How the chords are named on ukulele?

abhinav

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Aloha!
I am having hard time understanding why the chords are named the way they are? I mean, in Am-chord, we press second fret 4th string which is Am note. Same for the C chord, but why F-chord is F-chord, when we are pressing F and Am notes? Why F chord is combination of notes (F + C + Am + A) and not something else?

I found some explanation on this site, but it does not completely answer my question.

I am a beginner, sorry if it is too obvious.
 
hello Abhinav,
everybody has to start somewhere, so no worries! what you are calling an Am note is an A note. we combine notes to form chords which is where 'major' or 'minor' comes into play. plenty of other members will chime in with more useful information, I'm sure. you should try to find a beginner's book, there a many to choose from.
good luck and enjoy your journey!
-Ramone
 
The easiest tool to learn music theory (as far as chords and such are concerned) is probably the Fretboard Toolbox by Scott Sharp. There's one available for ukuleles (and baritones, too) on the Fretboard Toolbox site. The free preview covers the key of C, and there are some videos that accompany the book.

 
The easiest tool to learn music theory (as far as chords and such are concerned) is probably the Fretboard Toolbox by Scott Sharp. There's one available for ukuleles (and baritones, too) on the Fretboard Toolbox site. The free preview covers the key of C, and there are some videos that accompany the book.



This makes sense, and cleared one important point to me that it doesn't matter which order you are playing the strings (GCEC/ CGEC/ CCGE and so on..), it is indeed a C chord. Now this raises another question which is aligned with my original question that why 1,3,5 is used for Major chords? What makes these numbers special? Why only three? and so on...
 
Chords are usually made of 3 or more notes, typically aligned in 3rds.

Example: C...C (skip D) E (skip F) G. The distance between each of the notes impacts the sound of the chord, and depending on the space between the notes, we determine whether a chord is major, minor, diminished, or whatever.

In your stated example, F and Am share two notes, and differ in one note.

F: F A C
Am: A C E
 
The frequencies (in Hertz) of the notes do not happen by an accident. The uke is designed to generate notes which follow a mathematical formula for the frequencies. The notes or frequencies follow a sinusoidal pattern, the 1 3 and 5 frequencies are mathematically calculated to work together harmoniously in accordance with sound physics and sine wave behaviour.
So the music theory has some mathematics behind it which ensures that it works to make nice sounds on modern instruments. At a beginner stage I would focus on music theory and learning to play and leave the mathematics for another time when you have progressed. Most ukulele players don't bother with the mathematics.

You people are probably right, i should not focus much on the mathematical aspect of music. But I want to play the uke as well as understand it. I think this is my way of connecting with the instrument. May be I am wrong.
 
Initially, you don't really need to understand why chords are named as they are—the "answers" just lead to further conundrums that require even deeper explanations because of the plethora of counter-examples beyond the simplest chord types. Regardless of the why, it's far more important to learn where the root is in your chord shapes, from the very start. But as an exposition on that is rather off-topic and would be lengthy, I won't launch into it. (My explanations in this vein usually fall on deaf ears, anyway: "La la la, don't want to know...")
Its perfectly fine. I really want to know.


I'm not meaning to shut down or discount the current discussion on the question, which I think is quite valuable; I'm just saying, even if you don't understand the why, focus on the where. The extra effort and attention will pay off amply not only in minor ways from the start but in more obvious ways down the road. Virtually everything I do with chords these days relies on knowing the root positions in shapes.
I will follow this advice. Currently I am following Ukulele for dummies by A. Wood and will pay more attention to root in my chord. Thank you. :)

(NOTE to any beginner(like me) reading this: Root of chord is the Note after which the chord is named, eg. C is root of C Chord, and the C note is on open 3rd string and fretted 1st string)
 
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