DIY making Ukulele Boot Camp suitable for D and G tuning

Sorry, not sure if this thread goes here or under 'Shameless', Moderators, please help

The purpose of this thread is to help those of you who would like to make use of the Practice Sheets in the Ukulele Boot Camp materials (see link in signature below)... and are playing ukes tuned in D or G.

G Tuning - mostly Baritones (DGBE)
D Tuning - (ADF#B)

the Practice Sheets were created for the keys of C, F, G, A, and D, for ukes in C Tuning (GCEA).

to convert those Practice Sheets for use with D and G tuned ukes, do this:

Example 1: Practice Sheet #1 - Key of C.
for use with D-Tuned ukes, simply rename the Key and each chord using the next letter in the Western Musical Scale. C=D, A=B, B=C, D=E, E=F, F=G, and G=A.

the first line of Practice Sheet #1 has 4 chords: C, Am, F, G7. They should be renamed: D, Bm, G, and A7, for ukes tuned ADF#B.

Example 2: Practice Sheet #1 - Key of C.
for use with G-Tuned ukes, rename the Key and each chord using the 5th letter from the existing name of the chord. C=G (CDEFG), A=E (ABCDE), B=F, D=A, E=B, F=C, and G=D.

again, the first line of Practice Sheet #1 (C, Am, F, G7) will become:
G, Em, C, D7.

if you do this to each of the Practice Sheets in the Ukulele Boot Camp,
you will have 5 different Keys to practice using your chosen Tuning.

PS another suggestion is to write in the G-Tuning Name to the LEFT of the printed Key/Chord Name, and the D-Tuning Name to the RIGHT of the printed Key/Chord Name. That way, you'll have 3 Practice sheets on each page.

PPS here are some suggested 'names/titles' for the first and fifth notes of 7 keys in Western Music:
A - E = Arts & Entertainment
B - F = Boy Friend
C - G = Computer Graphics
D - A = dumb... oops, District Attorney
E - B = Every Body
F - C = Food Court
G - D = Great Dane.

Of course, you may come up with your own 'names/titles' for the acronyms to help you remember the I and the V notes in the Western Musical Scale

keep uke'in',

There is only a half-step between E and F and between B and C, whereas in the C-to-D conversion you have to ensure you always go up a whole step. So yes, you use the next letter in the sequence, and generally keep the same accidental, but when you convert from an E to an F or from a B to a C, there will be a change of accidental: Eb becomes F (natural), E becomes F#, Bb becomes C (natural) and B becomes C#.

This same thing affects name conversions from C tuning to G tuning; specifically in regard to B and Bb—when converting from a B to an F, the accidental changes: Bb becomes F (natural) and B becomes F#. Combining with the four letter advance (or three letter backup), we get:
A > E
B > F#
Bb > F
C > G
C# > G#
D > A
E > B
F > C
F# > C#
G > D
I have only listed conversions for chord letters which actually appear in the Boot Camp charts.

For the C-to-G name conversions (i.e., shape to name), I usually think of the next letter in the sequence of sharps:
(...Eb Bb) F C G D A E B (F# C#...)
The B-to-F conversions are the only ones which involve a change of accidental. And if you skip a slot, you have the C to D conversions, accounting for those pesky half-steps properly.

Incidentally, this sequence (used in the often mentioned circle of fifths) clusters the I, IV and V chords for a key together: the IV chord is to the left of the I chord, and the V chord is to the right of the I chord. So if you know this sequence, you don't have to separately memorize the main chords for each key. It'll also help you remember how many sharps are in each sharp key (starting with the key of G and one sharp, F#) but to reduce overload, I won't describe that fully here.


Folks often come to G tuning after they've learned C tuning shapes pretty well. In this case, they mostly just want to know what shapes to play to get the chords indicated on their lead sheets.This is done by following the sharps sequence in the opposite direction, which happens to be the flats sequence:
(...C# F#) B E A D G C F (Bb Eb...)
This sequence is easier to remember, since the first four letters spell the word "bead". So for a Bm chord, play a C-tuning Em shape (0432 or 4432); for D7, play a G7 shape (0232). The only gotcha here is that F goes to Bb and F# goes to B (natural), i.e., to the next lower accidental.

Again, the main chords for a key are clustered by this arrangement, but in the reverse order as for the sharps sequence: V-I-IV. So in the key of D, the primary chords would be BEADGCF: A (V), D (I) and G (IV).

