Transposing-a little help understanding please.

I'm new to Uke and have no musical training. I do play some lapsteel and I know if a song is in F and I want to play it in G, I just slide up 2 frets and play the same pattern.

However, I'm a bit confused about Ukulele. I suppose if a song is in F you could Barre 2 frets up and play whatever the pattern is but dropping back to c seems tough like playing up 7 frets where you're pretty darn high up there.

take this example an maybe someone could plain how to play it it G and in C. It's in F from a tabbed version of St Louis Blues

an example

0--3--0--
1---------1
0---------3
2---------2


I recognize a F chord and an F7 so I could play a G and G7 or for C, C and C7 but what do I do with the notes in between?????? I see they fit in the G or C major scale so do you leave them alone? Do the have to be shifted up or down like the chords.

Sorry if I'm dense, and I appreciate whatever you can tell me.

A scale has eight notes (you could call them "do, re, mi ...." or just number them 1 through 8. The first and eighth notes represent the key (so the key of C begins with the note "C"). There's also a pattern of steps and half steps, as you could see by looking at the white and black keys on a piano. All steps from one note to the next are whole steps, except the step from note III to note IV (in the key of C, F is one-half step up from E) and from note VII to VIII (or I) is one half step (in the key of C, C is one-half step up from B). On an ukulele, each fret is one-half step, so on an ukulele in C tuning, D is two frets up from C, while F is only one fret up from E.

With this information, you can make a chart, like this one I found online (The use of sharps and flats adjusts for taking full steps and half steps where appropriate)



To transpose, you use the position of the note in the scale. So if a song in C has an E, which is the third note on the scale, and you want to transpose to the key of F, you would look for the third note in the F scale, which is A.

I hope that helps.

Here is a handy wheel for tansposing

wheel for transposing

Print out and keep close!!!!

chappyware said:

I'm new to Uke and have no musical training. I do play some lapsteel and I know if a song is in F and I want to play it in G, I just slide up 2 frets and play the same pattern.

Click to expand...

Someone told me once that you don't need to learn scales or music theory to play. This is a perfect example where it helps. Because my Bass is tuned in 4ths (5ths if you go bottom up), I learned "patterns" fairly quickly - just like you do on your steel. However, the `Ukulele is not tuned that way on all strings, only the 3rd & 4th strings.

Yours is simple, learn your C scale (you should aready know), learn your F scale and match up the chords. That's the simple way. The hard way is "knowing" there's a Bb in there, then transposing from there. In this case, you're not just going up two frets, but two and a half steps (that would be your chromatic scale).

I know, confusing. Remember, there's only 8 notes in a scale, and only 12 possible from there. Even if you guess, you'll get it 50% correct all the time.

-Aaron

chappyware said:

I'm new to Uke and have no musical training. I do play some lapsteel and I know if a song is in F and I want to play it in G, I just slide up 2 frets and play the same pattern.

However, I'm a bit confused about Ukulele. I suppose if a song is in F you could Barre 2 frets up and play whatever the pattern is but dropping back to c seems tough like playing up 7 frets where you're pretty darn high up there.

take this example an maybe someone could plain how to play it it G and in C. It's in F from a tabbed version of St Louis Blues

an example

0--3--0--
1---------1
0---------3
2---------2


I recognize a F chord and an F7 so I could play a G and G7 or for C, C and C7 but what do I do with the notes in between?????? I see they fit in the G or C major scale so do you leave them alone? Do the have to be shifted up or down like the chords.

Sorry if I'm dense, and I appreciate whatever you can tell me.

Click to expand...

It's a I-I7 progression with a little fill. The scale degrees of the fill are 3-5 (mi-sol, if you swing like that).

So, in C

3------1
0----0--
0------0
0-0----0

This is where the ukulele tuning is important. The notes you want CAN be played on open strings. You could also play:

3------1
0-3-0--
0------0
0------0

In G

2-5-2--
3------1
2------2
0------0

without a convenient alternative. But if you look at it in G, you basically ARE shifting everything up 2 frets.

I'm a music teacher, and I always get annoyed with the attitude that somehow knowing music theory detracts from one's experience of music. To me, it's like claiming that you will have a better time in France by NOT knowing how to speak French. (Oh dear, here I go again... apologies. Sorry. Really.)

Here's a chord wheel I made to make transposing keys fairly easy. Instructions are on the sheets. There's a large and small version included in the file (different pages). Hope it helps.

Just as an example, assigning Roman numerals to each chord, let's say in F, you have a really common progression:

I-IV-V-I - In F that's F-Bb-C-F. (F has one flat, Bb, and in this case it's the root of the 4th chord.)

In C, what are the chords that match those intervals? C-F-G-C (C has no flats or sharps.)

In G, the same progression then becomes: G-C-D-G (G has one sharp, F#, and it appears in this progression in the 5th chord.)

Plainsong gives good info concerning Nashville Numbering.

Maybe this will help too.

http://i.ehow.com/images/a04/7v/72/transpose-chords-new-key-800X800.jpg