Do I need to learn music theory to play the ukulele?

Absolutely not. I played guitar for almost 50 years and knew nothing about music theory in all that time. Same with the ukulele I started playing 5 years ago. I've been told many times I'm a good player, when I was playing guitar and now with the uke.


8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

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At the same time, it gives you a little better understanding of how the music is built. Understanding basic chord progressions and the structure and functions can be very helpful. It can aid in memorization, transposition, and general playing. Is it essential? I suppose not, just as one can cook and follow a recipe, but not have any understanding of food, science, safety or how things work. It all depends on what you want to accomplish and how much you want to know. Certainly, it would not be a bad thing.

I always suggest this book http://www.edly.com/mtfpp.html It is VERY user friendly. While many music there texts can be really dry and boring, I daresay that this actually makes theory seem lighthearted and fun.
 
No - but a little bit of basic understanding helps a lot.

John Colter.
 
You don't need to go through a curriculum of theory before playing, but you will probably pick up a little bit of theory as you learn the ukulele.

You can just start with learning 2-3 chords by heart and strum them.
But allready here you will have to learn a bit about tempo - if you are playing 4/4 or 3/4.
It is not tricky, it is all in the srumming pattern.

In the same way you are going to learn a bit even if you don't try.
 
All you need to know is that the ukulele won't play itself. You gotta do that. If you start to feel hungry for theory, then get some.
 
I suppose that question is similar to do I need to learn grammar in order to speak? The answer of course is no, but you will probably express yourself better if you do.
 
Ukulele, like singing, doesn’t require any knowledge of music theory or the ability to read music.

I’m a music teacher, and this doesn’t mean that I support illiteracy in music—but to deny it would be actually living in denial myself. So I try to combat the state of affairs.

You would be surprised, however, how much music theory impacts you because you have heard music all of your life, and the lion’s share of the music we listen to—regardless of style—tends to follow the rules of music theory (and the stuff that doesn’t is so avant garde on the classical end of the spectrum that most people haven’t heard it).

That’s why a G7 to C sounds “right”...you’ve heard what we “music theory” people call an “authentic cadence” in most of the music that you’ve heard throughout your life.

Just know this...if you start learning ukulele, and liking it—there is a whole world of music theory that you can start learning more about which will help you understand why things work—and sometimes, to know why something doesn’t work. There are plenty of errors in the Yellow Book, and I find them with my ears before I analyze why they are wrong with my brain (and what should be done about the error).

So...for now, learn chords, play, sing, and have fun. And if you’re ready for the challenge some day, start learning about theory.
 
I've been playing ukulele for about a year & a half. It's my first musical instrument, and I have no prior musical education. I'm 58 years old. I am completely addicted to the ukulele, and can't imagine my life without it now. I'm learning music theory little by little, mostly by osmosis. If you can find a group to play with & learn from, you'll pick up some music theory little by little. Is it necessary ......no. Is it helpful ......yes.
 
I've come to believe musical theory is often nothing more than a way of explaining why some things sound right while others do not. Ultimately, I still rely on my ears to tell me that.
 
Is it necessary to have music theory knowledge to play the ukulele?

No it is not necessary. You can just memorize some chords and start playing songs immediately, which is why ukes are so beloved.

I'm a theory nerd myself. I find it fascinating and exciting and liberating. But plenty of people play all kinds of instruments and even write songs without understanding theory.
 
I think that you don't have to learn theory to play an instrument, but you will learn theory when you play an instrument. I see a lot of musicians who say that they do not know music theory, then I watch them putting a whole lot of music theory into practice. Let's face it, as soon as you learn to play a C chord, you are putting a C, an E, and a G together to form a chord, and that is music theory, whether you know that it is or not.
 
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I think when it comes to explaining to someone why we do what we do in selecting
certain chords that make up our rendition of a song, then Music Theory vocabulary
comes in handy as a common language or jargon we can use.

when playing alone, we only have to make sense to ourselves, then anything goes :)

as a common way of expressing things to each other, Music Theory vocabulary is handy,
as long as we mean the same thing with the same words :) Like 'adjusting' a watch
movement or 'regulating' it... or 'acronym' vs 'initialism' (I just learned the difference
the other day :)), we can use terms, but if we don't mean the same thing as when
someone else uses the term, we can confuse each other.

anyway, ... :)

keep uke'in',
 
“Need” is a strong word. I played uke long before I wanted to learn more theory. You absorb some theory along the way, but for me, there came a point where I began to notice patterns in chord formation and scales, chord progressions and the like and enjoyed delving into theory to nail down exactly what was going on. It’s liberating to understand what notes makes a certain chord. How can I change that to a minor, a seven, etc, and not have to break out a chord chart. Even something like being able to know what sharps and flats are in each key and why. It may take me a minute but I like being able to figure it out for myself. It’s not really memorizing, it’s understanding. I don’t thing you “need” to do anything but play. Theory knowledge might just become a “want”.
 
It depends on what you want to do with the ukulele as an instrument. For learning how to play songs or play along with others, it's not essential. However it is very good in these situations as will help you to improvise while playing. It will also help you to understand the relationships between chords in progressions, along with which chords work well together and which do not. Having an understanding of theory will also allow you to learn how to construct chords and play scales.

When I played guitar, I didn't really have any interest in theory, and although I'm learning since I picked up the uke, the one thing that learning theory has really done for me is help me learn to play the likes of scales and lead by ear - when I played guitar, I struggled to play scales across the fretboard and in different positions as I just could not remember the different positions of the patterns. Since trying to learn theory properly, it has definitely helped me in knowing which notes in scales play well together across the fretboard, and has helped me in playing some lead and different progressions.
 
Theory can be very useful for some musicians....very handy if you’re a session player who needs to turn up and read notation for example. Less so for others. Some musicians, say songwriters for instance, may find that having little or no theory, no music “rules” perhaps, actually works to their advantage because they’re more likely to find unusual musical alleyways to wander down.
 
I went down the music theory rabbit hole a few years ago. At first I was just learning theory as it applied to what I was doing and playing on my ukulele, but it took over. I would get into these deep discussions about the most obscure aspects of it and eventually I had to remind myself that I was learning to play the ukulele. I backed off and now I try to keep it relevant.
 
What makes this topic complicated is the fact that theory has such a broad definition that most of us aren't talking about the same thing, although we are all talking about theory. For example I could say anyone who doesn't study theory isn't worth their weight in beans and does not deserve their ukulele. However, by theory I am not thinking about stuff like re-harmonizations or tritone substitutions, but how the ukulele makes higher pitched sounds the closer you move to the soundhole or how orderly the fret board is laid out. So, depending on what definition of theory we are using, our opinions can either be outlandish or commonsensical.
 
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