As the name implies, the flats sequence also tells you the order in which flats are added to keys and (starting with F) the order of the flat keys. In addition, it tells you which chord leads to which in so-called fifths progressions, which abound in songs. You'll even spot several chains of them in the Boot Camp progressions, as in the second, fourth and fifth rows of each chart. Spotting fifths progressions in songs helps me "chunk" chord sequences for songs in my memory, playing them in large part from "muscle memory".

That's quite a lot of bang from one seven-letter sequence learned in both directions. And there are other applications I haven't touched upon.

As a quick memory aid for the C-to-G conversions:
C shape/name to G name: go "sharper" (next slot in the sharps sequence: FCGDAEB)
Name to shape: go "flatter" (next slot in the flats sequence: BEADGCF)
The wraps between F and B also go sharper or flatter accordingly.

Personally I found the boot camp very useful when I came back to the ukelele after rest of 20 years, (I learned from my mother in D).
Every time I pick up an unfamiliar instrument I look to the boot camp. So I'm wandering shamelessly off topic to say thank you in great big ignorant capitals THANK YOU!

Thanks for the wonderfully full explanation, ubulele!

UUers, I hope all the info will assist you as you go between your variously-tuned ukes!

Thanks, willisoften for your kind words.

keep uke'in', everyone!

Hi, uncle!

I can not really understand what you mean.

Do we learn key of E and B instead of important keys of C and F, if I had D tuning ukulele?
Do we learn key of E instead of F on your boot camp, if I had G tuning?

C and F are really important keys on ukulele. E is important on guitar but not important key on ukulele, B is not important even on guitar.

Remember, it's Boot Camp, not Advanced Training: the goal is to help relatively new learners become familiar with the easiest chord shapes and keys and gain proficiency in changing chords. In D tuning, the "important" keys are G, D, A, E and B, and not the keys of C and F, which in terms of shapes and playing patterns correspond to the C tuning keys of Bb and Eb—something to work up to, but not to start with. (Actually, it's not hard to transpose lead sheets in C and F up a whole step on the fly, into the D-tuning friendly keys of D and G; we described how above.) These main D tuning keys are as evenly distributed across the entire range of keys as the easiest C tuning keys are. They're also a close match for the more common guitar keys and the most common Irish and bluegrass keys. D tuning also better suits the natural pitch response range of soprano bodies. So why complicate the learning of D tuning just because the herd arbitrarily embraces C tuning, particularly if you want the sharper keys?

Similarly, in G tuning, you should learn E before tackling F, a harder key.

Any key is important if you prefer it. I often transpose songs into keys like E and B—or even F#—, and I don't even have ukes in D tuning. In fact, I think E works better than F in C tuning because the E chord has a greater sense of stability and rest; the F root is buried in the middle of the chord, and in linear tuning its lowest note is the third doubled at the octave, the least desirable choice!

Thanks for the great info, ubulele!

zztush, you are correct in that the keys of C and F, for D and G-tuned ukes are not represented
above, however, as ubulele has noted above, at least what's given are the keys with the simpler
fingerings.

I hope that helps

keep uke'in',

The question of what keys are important, in general, is an interesting one. There are people (presumably, mostly people with perfect pitch) who actually have strong (emotional? aesthetic?) associations with specific keys, but for the rest of us, what keys are important depend largely on what we're playing and who we're playing with. The Southcoast pages on tuning make some very good points about choosing keys that are comfortable for singing and tuning your ukulele accordingly, much the way lieder singers will transpose songs to fit their tessitura, rather than restricting themselves to songs in singable keys---if this weren't common practice, we would have been deprived of most of Fischer-Dieskau's Schubert recordings, among others.

I'm still just a beginner, but I've been exploring the world of classical music transcribed for the ukulele, and I've seen both approaches. For example, there are several transcriptions of Pachelbel's Canon in D that are simply transposed to C to make it easy to play on a C-tuned ukulele, but Corey Fujimoto's transcription sticks to the original key by using a D-tuned uke.

Of course, if you're playing with other people, what keys are important depend on what's important to them. For ukulele jams, those would indeed be C and F, but if you're playing with brass bands, you might find yourself in the world of flatter keys, instead, while if you're playing with fiddlers, you might find yourself in sharper ones.

Great stuff, everyone!

sorry to open a can of worms

I wanted to make the Practice Sheets already available via the Ukulele Boot Camp materials
useful to those who play D-tuned and G-tuned ukes.

I understand that, as far as it goes, the suggested adjustments do not cover the keys used in
many song circles, and for that I apologize.

I hope that, again, as far as it goes, the suggested modifications will be useful to our UU family.

