Be Glad You Chose the Ukulele

Guitar harder than uke? Well, I guess it has 2 more strings :rolleyes:

I mean, how hard is it to play an instrument that has a couple of octaves of stair step notes?
 
Four fingers, four strings. It is natural for a person to play ukulele. Six strings four fingers, unnatural, unless you are Goliath or a Hemmingway cat. And remember a uke player has to do with just four strings what a guitar plays gets six strings to do. A real disadvantage. I am surprised they left out spoon and the Jews Harp. Play the Jew Harp wrong and you end up missing some teeth. I played trombone from about 5th grade until 1st year college. Looks harder than it was. After all, couldn't be that hard, as I played it.
 
I played guitar for almost 50 years before I took up the ukulele 5 years ago. In the mid-60s with the British music group invasion, many of my friends started playing, as did I. I took a few lessons, which got me started and I did pretty well for all the years. As with any instrument, it takes lots of practice to get good, and that knowledge and experience served me very well when I started playing uke, took to it very readily. As much as I liked playing guitar, since playing ukulele, I actually haven't touched my guitars.


8 tenor cutaway ukes, 3 acoustic bass ukes, 8 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. http://www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: https://www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/videos
 
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. And remember a uke player has to do with just four strings what a guitar plays gets six strings to do. .

There's actually some truth to this. I find guitar easier than uke because there's more notes. As much as I love the uke, I really miss the guitar bass notes when improvising or trying to replicate a lick. Plus I can play further up the neck without getting into no-mans land, so there are more position options.
 
I played guitar for almost 50 years before I took up the ukulele 5 years ago. In the mid-60s with the British music group invasion, many of my friends started playing, as did I. I took a few lessons, which got me started and I did pretty well for all the years. As with any instrument, it takes lots of practice to get good, and that knowledge and experience served me very well when I started playing uke, took to it very readily. As much as I liked playing guitar, since playing ukulele, I actually haven't touched my guitars since.


8 tenor cutaway ukes, 3 acoustic bass ukes, 8 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. http://www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: https://www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/videos

Same here, although I stopped playing guitar due to bone spurs in the back of my fingering wrist that were aggravated by big stretches and bending my wrist forward around that fatter neck. The uke is small and light, and fits me just fine. If I play my ukes long and hard enough, the bone spur can still aggravate those tendons, but playing classical guitar ultimately became agonizing.
 
I find ukulele easier than guitar. Of course it depends what you expect to accomplish on your instrument.
I had a guitar, but rarely managed to learn new songs. Unfamiliar chords were difficult to learn. On a ukulele new chords are easier.

Ukulele is in some way also a more limited instrument, so arrangements can be harder if you want to do fancy stuff.

It is a trade off: It is harder to play a basis line on a reentrant ukulele than on a guitar. Not to say virtually impossible. But that just means that you don't have to worry about the bass line, which makes it easier to play the Ukulele.
 
I am surprised they left out spoon and the Jews Harp.

Or one of my favorites, the saw. I have a couple on my Wish List on Amazon. I also like the Theremin, but considering the cost and the size, I'm glad I never got one. My tin whistle and harmonicas don't take up much room, but storing a Theremin would require storage space I don't have. : )
 
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I purchased a guitar on a whim for 100dollars on Kijiji classifieds last sunday. Definitely harder :) Steel strings... higher action and harder to press than a uke. Also it feels ginormous. ! Trying to learn the few duke ellington tunes that I can play on the uke on the guitar :) we'll see how it goes!
 
Every instrument has difficulties. Things that are hard on one can be easier on another and vice versa. I have always felt that to truly master any instrument and play it at a high level is difficult.
 
Some think the recorder is easy and it is common to teach it to young kids in school

 
For me, ukulele is easier to play than guitar, or at least more comfortable and more relaxed. I suppose a guitar is more complex, but that doesn't necessarily mean the music usually played on it is more complex also. Looking at the stuff Corey, Daniel Ho or George Elmes play, to name just a few, and what John King played, there's very little chance most of us will ever run out of challenges with the ukulele, or ever "master" the instrument. In some ways, as mentioned above, the guitar is easier because there's a larger range of notes in the same space.
 
For me, ukulele is easier to play than guitar, or at least more comfortable and more relaxed. I suppose a guitar is more complex, but that doesn't necessarily mean the music usually played on it is more complex also. Looking at the stuff Corey, Daniel Ho or George Elmes play, to name just a few, and what John King played, there's very little chance most of us will ever run out of challenges with the ukulele, or ever "master" the instrument. In some ways, as mentioned above, the guitar is easier because there's a larger range of notes in the same space.

In my painting group this week, a woman was talking about going to music camp - with her cello! She was concerned about how to get it there. Would she be able to fit it inside the car with everything else, or should she get a car-top carrier. I said, "There's always room for cello."
 
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