ukulele song strumming pattern

hi all,

i managed to get a copy of my fav song in ukulele tab, but i have some difficulties, could anyone enlighten me? thanks

1) What is the strumming pattern? I don't find it in my ukulele tab sheet. it composed of the musical notes (treble clef) and the tab. How do i know when and which strumming melody pattern?

2) what is the meaning of diagnoal strike off line between two note?

3) what does "let it ring" meant in the music notes?

4) how come the sound of the notes i play is so different from the what it should it?

my apologies if my questions sound vague, i am most willingly to clarify if you need clarifications. thanks again.

I'm not sure if you mean chord and lyric sheets or actual tab, actual tab being where chords are written out as a 4lined diagram of dashes and numbers...a useful tool when there's picking involved. I'm thinking you mean the former which some times people erroneously call tab. But as to strumming pattern, it is rarely written in with the "tab". On sites you will see it mentioned in comments posted under the song sometimes.Uke hunt often mentions suggest strums. If I cannot figure it out myself (and I often can't) and it's not mentioned, I will just Google "suggested strum for such and such song" and often I'll get a hit on something that mentions how to strum it. The diagonal slash, if I'm understanding you correctly is usually what's called a slash chord and is primarily meant for guitar. They will put something like C/G meaning that you play a C chord shape but add in a G note (if you can reach one on practically speaking, on your uke you can try to do this). For uke you can generally just play the first chord before the slash. Let it ring, I have always taken to mean play one pronounced strum. If you are saying that your chords don't sound the same as the recording, it is probably in a different key. See if there is a note about using a capo and where to place your capo. Don't have a capo and want to play along? You'll have to transpose. Some sites, like ultim. guitar have a button that will change key, so if the song says capo 2, you have to go up two half steps to adjust the chords (and hope that that doesn't change it to crazy chords you can't play yet..that's why people use capos, not just that they don't know how to change keys, but that the chords for any particular song can be much harder to play in one key vs another). Hope this helps, just a beginner myself and have struggled thru understanding sheet music. Oh BTW, if I can't find sugg. strums or figure one out myself, my go-to strum is what has been called (appropriately so) the "Swiss Army" strum..d d u u d. Good luck!

What bunnyf said is right on.

If you post the song in the Song Help forum, folks can help you with the chords, transpositions and suggest strumming patterns. Here's the link for the forum. http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?5-Song-Help

Also, if you are using a youtube video to play along with, list it so people can figure out the key.

Can you post a scan of your song sheet here so that we can see exactly what you have got, whether it's an actual tab with music notation above or a lead sheet with the notation with chords written above the music. It will make it very much easier to answer your questions 1, 2 & 3.

Tootler said:

Can you post a scan of your song sheet here so that we can see exactly what you have got, whether it's an actual tab with music notation above or a lead sheet with the notation with chords written above the music. It will make it very much easier to answer your questions 1, 2 & 3.

Click to expand...

thanks for all your responses, sorry am late in replying due to other interruptions...to begin with, the following attachment which i indicate in circle made "funny" sound compared to the youtube (see below) when finger pick...i am sure i have tuned my ukulele but i still can't get it..

the song played by other player..especially for the interval between 1.46 to 2.11 when he played the second and third string repeatedly..

Are you sure you are reading the tab the right way round? I have written out the first bar of your tab with the strings labelled.


Note that the strings are labelled GCEA from bottom to top. Counterintuitive maybe but that's the convention. The bits you have ringed are plucked open E and C strings and the let them ring instruction probably means don't damp them when you play the next note. You've forgotten to attach a link to the You Tube video, so I can't help you on that part of your query.

Tootler said:

Are you sure you are reading the tab the right way round? I have written out the first bar of your tab with the strings labelled.

Code:

[FONT=Courier New]
A----5-------------5----5------------- 3-----|
E---------0-------------------0--------------|
C--------------0-------------------0---------|
G----5------------------3--------------5-----|
[/FONT]

Note that the strings are labelled GCEA from bottom to top. Counterintuitive maybe but that's the convention. The bits you have ringed are plucked open E and C strings and the let them ring instruction probably means don't damp them when you play the next note. You've forgotten to attach a link to the You Tube video, so I can't help you on that part of your query.

Click to expand...

sorry, i forgot about it, pls see the link below.. thanks for your comments, i think i did interpret the correct way as what you have mentioned...pls advise further..
http://youtu.be/iftW280SU0U

one enquiry, how to play the circled notes? "x" means slashed mute meant no playing at all while the 1st string there is no "o" so what should i do?

Hi,

You can visit this link to learn about how to read tab.
http://ukulelehunt.com/how-to-read-ukulele-tab/

About playing the 'x', I think those are referring to chunking.


Regards,
Sugeng

thanks alot, you maybe right, but chunking / muting the notes refers to all strings so if "x" refers to mute string then what about the unmarked string? sorry i am slow in this.