Total Noob Question #1: What do terms like low G, key of Dm, and others mean?

hotnanas

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What do terms like low G, key of Dm, and others mean?

My question arose from trying the stairway to heaven tabs from the liveukulele.com link in the Stairway to Heaven thread.

Is low G simply tuning your ukulele one octave low for the G-string (G3), with the others normal, C4-E4-A4?

Is key of Dm, just where the song is played from, or does this have to deal with tuning?

Strumming this on my GCEA and G3-C4-E4-A4, and putting it into my powertab editor, the song/tabs didn't sound correct. Is it just me sucking at music?

Please help!

stairway.jpg
 
Low G is a different string then the High G, you can't tune a high G string to a Low G.

Low G is usually a wound G string, Thicker then the C string. You can buy a set of them online im sure, or ask for a single wound D classical guitar string at your local music shop.

As for the key of Dm, im kinda a noob with all this music theory s**t but, it does not have to do with tuning your uke so dont worry too much about that. Dm is just the first chord and all of the other chords are related to it. If it was played in Bm all of the chords would be different but it should sound relatively the same Just higher.

Feel free to correct me anyone.
 
the key just shows which general set of chords sound good together. by knowing the key, you can figure out or expect which chords will be used in the song.

in the tab that you posted, it shows that it's in the key of F because of the Bb key signature... i think (correct me if i'm wrong). Songs that are in the key of F may have some basic chords such as F, Dm, Bb, Gm, and C.

i haven't known anything about keys until this january and i've been playing the uke for about 4 years. it's not that important for the casual player so i wouldn't worry too much about it.
 
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