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

At the end of the day the uke is a fun little instrument that always makes me smile so in the end, forget theory and just have fun!
 
I cannot read music, and have only a basic knowledge of music theory; but the main thing with a uke (for me!) is having fun and singing loads of old favourites. Especially with a bunch of like minded pals (pre-covid of course,and hopefully, post covid!)
 
I cannot read music, and have only a basic knowledge of music theory; but the main thing with a uke (for me!) is having fun and singing loads of old favourites. Especially with a bunch of like minded pals (pre-covid of course,and hopefully, post covid!)

Yes I sometimes wish I'd got a soprano rather than the concert. I like its short, snappy tone.
 
I definitely believe that you should now at least some theory, as it will be kind of difficult to play a decent song without any theoretical knowledge. Of course, there are people that can play easily only from hearing some notes, but that’s not the case for everybody. When I first start playing the ukulele, I thought it’s going to be so easy, as this instrument is supposed to be fun and easy to play. But I’m not going to lie, I did encounter some issues. I used this ukulele guide to help me get on with my music adventure. I really recommend it, for me it was a life saver. Within a few weeks, I was already playing some long and more difficult songs.
 
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I definitely believe that you should now at least some theory, as it will be kind of difficult to play a decent song without any theoretical knowledge.

I think this is an interesting point and I am, in good faith and with all due respect, going to strongly disagree with it. Can you provide any examples of decent songs that would be difficult to play because the player doesn’t have any music theory experience? Maybe the song is only in standard notation? Maybe the only clues you get to play the song are “use a I IV V progression in A”?

Is strongly believe you can play literally any song you want to with 0 music theory exposure as long as there are tabs and I am struggling to come up with a compelling argument against that.
 
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