Strumming

cauke84 said:

Ive been playing the ukulele for about a year now, and ive learned quite a lot. i notice most of the videos i watch players, like aldrine strum down with thier pointer finger.. since i started playing ive always used my thumb. It still sounds just as good, i was just wondering if i would run into problems later down the line of more difficult songs. should i switch over and learn with my pointer?:nana:

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upskydowncloud said:

I agree with the others that you can use any strumming method you like, the uke is about improvisation. However there is a generally accepted method for strumming the uke which is the one Aldrine discusses in one of his earliest Iamhawaii.com lessons. The best way of describing it is like this: stretch out your right arm as if you were going to open a door, drop the index finger on your hand so it's roughly 90 degrees to your arm. From there you get the strumming motion by rotating arm around its cental axis.

The uke only has 4 strings normally, but even with more the area you need to strum is very small, it's not like a guitar where you have to do massive axe weilding strums.

As everyone else said though you can do it any way you want. It drives me mad when Julia Nunes plays the uke like it's a small guitar but she seems to do well from it.

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SinisterDom said:

I'm not the only one who noticed Julia does that! I think it might be because she uses a pick....hmm.

Also, lol at "massive axe wielding strums".

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upskydowncloud said:

Thank the lord I thought I was alone too! It must be because she uses a pick...

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Lanark said:

I don't know about her, but sometimes for little bits of really fast picking stuff I'll put my thumb and index finger together very much like I would if I were using a pick, but use the nail of my index finger instead. It just seems to work better for some things. Gives me a bit more minute control.

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