zztush
Well-known member
Thank you very much for the tips and suggestions in previous thread about E chord. Some friends suggested alternative finger positions. Others suggested other tunings or ways of practice. The others suggested to transpose to other keys. Especially transpose key is the easiest way and fastest way to fix this problem for me.
Then I want to think which key is easy to play on our ukulele in terms of our fretboard and tuning. Ukuleles belongs to the group of instruments that can be said to be tuned in 4ths same as guitars. That is to say, with the notes of a linear tuning in 4-step intervals (red lines in the figure below).
View attachment 94228
We have 4 fingers, 4-step intervals is very good, we can play a scale along with holizontal finger
moves without vertical move on the fretboard. We don't need to play 5th fret, because 5th fret is
same as next open string. There is only 3-step interval (green line in the figure above) between
2nd and 3rd strings. Why? Because it gives us no semi tone on the open string.
C, G and F major scales include our G,C,E and A tones (green circles in the figure below). On the contrary D major scale doesn't have C tone. Hence C/Am, F/Dm and G/Em keys take advantage of ukulele's open strings. We can play diatonic chords on these keys easier than any other keys.
View attachment 94229
Let's transpose keys to C/Am, F/Dm and G/Em!
Then I want to think which key is easy to play on our ukulele in terms of our fretboard and tuning. Ukuleles belongs to the group of instruments that can be said to be tuned in 4ths same as guitars. That is to say, with the notes of a linear tuning in 4-step intervals (red lines in the figure below).
View attachment 94228
We have 4 fingers, 4-step intervals is very good, we can play a scale along with holizontal finger
moves without vertical move on the fretboard. We don't need to play 5th fret, because 5th fret is
same as next open string. There is only 3-step interval (green line in the figure above) between
2nd and 3rd strings. Why? Because it gives us no semi tone on the open string.
C, G and F major scales include our G,C,E and A tones (green circles in the figure below). On the contrary D major scale doesn't have C tone. Hence C/Am, F/Dm and G/Em keys take advantage of ukulele's open strings. We can play diatonic chords on these keys easier than any other keys.
View attachment 94229
Let's transpose keys to C/Am, F/Dm and G/Em!