Do Asian Ukuleles need frets?

SuzukHammer

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haha.

Our chromatic scale doesn't truly capture the asian 5 note scale. Or does it? Am I just unenlightened about how to capture Asian melodys on the chromatic scale setups?

I am trying to find a way to mimic the Chinese, japanese, THai, and Indonesia 5 note scales.

I am thinking of sanding off the frets (yes sanding as the cheapie ukes I've bought don't appear to have metal frets.) then finding the asian scale notes on each string and either marking it and maybe in time putting unique frets at the location.

If there are people who are using the asian scale on the uke, please tell me if I am offbase (again) and let me know how you play the asian scales.

I can play Sakura on harmonica so I know at least that can be played on chromatic but I can't seem to capture any other asian melodies.
 
You don't need to do anything special to get the "Asian" notes. Not sure about the Thai and Indo scales, but the Japanese and Chinese scales are just major and minor pentatonic. Pentatonic scales are easily played on the 'ukulele. As much as I hate Wikipedia, the article on pentatonics has a lot of info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale.

I made some scale maps/tabs for the major/minor pentatonic a while back.

Minor pentatonic tab: http://liveukulele.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/minor-pent.pdf
Major pentatonic tab: http://liveukulele.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/major-pent-scale.pdf
Minor pentatonic map: http://liveukulele.com/minor-pentatonic-chart/
Major pentatonic map: http://liveukulele.com/major-pentatonic-scale-chart/

Keep in mind that it's not what notes you use but how you use them.
 
Great, I'll take a look at those and practice my asian rhythm skills. I had heard they used the pentatonic; but I could never seem to tag along on harmonica when I sat in listening to some Thai traditional songs.

I'll have to learn who to ask, "What key are you in?" because it sounds so strange to me.
 
Hello, about Pentatonic scales. I share a little method to learn.
First you know the notes : 1 2 34 5 6 7 of Major style. Then you delete 4 and 7 notes. Then you get 1 2 3 5 6 and you need an octave high 1 (i type it as h1).

Then always start from C string to A string we play C Major Pentatonic scales as this way
1)
1 2 3 5 6 h1

2)

2 3 5 6 h1 h2

3)

3 5 6 h1 h2 h3

4)

5 6 h1 h2 h3 h5

5)

6 h1 h2 h3 h5 h6

6)

h1 h2 h3 h5 h6 hh1

Yes, as the same as 1). 5 as a cycle.

If you play they the way,you will climb the fretboard from left to right. I know it's not easy to play mode 2~5 at the first time. Just try to use your ear to find them.

And mode 5)

6 h1 h2 h3 h5 h6
you can also sing them as:

1 b3 4 5 b7 1
Yes,it's also a minor Pentatonic scale.

Then let's see minor scale: 1 2b3 4 5b6 b7 . we also delete the 4th and 7th notes,so we'll get 1 2b3 5b6 . They try to play

"1 2b3 5b6 i" these notes radomly. They you will get Japanese samurai feeling. Yes, it's a famous Japanese minor scale.

They you can also try to find 5 modes of the scale.

Hope it's useful to you.
 
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