Your best learning Uke.

Graham Greenbag

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I hope that this post is in the correct section, it is ‘sort of’ a beginners’ type question so perhaps not out of place here.

By mere chance I’ve been playing and practicing on a different Uke to my usual one this week. I wouldn’t have expected that change to make much if any difference but it has, I’ve had a few ‘light bulb’ moments where I’ve ‘discovered’ (more stumbled up on really) new, alternative or easier ways of playing something and found myself looking at various ‘new’ chords that would otherwise be ignored.

The Uke that I’m temporally using isn’t anything special, but it seems better for learning on than my favourite Uke, which is the one that I usually play. What Ukes have UU members found that they learn best or better on and why do they think that those (particular / individual) Ukes work well for them?
 
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Banjolele. You hear every error.
 
That's pretty easy to answer - my long neck soprano. :)

It was the 4th uke I bought, (tenor, soprano, then concert), & I spent most of my learning time in my first year playing that one.

It still gets dragged out when I want to try something out. great little uke, Kala KA-SLNG.
 
For me the easiest to play is my concert size with the widest string separation at the nut. I make the most progress though playing the Uke with the narrowest string separation at the nut. The narrow spacing forces me to have better finger placement resulting in more progress, if this makes any sense. All 3 of my Ukes are concert size.
 
Practicing on baritone improves my reach and seems to make tenor easier while using a long neck concert opio is much easier to make clear sounding bar chords and I suspect set up has more to do with that than uke size.
 
Tyde Music has a ukulele that has all of the “white key” pitches engraved in the fretboard, called “The learner ukulele.” I’m intrigued, as the next step in my own playing is to memorize the fretboard. I can figure out all of the pitches, but it would be better just to know them from memory.

Here’s that ukulele: https://tydemusic.com/collections/ukulele/products/concert-learner-ukulele
 
Banjolele. You hear every error.
I haven't experienced a quicker learning curve by playing different ukes, but when I started doing gigs I began amplifying. A lot of times even when I practiced, just to stay consistent. That amplifies the errors too, and like Freeda above, it really made me tighten things up.
 
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I am very much a beginner myself, and I find that my Donner concert (with what feels like a slightly wider neck) is easiest for making those chords that have lots of fingers squished together... like D)
 
The uke I take to my beginner classes is a concert KoAlana, my favorite and most comfortable-feeling instrument. It is light, resonant, and non-threatening. For learning difficult (barre!), chords and that sort of thing, I like the Pono Pro Classic because of the radiused fret board. It is a tenor, so the fingering requires a bit more stretch. My very beginner ukulele was an inexpensive Hilo, and it was easy because I believe it has the widest nut size of the three, and was great to start with.
 
My first one was a tenor. I was doing well. Then a couple of weeks ago I got a soprano. Suddenly I could play barre chords! Maybe it’s coincidence, but I’ve made a lot of progress since then. Around the same time I also got one of Mike Lynch’s chord/melody books though. I’m all over the fret board using it so maybe it’s both the soprano and book.
 
I started my ukulele adventures with a cheap painted Mahalo Soprano.
Set it up (I was once a guitarist!) and away I went. I found it easy
and soon learned enough to keep me strummimng (and singing) as I
gradually progressed!
 
Just a line to thank everyone who has contributed to the thread so far; it’s great that you have shared your knowledge and experience. Rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach I’ve noticed that some change and diversity tends to trigger and facilitate my learning at this time, and likewise keeping my mind open to new and / or unexpected ideas.

For the last couple of years I’ve only played a Soprano with wide spaced strings, it’s worked well for me. Recently I was gifted an inexpensive Concert which, after much set-up work, sounds OK. The change in scale size has altered how I do some things and I’m no longer accommodating the compactness of the Soprano scale - less time thinking about that leaves more time to think about other things whilst skills from the smaller fret board are transferable.

Setting up the gifted to me Concert Uke and detail that I saw within an eBay posting promoted a thought. We all check each string for tuning but never the tuning of chords, or our ability to properly fret them - which is surely daft as the end product we seek is in tune chords. A well set up Uke that’s properly fretted will play the basic C,D,E,F,G,A and B chords such that your tuner will display their names. It’s a simple thing to practice those chords as a sequence, then I added their minors and their seventh variations too.

What’s a best learning Uke? Well, to me and so far, it’s the one (or ones) that prompts and facilitates your learning; we’re all individual so please keep saying what works for your learning and why.
 
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My size preference may from week to week, and ultimately, I like them all. But when working on something challenging, I often begin on a soprano because of its smaller fret strtch and lower tension. But other times the extra room on a concert seems easier. A tenor has not yet been my learning instrument of choice.
 
My first one was a tenor. I was doing well. Then a couple of weeks ago I got a soprano. Suddenly I could play barre chords! Maybe it’s coincidence, but I’ve made a lot of progress since then. Around the same time I also got one of Mike Lynch’s chord/melody books though. I’m all over the fret board using it so maybe it’s both the soprano and book.

I played a concert for five years. I bought a soprano just last fall, and I love how much easier it is bar, and how much easier it is to reach some of the more spread out chords. I bought the soprano more to be a backup uke in case something happened to my concert, but now I play the soprano most of the time.
 
I hadn’t really thought about it until Rllink’s post above but practicing on different sizes does help. I like the Soprano scale but it sometimes does feel tight on finger room, but playing something through on a concert scale takes that issue away. It seems to me that switching between the two (sizes) helps me tackle problem areas and then play both of them better, hadn’t expected that.

My thanks again to everyone who has contributed to the thread.
 
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For me, the one that I really got going on was a Islander soprano - wide string spacing without a huge reach, plus decent tone. After that I found my playing tended to take a jump when I switched ukes to something a little different and had to do new things to get the most out of the uke. For instance, going to baritone for a bit made me use more touch - overstrumming a baritone sounds bad in ways that it doesn't on a soprano. My Blackbird Clara was great for dynamics - a really loud uke gives more scope for playing soft. Plugging in the Clara also taught me a bit about different sounds that could be made, as did playing banjolele.
 
I have a rather fragile vintage sopranino with fifteen frets above the body of the uke and a really narrow nut. It sits by my bedside and is usually what I practice with at the end of the day. It needs very precise playing in fretting, picking, and strumming or it sounds bad. That makes it a great practice uke.
 
IMO, it’s whatever uke gives you confidence and inspiration to keep playing. A uke with horrible action, not enough frets, or even high G vs low G can greatly impact how far takes themselves in learning the uke. Even if you buy a “beginner” uke, if you quickly find another online that you JUST HAVE TO HAVE, it could impair your willingness to keep going until you have THAT uke.
 
If you leave a uke out on a stand, you are much more likely to pick it up to play it, even for just a couple of minutes practice - it all adds up. :)

(My own experience was that I left a laminate mahogany long neck soprano out on my stand, & I'd pick it up most times I passed it.)
 
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