th fret.
Every day, pick one note at random on the fretboard. Jut look away and plop a finger somewhere on the fretboard. Figure out that note and then find it on every string, starting with the first occurrence (the lowest fret or open string) and find that note on each successive string, until you have reached the highest occurrence of that note on the first string, and then retrace your steps, ending back at the starting note position on the fourth string.
It is easy to figure out that initial randomly picked note. The open strings (doesn't matter if your ukulele is high G or low G, since they are both G) are (fourth to first string) g C E A. These same notes occur at the 12th fret an octave higher (so you really only need to deal with open string to 11th fret). In between are the 12 chromatic notes. This means that the note you randomly picked occurs only once within the open string and the eleventh fret.
At first, you will have to "count up" to the note positions, but that will become easier and eventually be automatic.
Pick ONE note each day unless you wish to do more. That is all it takes. Over a period of a couple of weeks, the whole process will become quick and then automatic. You don't need a book or course, just a few minutes a day.
When you know the notes on the fretboard and how to "spell" your chords, you no longer need a chord book and the entire fretboard is open to you to strum any chord voiced any way you want and you can now put chord tones under any melody note, making chord melody a relatively easy skill to learn.
Just a few more (hopefully) quick ideas to help:
Along any string on the ukulele, the notes occur in half steps, forming the chromatic scale:
As an example, the G (fourth) string:
G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G
Every string contains these same notes in the same order. The only thing that changes is which note you start the sequence on:
The C string goes from C to C:
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
The E string goes from E to E:
E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E
The A string goes from A to A:
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A
There are two names for each of the notes notated with the '#' (sharp). Going UP to the next note, you sharp (#) the note. Going down from the higher note, you flat (b) the note. There is a term for two names for the same note: enharmonic tones.
So G# is also Ab, A# is also Bb, C# is also Db, F# is also Gb.
Note that there is a half step between B and C, and between E and F (no # or b between these two pairs of notes), and a whole step between each of the other notes. A "half step" along a string is from one fret to the next. A "whole step" along a string is one fret and skip a fret (a distance of two frets). The half step is the smallest distance between two notes in Western music.
So you could write the chromatic scale for the G string as:
G G#/Ab A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G
Apply these to the other strings as listed above.
I hope that this is helpful. For those who are "theory heads", yes - I glossed over a few points, but for the purpose of the exercise described, this is all that is needed. I see no point in confusing things any further than they probably are.
If interested, I can post a similar overview of scales, chord spelling, and then how to determine what chords go with a given key (the harmonized scale). Beyond that, there is a set of 5 chord positions that, when linked together across the fretboard to play the same chord (much like the CAGED system on the guitar), giving you an immediate and complete map of the fretboard for any chord or scale. As I mentioned, if there is interest in these, I can follow up to this post with three or four more providing this information. That pretty much covers any theory as it practically applies to the ukulele fretboard that most of us need to know to play popular music on the ukulele for either strumming or chord melody/fingerstyle.
Edit: The rest of music theory (the area known of diatonic theory) builds very simply and logically on what is provided here. The major scale uses a "template" of intervals (distances between notes) to extract seven tones from the chromatic scale. Since there are 12 notes in the chromatic scale, there are 12 major scales. There are "templates" for each chord that are used to extract three or more notes from the major scale to build the chords. The chords for a given key are built on the major scale by stacking thirds. That is pretty much it. If there is interest, subsequent posts can cover this information easily enough.
Tony
The contents of this post may be new to some, familiar to many, depending on how long you have been playing the ukulele. I hope nobody takes exception to this post - it is NOT meant to talk down to or otherwise attack anybody. My intent is only to provide some useful information for those who might want to make use of it.
I used a technique to learn the notes on the guitar fretboard that worked very well and was painless. I have done the same thing on the ukulele and it has worked equally well and is even more painless becasue there are fewer strings. Note that in both cases, the notes repeat themselves starting at the 12th fret.
Every day, pick one note at random on the fretboard. Jut look away and plop a finger somewhere on the fretboard. Figure out that note and then find it on every string, starting with the first occurrence (the lowest fret or open string) and find that note on each successive string, until you have reached the highest occurrence of that note on the first string, and then retrace your steps, ending back at the starting note position on the fourth string.
It is easy to figure out that initial randomly picked note. The open strings (doesn't matter if your ukulele is high G or low G, since they are both G) are (fourth to first string) g C E A. These same notes occur at the 12th fret an octave higher (so you really only need to deal with open string to 11th fret). In between are the 12 chromatic notes. This means that the note you randomly picked occurs only once within the open string and the eleventh fret.
At first, you will have to "count up" to the note positions, but that will become easier and eventually be automatic.
Pick ONE note each day unless you wish to do more. That is all it takes. Over a period of a couple of weeks, the whole process will become quick and then automatic. You don't need a book or course, just a few minutes a day.
When you know the notes on the fretboard and how to "spell" your chords, you no longer need a chord book and the entire fretboard is open to you to strum any chord voiced any way you want and you can now put chord tones under any melody note, making chord melody a relatively easy skill to learn.
Just a few more (hopefully) quick ideas to help:
Along any string on the ukulele, the notes occur in half steps, forming the chromatic scale:
As an example, the G (fourth) string:
G G# A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G
Every string contains these same notes in the same order. The only thing that changes is which note you start the sequence on:
The C string goes from C to C:
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
The E string goes from E to E:
E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# E
The A string goes from A to A:
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A
There are two names for each of the notes notated with the '#' (sharp). Going UP to the next note, you sharp (#) the note. Going down from the higher note, you flat (b) the note. There is a term for two names for the same note: enharmonic tones.
So G# is also Ab, A# is also Bb, C# is also Db, F# is also Gb.
Note that there is a half step between B and C, and between E and F (no # or b between these two pairs of notes), and a whole step between each of the other notes. A "half step" along a string is from one fret to the next. A "whole step" along a string is one fret and skip a fret (a distance of two frets). The half step is the smallest distance between two notes in Western music.
So you could write the chromatic scale for the G string as:
G G#/Ab A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G
Apply these to the other strings as listed above.
I hope that this is helpful. For those who are "theory heads", yes - I glossed over a few points, but for the purpose of the exercise described, this is all that is needed. I see no point in confusing things any further than they probably are.
If interested, I can post a similar overview of scales, chord spelling, and then how to determine what chords go with a given key (the harmonized scale). Beyond that, there is a set of 5 chord positions that, when linked together across the fretboard to play the same chord (much like the CAGED system on the guitar), giving you an immediate and complete map of the fretboard for any chord or scale. As I mentioned, if there is interest in these, I can follow up to this post with three or four more providing this information. That pretty much covers any theory as it practically applies to the ukulele fretboard that most of us need to know to play popular music on the ukulele for either strumming or chord melody/fingerstyle.
Edit: The rest of music theory (the area known of diatonic theory) builds very simply and logically on what is provided here. The major scale uses a "template" of intervals (distances between notes) to extract seven tones from the chromatic scale. Since there are 12 notes in the chromatic scale, there are 12 major scales. There are "templates" for each chord that are used to extract three or more notes from the major scale to build the chords. The chords for a given key are built on the major scale by stacking thirds. That is pretty much it. If there is interest, subsequent posts can cover this information easily enough.
Tony
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