Playing upside down

Chris24

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The ukulele, that is.
Does anyone else play the ukulele upside down?
A strange question you may say, and you'd be correct, so let me explain.
Many years ago (around 35) I started to learn to play the ukulele. It wasn't nearly so popular back then and there weren't the book for learners that there are now. In fact the only book I could find was of chord diagrams for both D and C tunings. The drawings (no photographs) had the nut at the top and I had to decide which way up it should go. Yes, I know now that the ukulele I bought should have told me, and that I should have swapped the strings over, being left handed, but I didn't think of either of those things back then. The upshot was I learned all the chords the wrong way up without realising (they sounded OK). When I realised my mistake it was too late to start again so I simply kept things as they were. It does mean that I can borrow a right hander's ukulele and play it straight away, and tabs make more sense to me that way up.
Am I unique?
 
Since you swapped both the strings and the diagrams, that's why it still sounded right, and if it works for you, who am I to say you're "wrong". Tab would be seriously backward though right? Unless you're also reading it as if it were in a mirror?
 
So, are you saying you kept the strings as is and just flipped the uke over to the other side? If it works for you, then cool.
 
So, are you saying you kept the strings as is and just flipped the uke over to the other side? If it works for you, then cool.

That's what I did. Works for me but I can't teach anyone else, especially right handers.
 
Not seen a uke that way but saw a guy on tv playing guitar upside down, it looked odd but he was very good.
 
Tiny Tim could play both righty and lefty and would switch in the middle of a song.
 
That's what I did. Works for me but I can't teach anyone else, especially right handers.

Well, so long as you can play that way and enjoy it. Pretty cool, actually. I just flipped mine and tried to play a Bb chord. Wow!
 
This is how my left hand friend plays. His ukes are strung correctly for a right hander, but he flips and plays it left handed. This means he knows his chord shapes differently. His reasoning was that he wanted to be able to sample the ukes of others so he learned this way.
 
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