Adapting to shorter scale lengths / fighting a losing battle?

barnstorm

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In an effort to make some real progress, I've been playing nothing but concert scale for a month solid and… no joy.

I started off on (and still occasionally play) guitar. Moved down to tenor guitar (now my main instrument) and down again to tenor uke with no difficulties at all (admittedly I'd played tenor uke a bit many years ago).

Concert, though, is giving me fits.

I'm not getting hand cramps or struggling to get a pleasant tone, and simple pieces are fine, but anything remotely intricate feels and sounds clumsy to me. It's becoming frustrating knowing that I could pick up any of my other instruments and instantly sound better.

Anybody else hit a wall when coming from the longer scale lengths to the shorter ones? Any tips? (Other than 'sell the concert'! I'm not quite there yet, although I guess at some point life's too short.)
 
This may be a boring/obvious answer, but I’d say practice, practice, practice. It will become more comfortable and easy for you. I come from a guitar background and my first ukulele was a soprano and I definitely thought “this thing is way too small”, but it became easier pretty quickly. If you play your concert a little bit each day I’m sure it will eventually become more comfortable for you.
 
The bigger your fingers are compared to the fret spacing, the more important good technique is. Try especially hard to keep your fingertips upright when they press the strings.
 
This may be a boring/obvious answer, but I’d say practice, practice, practice. It will become more comfortable and easy for you. I come from a guitar background and my first ukulele was a soprano and I definitely thought “this thing is way too small”, but it became easier pretty quickly. If you play your concert a little bit each day I’m sure it will eventually become more comfortable for you.
Cheers – in your case, then, did you get to a point where you felt you weren't sacrificing anything when you picked up the soprano? I don't know if it was unrealistic to expect that I'd be able to play most of the stuff on a concert that I can on a tenor.

@man0a – I'll keep an eye on that. My piano teacher used to tap my 'lazy hands' with a ruler when I was a kid, and I'm sure there's still room for improvement!
 
Yeah, I can comfortably and easily switch between sizes. How long have you been playing your concert? I really do believe you will get better with it with just a little practice and patience.
 
Yeah, I can comfortably and easily switch between sizes. How long have you been playing your concert? I really do believe you will get better with it with just a little practice and patience.
A month of concert only, and a few weeks before that of playing concert alongside tenor/tenor guitar/guitar – but maybe a little and often is going to be a better way to approach it than hammering away at the problem as I have been doing.
 
Practice makes perfect eventually! But the instruments neck can make a difference too..I have a ' few ukes and my earnest concert uke has the best action..my cort concert has a nice neck too and the shima uke is excellent in terms of playability..so don't give up as it may be the instrument?
 
Practice makes perfect eventually! But the instruments neck can make a difference too..I have a ' few ukes and my earnest concert uke has the best action..my cort concert has a nice neck too and the shima uke is excellent in terms of playability..so don't give up as it may be the instrument?
No, can't blame the tools on this occasion, unfortunately! Will certainly admit to getting impatient, though. I've just not really had to deal with a learning curve in a while, and when you can't quite make something work nicely you start asking yourself whether it's worth the bother when you can already get around fine on another instrument.
 
No, can't blame the tools on this occasion, unfortunately! Will certainly admit to getting impatient, though. I've just not really had to deal with a learning curve in a while, and when you can't quite make something work nicely you start asking yourself whether it's worth the bother when you can already get around fine on another instrument.
I quite like my concerts...keep persevering..what I have noticed is play a piece of music or for that matter a instrument..and I keep going at it till I get fed up! Then leave it for a week or so...my brain seems to work out the problems and when I go back to the music or the uke it seems easier?
 
One thing I learned while switching back and forth between classical guitar, bass and 'ukulele is the brain maps the scale and the hand adjusts. But it takes time and the transition period is tough and uncomfortable. I remember the cramps from the first few months on 'ukulele! Also, many chord and scales shapes you use on the guitar, may not be ideal for the 'ukulele. With time, I learned chord voicings and scale patterns I would never use on the guitar but are great on the 'ukulele. With that said, I found tenor 'ukulele was as small as I'm willing to go. I do play a little better on a long scale tenor (18 or 19 inches), as I can squeeze my fingers into a few more chord shapes.
 
I want to say you that, unless you're hell bent on becoming sick at Concert size, you should just play Tenor. The only one who cares about the size of ukulele that you play is you. If youre sick at tenor, play tenor. Nobody is going to be like "Well, sure he's sick at tenor but hand him a concert and watch his brain melt." Or her brain melt. Some people might say that kind of stuff I guess. But those people arent hear to encourage you and others to be better musicians. Theyre just here to criticize you because they suck at ukulele and you dont, and that bothers them.