In the interests of being more 'comprehensive' I may issue Practice Sheets for the Keys of Bb and
Eb for C Tuning (GCEA), however, as ubulele has pointed out above, they will represent some of the
more unfamiliar and possibly more difficult chord fingerings. [there's a reason why many C Tuning
ukers stay away from the Keys of Bb and Eb ]

However, it was not my intention to keep D and G Tuning players away from playing in the Keys of
C or F.

Sorry for the oversight, but please, keep uke'in',

Capoing from D tuning into Eb tuning (first fret) allows a D player to play in the key of C using C-uke key of A shapes (D-uke B shapes); similarly, F can be played using C-uke D shapes (D-uke E shapes). A D player would thus lower the chord name a half step and play the shape they know by that name. The equivalent C-tuning root name is shown in parentheses below.

C and F scale degrees in D tuning capoed at the first fret = Eb tuning:
C > B (A)
D > C# (B)
E > D#[Eb] (C#)
F > E (D)
G > F# (E)
A > G# (F#)
Bb > A (G)
B > A#[Bb] (G#/Ab)

Of course, to play in C one could just down-tune to C tuning, but this isn't a great idea, not just because you'd have to transpose all your chord names on the fly (as with the capo solution, but up a whole step instead of down a half step). The materials used for uke strings (nylon, fluorocarbon, etc.) are less resilient than steel strings and take more time to stabilize into a new tuning. Consequently, your tuning would keep drifting, and your strings would lose brilliance and best intonation with frequent retuning. You'd also have to retune again whenever subsequent songs used D-friendly keys (unless you wanted to continue transposing chord names, possibly using more difficult shapes than in D tuning). So for D players, using a capo is probably a better and simpler approach. Also, when you play with C-uke players, your higher tuning adds fullness to the resulting sound.

Hi, David! Thank you for the reply!

I really smiled when I saw "flatter keys" in your post. I think you enjoy the figure below. See the key signatures below. Basically wind instruments are good at fat keys. And string instruments are good at sharp keys (see the key signatures instead of keys). That is one of the important point which determine the keys when compose. Ukulele is C instrument and good at C, G and F. Ukulele is string instrument too, hence we can move to green zone too. In C instruments, we can play C the easiest and simply it sounds best in general. Don't hesitate to play on C with our ukulele. Even Jake Shimabukuro plays C at most (See this thread).

photo uploader

Hi, uncle! I see you still do not understand what I mean. I just recommend you to correct your first post. Because it is strong evidence of the lack of music theory of you and your boot camp sheet.

It is not difficult. I use more simple diagram. The diagram below is called circle of 5th. When we transpose C to D, just shift two steps (red to green).

host image online

zztush said:

Hi, uncle! I see you still do not understand what I mean. I just recommend you to correct your first post. Because it is strong evidence of the lack of music theory of you and your boot camp sheet.

Click to expand...

Pot calling the kettle black, judging from many of zztush's posts.

zztush, you invited moderators into this thread.

Having read through I see no instance of rudeness to you. A little frustration, perhaps, but not rudeness.

Uncle Rod and ubulele have posted information that is useful at the intended audience level. Your own contributions, while offered in a helpful spirit, are a little less clear and I suspect may be a little less useful to the intended, beginner audience.

That said, I consider your "strong evidence of the lack of music theory" comment to be very unhelpful. A treatise on music theory is not what's being presented here. If you wish to try to educate people on music theory, I suggest you start a thread for that purpose.

Thanks for your helpful intentions.

Uncle Rod Higuchi said:

In the interests of being more 'comprehensive' I may issue Practice Sheets for the Keys of Bb and Eb for C Tuning (GCEA)

Click to expand...

Yes, please do! It would be greatly appreciated along with the rest of your Boot Camp!

Thanks for the input, everyone! No offense taken, but thanks for the support, ubulele and buddhuu!
I truly appreciate you both for your informed input and 'moderator' clarifications

chopped liver, well, now that I've broached the subject re: a couple more Practice Sheets in the Keys of Bb and Eb for C Tuning, I'd better get on it, huh OK, Coming Soon to a Forum Thread near you!

Love you guys, and thanks again for all of your input!

let's all keep uke'in', shall we?

Uncle Rod Higuchi said:

chopped liver, well, now that I've broached the subject re: a couple more Practice Sheets in the Keys of Bb and Eb for C Tuning, I'd better get on it, huh OK, Coming Soon to a Forum Thread near you!

Click to expand...

:smileybounce:

Thank you, Uncle Rod!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/99a44xf445rdkhk/Keys of Bb and Eb.pdf?dl=0

this link should get you to a new Dropbox file with the interim Practice Sheets for the Keys
of Bb and Eb.

Enjoy!