just cant sing high enough, they called the animal rescue, thought a cat was dying

what i love: playing and singing at the same time.... my problem... cant sing high enough and when i do try to sing those notes it sounds like they got a goat... stuck it in a novelty size blender turned it on for a few seconds, then turned it off and the goat is still in there half alive..... how do i over come this, if i tune my uke down a whole step im going to have to relearn all my chords wont i... ie if i play a C maj its gonna be a f# or something wacky like that... is there a way around this where i dont have to relearn new chord shapes. Is there a way to play it, but play it lower? is there a chart out there that might show all this like has all the normal chords but underneath it has the chord if its play 1 step lower, 2 steps lower ect ect???


thankyou kindly in advance people

The simplest way is to transpose the song to a key in which you can sing. That way, the tuning of your uke can stay the same, and you play all the regular chord shapes for that tuning - or am I missing the point of your question?

Ukantor.

ukantor said:

The simplest way is to transpose the song to a key in which you can sing. That way, the tuning of your uke can stay the same, and you play all the regular chord shapes for that tuning - or am I missing the point of your question?

Ukantor.

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yup, I've done that... it can be a lot of work tho.

or if you do tune down your uke to accomodate your voice, you don't have to change your chording... keep it the same. there's no point in tuning down if you are going to change your chords back to the same original notes. whether you transpose your songs to another key, or tune down your uke and use the exisitng chords for the song, you will be in singing in a new lower key... you won't be able to sing along in tune with those sing-a-long vids or others playing and tuned normally but since you are at a lower key you won't have to strain to reach those higher notes.

or you can try starting off whatever you are singing a whole octave lower... not always possible on songs that test your range.

or keep on working on that falsetto.

and sometimes you can belt out higher notes by exhaling faster... it is usualy louder and the sound that comes out treads the fine line between music and screaming... unfortunately there is probably a higher likelyhood of injuring your vocal chords; but, it works great for those 80's rock ballads... although those guys practice a lot and learn to sustain that screaming... err... singing, for long stretches of time.

If you are playing by yourself, it doesn't matter if you tune your uke down. You can play the same chord shapes, a C shape won't be a C but if you follow the chords to the song it will sound fine just lower, thus you can sing it lower. Am I making sense?

thanks very much both for your responses, thats basically what i was trying to ask, transpose to a lower key, but also so what your saying jinny is if i tune my ukulele 1/2 a step down, or a full step down, a C maj is still a Cmaj and a F# is still a F# fingure pattern wise?????

keithy351 said:

thanks very much both for your responses, thats basically what i was trying to ask, transpose to a lower key, but also so what your saying jinny is if i tune my ukulele 1/2 a step down, or a full step down, a C maj is still a Cmaj and a F# is still a F# fingure pattern wise?????

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Yep, exactly what ukestang wrote...

ukestang said:

If you are playing by yourself, it doesn't matter if you tune your uke down. You can play the same chord shapes, a C shape won't be a C but if you follow the chords to the song it will sound fine just lower, thus you can sing it lower. Am I making sense?

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same chord shape.

the only downside is that if you tune it down more than a couple half-steps it gets floppy and unplayable (Argh! my naughty brain wants to say, "that's what SHE said!").

jinny said:

Yep, exactly what ukestang wrote...



same chord shape.

the only downside is that if you tune it down more than a couple half-steps it gets floppy and unplayable (Argh! my naughty brain wants to say, "that's what SHE said!").

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hahahaha thats the first thing i thought of when u wrote that, lol i use that too many times, well i just tuned it down half and full step and at full step singing and playing to my ear sounds great and way in tune, but thats only for a few songs, so im gonna keep it standard when playing solo's and tune down when im playing jack johnson ect so i can show off the vocals, girls love a guy who can sing haha... isnt that why we all started playing the uke?

I know what you mean. I have the same problem.. but I figured out that I can kinda sing with the Key of "G" so I transpose everything to that key...