Up The Fretboard!

Down Up Dick

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How many of you concert and tenor Ukers actually play "up the fretboard"? Stringbean (famous banjo player) said that the first five frets was "where the money was".

I must admit that I seldom go above the ninth fret. For one thing, I don't like the sound of the plinky high notes. And my fingers don't fit the high frets well either. I suppose a soprano would be good enough for me if it was bigger and a little mellower.

When I began ukin', I worked on chords up the fretboard, but I wandered from that study into other things. I can't even imagine why someone would have a cutout to play the frets on the Uke top.

Well, different strokes for different folks I guess. I was just wondering what others were doin'. :eek:ld:
 
I actually head up the fretboard far more than I originally expected to. I've been learning some classical pieces and some more complex guitar stuff on my uke over the last 6 months and I'm regularly up around frets 7 and 8 - it was why I ended up getting a tenor. One of my favourite songs to play at the moment (Blackbird by the Beatles) takes me up to the 14th fret a few times!

The reason I never expected to do this was because as I guitar player I generally stayed below fret 5 - I guess now I have 2 fewer strings I need to head up there for the range.

I fully agree that you get the best sound towards the nut, though - on such a short scale you need all the help you can get with resonance.
 
Almost everything I play gets me beyond the 5th fret and there are enough instrumentals that get me to the 12th and beyond.

If you are playing a melody with re-entrant tuning you really only have 3 strings of range, a little more than an octave between the 3rd string open C and the 5th fret on the A.

John
 
When I'm playing Ukester Brown style I can play the movable chords up to "bar on 5th" pretty well but above that it sounds horrible. On melody I frequently get up to the 10th fret on the A string. On the C string the tone quality (on my soprano) drops off pretty quickly above the 7th fret but there isn't much need to play melody there anyway.
 
When playing with my Saturday Uke group I tend to go up the fretboard to add a little variation at certain parts in certain songs (e.g. Lola, the Kinks, some of the Beatles songs, etc).
 
I play above the fifth fret all of the time - but then I'm not a chord strummer, I'm a fingerstyle player. Maybe I'm making assumptions, but to me, the quote from the banjo guy seems like it could be really specific to a certain style of music - but even then that seems so limiting. I mean - you've got all those notes, might as well use them! :)

I do agree though with your assessment of the notes higher up as "plinky" - at least on a soprano, which is why I switched to concert scale some time back. If my hands were larger, I'd play tenor, because I think that sounds best of all when played in the higher frets.

As for cutaways - I don't care for the look so I've never bought a uke with one. Even though my hands are small enough to be able to comfortably fret a soprano high up, I do find a 14-fret join instead of the standard 12th-fret join is useful.
 
I play above the 5th fret all the time, and I am mostly a strummer. with a low G tenor, the closed chords sound much better as that open G can be boomy. the band I play with does a lot of blues with E7, A7, B7 so I start at the 4th fret . E7=4447, A7=6754,B7=8976. similar thing in A with A7=6754, D7=5655,E7. I hope I haven't reversed the numbers, I forget which way they go.
 
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Let me break the pattern here and say that I NEVER move past the 5th fret. I didn't even know there was anything there until you just mentioned it.
 
I prefer fingerstyle playing when I'm on my own and go up the fretboard for that constantly. In a group I like to change up the sound of the common chords so I also regularly go up the fretboard with moveable chord shapes. It is fun to use the whole fretboard in this way and makes me feel I have a more intimate relationship with my uke because of it.
 
I go all over the fretboard. It was scary at first. But it got better. In fact, it's kinda fun. (But I also fingerpick.)
 
I usually do not get beyond barring the seventh, unless I'm just really dinking around. Which I guess means that I get a note beyond that. The reason I say that is that there are several songs that I play that have a twelve bars blues progression, and I can slide those up and down the neck, and I have fun doing it, either strumming or picking. Above that, I have a hard time getting a clean chord, especially if I'm picking. I keep just playing around up there though, because I know that sooner or later I'll get it.
 
I have re written tabs, but still need the 12 frets on the 'A' string for some of my tunes.

(I'm thinking that I may use low 'G' so that I can 'gain' another 5 fret positions, & not have to use those upper weak sounding notes.)
 
I have re written tabs, but still need the 12 frets on the 'A' string for some of my tunes.

(I'm thinking that I may use low 'G' so that I can 'gain' another 5 fret positions, & not have to use those upper weak sounding notes.)

I agree. I really think all who fingerpick a lot should at least try low G for the reason you mentioned. I have low 4th strings on the instruments that I fingerpick, but, of course, I prefer low tones anyway.
:eek:ld:
 
Somebody else had a Uke like that, but that's all I know about it.

How about a tenor Uke with just one string? It would be easy to play if you could fret up and down the fret board very fast. You could slice cheese with it too.

It seems that our boredom with uking knows no bounds. Let's all go buy a new Uke and some strings to try. :eek:ld:
 
I bought my tenor specifically because I wanted to play a re-entrant tuning up beyond the 5th fret without being too cramped ... and that's exactly what happens, from Aaron Keim's clawhammer arrangements to Jamie Holding's lute transcriptions, with a few jazz/blues chord progressions thrown in for good measure :)
 
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