Fingerpicking on a concert size

RLM3121

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I am wondering if many people use a concert uke for fingerpicking. Do you feel the size limits you or do you just adjust to the smaller size. I am curious to see what people think.
 
I enjoy finger picking on a concert as much as with a tenor. I certainly don’t feel limited by a concert. If anything they seems a bit more relaxed to play.
 
I like the concert scale so never had to adjust. I tried tenor many times in stores and did not adjust. So ye, I fingerpick (and strum, and touch tenderly...) my concert ukes.
 
I fingerpick both concert and soprano and can hardly tell the difference.
 
I have just discovered Del Rey :D What an inspirational musician. Here she is fingerpicking a concert scale resonator.

I attended a Del Rey workshop last fall and I'm pretty sure that she can play anything on anything.
 
My concert is tuned "low-G" so it gets used as when I play an arrangement that requires it. My tenor is tuned "hi-G" so gets more use, but I must admit to not really noticing the difference unless I put one instrument down and immediately pick up the other!

Having said all that, I must admit to happily moving from various ukuleles to 4 and 5-string banjo to mandolin to 6 and 12-string guitar or bass guitar with little more than a few bars of "re-acclimatisation". However, I didn't learn all the instruments at the same time, there being probably several years between one and the next, so the various "muscle-memories" had plenty of time to become established ;)

YMMV :music:
 
You lucky devil! That must have been fun, she looks so natural & I love the music she plays :D
I've been to a lot of workshops by a lot of celebrity ukulele players and Del Rey is the first one who flat out told people to quit incessantly noodling their ukuleles while she was talking and playing. I wanted to applaud her for it. But she puts on more of an intermediate workshop, at least the one that I attended. She showed us a lot of neat little riffs and tricks. I really liked her and her style of teaching.
 
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I am wondering if many people use a concert uke for fingerpicking. Do you feel the size limits you or do you just adjust to the smaller size. I am curious to see what people think.

I like finger picking on my concert ukes almost more than on my tenors, though they all have different nut widths and neck sizes which seems to be more important than and is independent of scale length. Though with shorter scale than tenor it has also some advantages for picking. I never managed to get comfortable with soprano so don't know how going even smaller would work.
 
I was lucky enough to see Del Rey in concert last year - I'd love to take her workshop. She's one of my favorite uke players.

I fingerpick on both concert and tenor. I prefer the concert fretboard size, but the tenor sound. I have trouble stretching on the tenor fretboard.
 
I am wondering if many people use a concert uke for fingerpicking. Do you feel the size limits you or do you just adjust to the smaller size. I am curious to see what people think.

I fingerpick on a soprano and the size is pretty comfortable for me. I have relatively small hands and tenor is sort of out of range when a song ask for a 5th to 14th stretch across the fretboard. A well built smaller ukes, soprano or concert should have the same properties as a well built tenor. There’s no limiting factors that I can see. So, use whichever is most comfortable to you.
 
I fingerpick on a soprano and the size is pretty comfortable for me. I have relatively small hands and tenor is sort of out of range when a song ask for a 5th to 14th stretch across the fretboard. A well built smaller ukes, soprano or concert should have the same properties as a well built tenor. There’s no limiting factors that I can see. So, use whichever is most comfortable to you.

This is important especially if you are going to play to the 12th fret and beyond. Extra care needs to be taken to find a concert with the clarity, volume, and sustain if you are playing melodies up the neck. If you are using fingerpicking patterns, primarily with chords around the nut, it is not as critical.

I don’t play sopranos, but years ago I did test out an older Martin 5K at a music store and was blown away at how well it played and sounded, even above the 12th fret. I was also blown away by the price, but it played and sounded so good, I did consider it, at least for a few moments... lol.

You don’t need to spend big bucks, but it needs to be a quality ukulele.

John
 
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You lucky devil! That must have been fun, she looks so natural & I love the music she plays :D



I saw her at a workshop attended by only about a dozen ukulele club people just a few months ago. I think it changed my life, and it certainly changed my playing. I can't get enough of that stuff!

I fingerpick sopranos and never think twice about it. I prefer the sound. Maybe the Concert is slightly easier for fiddle tunes, but then I wind up finishing the song up on the soprano.
 
This is important especially if you are going to play to the 12th fret and beyond. Extra care needs to be taken to find a concert with the clarity, volume, and sustain if you are playing melodies up the neck. If you are using fingerpicking patterns, primarily with chords around the nut, it is not as critical.

I don’t play sopranos, but years ago I did test out an older Martin 5K at a music store and was blown away at how well it played and sounded, even above the 12th fret. I was also blown away by the price, but it played and sounded so good, I did consider it, at least for a few moments... lol.

You don’t need to spend big bucks, but it needs to be a quality ukulele.

John

Agree on every word. Too many poorly built/setup sopranos and concerts. Hey, a Martin 5K is my ultimate holy grail soprano too although I never play one nor see it in person before.
 
Thanks so much for the input. It reaffirms what I was thinking. It’s great to here all the opinions.
 
Sure - you can finger pick anything, including a sopranino. But I find the limiting factor on concert and soprano sizes to be the fretboard extension. If your hand falls such that you would be plucking over the end of the fretboard when cradling the uke, then I find it to be too shallow and will have to pull back to the sound hole; so I end up strumming near where the neck joins the body then pulling back to pick - which is a bit busy.
Soprano with 12 or 13 frets no problem. I have a concert with 15 frets that works o.k. Whereas the scale length on a tenor gives enough room to pick/ strum in the same sort of area.
I guess it depends on your playing style too.
A Martin 5k would be a bit awkward for me - but I'd be willing to suffer if I had too.
 
I am wondering if many people use a concert uke for fingerpicking. Do you feel the size limits you or do you just adjust to the smaller size. I am curious to see what people think.

I have only fingerpicked on a concert. I recently purchased a low g Tenor, but I am just starting on that so I haven't learned more than a few measures. I actually find fingerpicking easier on the Concert as it is easier to stretch to hit some notes. Even on a Concert, some of those stretches can be brutal.
 
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I find that the nut width is more important than the scale. So for me a concert with a 1 1/2 inch nut is easier to fingerpick than a 1 3/8 tenor.
 
I fingerpick both concert and soprano and can hardly tell the difference.

Same here. I finger pick on both soprano & concert. It is a little easier on concert for me, but I do it on both without a problem.
 
I fingerpick on all my ukuleles. My soprano has 12 frets, the concerts 15, 17 and 19 frets. The tenor has 18 frets although I am not currently using it. I am rather delighted that my concert pineapple has 19 frets. I don’t play much bast 12 frets, one of the pieces has notes on the 15th fret which is not playable on th soprano, and barely on the northern which has 15 frets. (A ukulele may have more than 12 frets, butI’m finding the really top frets are not playable in my hands.)
 
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