2 quick questions...

ovation_89

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just got my ukulele in and its a pretty sweet Lanikai LU-21C Concert Ukulele. i play guitar so im able to pick up most chord shapes fairly easily but the Dmaj chord is giving me trouble (GCEA tuning). do you bar the top three strings and somehow bend your finger off of the bottom string or do you use three different fingers to make the chord?

also how long does it take for the strings to sound nice and in tune? maybe the factory strings are crappy but 2 minutes or so after playing they crap out. or will they eventually stay in tune?
 
just got my ukulele in and its a pretty sweet Lanikai LU-21C Concert Ukulele. i play guitar so im able to pick up most chord shapes fairly easily but the Dmaj chord is giving me trouble (GCEA tuning). do you bar the top three strings and somehow bend your finger off of the bottom string or do you use three different fingers to make the chord?

also how long does it take for the strings to sound nice and in tune? maybe the factory strings are crappy but 2 minutes or so after playing they crap out. or will they eventually stay in tune?

As a VERY novice uke player who, like you, is used to guitars that STAY IN FREAKIN TUNE, I can tell you that , YES, you will be tuning much more often with new uke strings, but they WILL "settle in" after a while.
 
play guitar so im able to pick up most chord shapes fairly easily but the Dmaj chord is giving me trouble (GCEA tuning). do you bar the top three strings and somehow bend your finger off of the bottom string or do you use three different fingers to make the chord?

I usually barre all three with my middle finger and bend it funny, like you are saying. But I am finding that doing it different ways (with more than one finger) can be effective as well, depending on the chords before and after. But usually, the gimped middle finger way works fine for me.
 
D chord

You can bar with your index finger on the second fret and put your little finger on the 5th fret of the top string. Sometimes you dont want that high D note to ring so clearly, but it works for us with fat fingers.
 
the strings will take maybe 1-2 weeks to reach equilibrium depending on how much you play, so during that time you'll have a lot of tuning to do.
 
go to the link that seeso provided you about stretching the strings. when i first started out i had the same problem i didnt know if the strings sucked and i needed to get new ones or something wrong with the tuning pegs. after you stretch the strings it should be fine.
 
I think my strings mostly settled after a week. My "great" idea was to just tune it a little sharp to begin with, in the hopes that they'd end up in the right pitch after i finished warming up. Nope! I just sounded bad all around. I do notice when I play along with videos online, I always sound a little flat.

I use all three fingers for the D. I've seen people do it with one, but my finger is just not curvey enough! Sometimes, if I can't quite get them all over there in time, I grab the G string with my thumb! I don't know if others do this, but hey, whatever works.
 
I use all three fingers for the D. I've seen people do it with one, but my finger is just not curvey enough!

You can train your finger to be curvy enough and it'll be a great help when trying to play the E chord and other barred chords from that shape. Use your ring finger for this.

But meanwhile, try two fingers. Index on the 4th and middle finger for the 3rd and 2nd. Learning to grab two strings with one finger is another good multi-chord trick (i.e. it'll make all sorts of cool but tough to finger chords easier).
 
if you have friction tuners.. one tip that i use to do with my old uke was;

When i tuned the uke, and it was perfectly in tune. there are screws at the back of the friction tuners... I'f tighten them just a bit so it doesnt get out of tune again..

try that...

hope it helps
 
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