Edit: I also want to point out that I used to have similar anxieties and you can probably find them in my post history. Theres at least one thread where I'm like "UH IM SICK AT TENOR BUT I SUCK AT SOPRANO WHAT IF PEOPLE ASK ME TO PLAY A SOPRANO AND I SUCK" I eventually realized none of it was real.
 
I have instruments that range in scale from long scale jumbo guitar to concert uke and have no issue with moving from one to another. I find the concert most comfortable to play as fingers are not crammed and there are virtually no stretch acrobatics required to play most things. It feels most natural for my hands. Sopranos require some effort though. I wonder if it is not the scale that's uncomfortable but if it has a thin neck and narrow nut. Those factors can be annoying on any scale.
 
Don't worry @donboody – I'm positive that nobody I know cares about my playing!

Reassuring that plenty of you with similar musical backgrounds are happily using concerts and smaller.

@Peter Frary , there's food for thought there: my right hand does very different things when I'm playing ukulele vs guitar, but I'm not sure my left-hand approach changes all that much, really. Maybe I can get away with that on the tenor but not on the concert. If nothing else, 'do it differently' makes practice more fun than 'do it again, but better'.
 
Technique, obviously, matters. I love the sound of soprano, so I wanted to adopt to it. I found that certain chords that gave me fits with three fingers (D, Dm, and Eb) are now easy to handle on this scale with two fingers. It took a while to adapt, and now, I don't even think about it.
 
Don't worry @donboody – I'm positive that nobody I know cares about my playing!

Reassuring that plenty of you with similar musical backgrounds are happily using concerts and smaller.

@Peter Frary , there's food for thought there: my right hand does very different things when I'm playing ukulele vs guitar, but I'm not sure my left-hand approach changes all that much, really. Maybe I can get away with that on the tenor but not on the concert. If nothing else, 'do it differently' makes practice more fun than 'do it again, but better'.
My right-hand technique is similar on classical guitar and 'ukulele—left-hand is the most different for me. But I can see if you mainly use a pick on guitar and finger style on 'ukulele it would be very different.
 
Anybody else hit a wall when coming from the longer scale lengths to the shorter ones? Any tips? (Other than 'sell the concert'! I'm not quite there yet, although I guess at some point life's too short.)

How are you playing it? Just strumming or finger picking? Are you using a pick? Are you playing up the neck?

I have no trouble adjusting between guitars and soprano ukulele. Although I mainly just strum; finger picking isn't much a problem on the uke since its string spacing is wider than even my classical the guitar. However, I mainly play low on the neck on the ukulele.
 
I wanted to play tenor (I know practice), but my hands don't stretch right. Love my concert, but tried a soprano and my fingers just hit in all the wrong spots. Don't particularly care for reentrant sound so I'll stick to my low g concert for finger picking Guess I could practice the soprano but why.
Have fun in whatever you choose
 
How are you playing it? Just strumming or finger picking? Are you using a pick? Are you playing up the neck?

I have no trouble adjusting between guitars and soprano ukulele. Although I mainly just strum; finger picking isn't much a problem on the uke since its string spacing is wider than even my classical the guitar. However, I mainly play low on the neck on the ukulele.
I actually had the opposite experience: coming from electric guitar and tenor guitar, if there was anything I had to get used to with the (tenor) ukulele it was the wider string spacing when finger picking, but it was an easy adjustment.

It is indeed higher up the neck on the concert where things get especially frustrating, but from what others have said I'm on a hiding to nothing trying to make some familiar shapes and patterns work by focusing on ever-greater precision. Will spend a bit of time thinking about alternatives/workarounds instead where I'm having difficulties.
 
I've always found concert scale to be a challenge, while soprano scale is untenable for my hands and tonally less pleasing. While I can manage concert scale and occasionally enjoy playing mine, the "small body tone" is not sufficient payoff to me to justify the continual battle with cramped chord shapes on the upper neck. Also, I can get the small body tone with my long-neck concert (tenor scale), so I have little need or desire to adapt to concert scale. (Frankly, I prefer the beefier sound of tenors and baritones anyway.)
This is exactly my experience as well. Tenors and baritones are my preference.
The soprano and concert are ok for a bit of strumming, but I can't really use them for fingerpicking. The only concert that did work for picking, was the Enya Nova concert.
 
Technique, obviously, matters. I love the sound of soprano, so I wanted to adopt to it. I found that certain chords that gave me fits with three fingers (D, Dm, and Eb) are now easy to handle on this scale with two fingers. It took a while to adapt, and now, I don't even think about it.
How do you barre two strings? I've watched other players do it and the top joint of their finger seems to bend backwards so the top part of their finger lays flat. My fingers do not do this. I can get the two strings pressed down but then the third one below it gets muted because my finger doesn't bend far enough to clear the third string. Is this a "keep trying and eventually you'll stretch your finger out and it'll work" or is this a "sorry about your luck, genetics will never enable you to do this" ?
 
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