Playing chords relative to lyrics

Hi. I'm new here and to ukulele.

When you get lyrics with chords above them, do you play the chord only at the point at which it is marked, play it with the rhythm of the lyrics, or play to a strumming pattern? On some of the sites they mention a strumming pattern, but on others they don't. How am I supposed to tell?

Usually you play that chord with an even rhythm until the next chord diagram appears. It depends on the song, though. Some slow, pensive, songs just use a single strum of the chord and are almost acapella.

My advice is to play songs you know at first - that way you will know when the rhythm that you are playing "feels right" for the song.

John

Thanks for the response. Some of the songs aren't usually accompanied by music, so I'm not sure what to do with them. For example, I was practising by playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (I know it's really basic). In cases like that, how would you play it? I assumed I'd play the chord on each syllable.

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jcvamp said:

Thanks for the response. Some of the songs aren't usually accompanied by music, so I'm not sure what to do with them. For example, I was practising by playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (I know it's really basic). In cases like that, how would you play it? I assumed I'd play the chord on each syllable.

Click to expand...

Here is a twinkle twinkle pick and strum lesson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq2RAuXUeGw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

jcvamp said:

Hi. I'm new here and to ukulele.

When you get lyrics with chords above them, do you play the chord only at the point at which it is marked, play it with the rhythm of the lyrics, or play to a strumming pattern? On some of the sites they mention a strumming pattern, but on others they don't. How am I supposed to tell?

Click to expand...

It is a good idea to learn the very basics of music theory about timing, how many beats in a bar there duration. It will give you a better understanding what you are trying to do.

Playing a song using only chords is easy. BUT you first must know the melody because the chords themselves will not help you with that (you'd need the sheet music and theory and yikes—don't go there yet!).

For your songs, first sing through them following the lyric/chord sheet you have. Take notice of where your voice note changes to match the tune. That's where the chord change is. Sometimes with a pause in the lyric, you need to fill in the gap with strumming. Do it. But it all begins with having the tune in your head.

We devised a system at my old ukulele club where,
if the chords were written as 'A','D' 'G' whatever,then
you continued to strum that chord until the next
chord change occured,on the word/syllable where
the next one was shown. The exception to this which
we used,was that if a chord was shown in brackets
(Parentheses) such as '(A)' then that chord was to
be strummed just the once.It worked for us!

Depends entirely on the song.

I put up chords and lyrics recently to a song where I found it next to impossible (or rather likely to be totally confusing) to the reader as the strum is kind of a chugging pattern behind the lyrics, and depending on verses, the lyric 'change points' differed as is the case with a lot of jazzy numbers (wasn't a jazzy number / it was Werewolves Of London by Warren Zevon)

But it makes the point. I'm not a fan of strum patterns or rigidity. Best bet - get the basic pattern from a set of lyrics with chords, listen to the original many times very carefully, then work out the general change points and then add your own take.

Thankfully I find the majority of songs the change points are actually obvious and tie in with song sheets though.