Lesson 2

Hello and welcome back to the second ukulele lesson. In today's lesson, I'm going to be quickly teaching you how to tune your ukulele. If a ukulele is in tune, it will sound better. It isn't very hard to tell if an instrument is out of tune. If you strum a C major chord, and it sounds like anything other than happy, your ukulele is out of tune.

Tuning:

Ukulele strings

The first step in tuning a ukulele differs based on whether it is being played alone, or with accompaniment (with other instruments). If you are playing with accompaniments, the ukulele needs to be in tune with the other instruments before you can tune it to itself. To tune it to go along with accompaniment, all you need to do is correctly tune the lowest string. Then, you can use that string to tune the rest of the ukulele.

Note that percussion instruments like drums don't count, because they don't really play 'notes'.

A ukulele's strings follow the pattern of G, C, E and A. One thing to note, is that the second string of a ukulele is the lowest, not the first, like on a guitar. When tuning a ukulele, start by making sure the lowest string is a C. To do this, you can either play a on another instrument that is already in tune, or on a tuning app, but at the start I would recommend using a tuner, as there are multiple different C's on most instruments, some higher and lower, so this could make it a bit confusing.

After you have your reference to tune the C string, play the C on your ukulele, and the other instrument and decide whether the C on your instruments sounds higher or lower than the other, and adjust the pitch of your instrument using the tuning peg at the very top of the ukulele that is attached to the C string.

Note that if you use a tuning app to tune a ukulele, make sure it is specifically designed for a ukulele, because a tuning app for a guitar will not have a C on it. 

If your C sounds lower than the other C, tighten your string by turning the tuning peg away from your instrument. If your C sounds higher, loosen your string by turning the tuning peg towards your instrument. Once your C is correctly tuned, you can tune all of your other strings against it.

To tune the next string, move a finger up so it is holding down the C string on the fourth fret. But what even is a fret?

Frets:

The fret is basically how high up the string you are. If you look at the ukulele, you will notice how along where the strings are, are small metal ridges. These are called frets, or to be more exact, the spaces between them are. To play the fourth fret of the C string, means to put one of your fingers on the fourth space between these metal ridges on the C string (the second string down).

Plucking the fourth fret of the C string

By playing a string while blocking a fret, it raises the note. Since this string is the lowest, it means by raising it, you can emulate the pitches of the other notes, and tune it using itself.

The fourth fret of the C string is the same pitch as the E string, which is the second lowest string, so now tune the E string until it is the same pitch as the fourth fret of the C string. This is where you should start the tuning process if you are not playing along with other instruments.

Now that your E string is in tune, you can use it to tune the next string, the G string, which is the very first string down on a ukulele. The third fret of the E string is equivalent to the G string so follow the standard procedure and tune the G string. Make sure you can hear that it is the same pitch as the third fret of the E string.

Finally, the second fret of the G string is equivalent to the A string, the last, and highest string. To check it is in tune, strum the chords you learnt last lesson and see if they sound correct.

In Closing:

Good job, now you have learnt to tune the ukulele. Being able to tune your instrument is a very important skill, and one that shouldn't be underestimated, so you should do this often with your ukulele, at least once every two weeks to practise, and also just to keep it in tune.

If you still find it a bit unclear on how to tune your ukulele, there are a few websites and videos I have attached here, that you can use to help understand how to do this better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJGRk3Bny5M
https://ukuguides.com/maintenance/how-to-properly-tune-your-ukulele/
https://ukuleletricks.com/ukulele-tuning-how-to-tune-your-ukulele/

Sincerely,

You Can Ukulele