Chords!!!

Alright! Time to start playing some songs! While jamming out with your friends, or just making some sweet music on your own, you will be relying on chords for your melody or rhythm of a song. Chords are your friends. You will almost always use chords when you play the ukulele. They are an important part of music.

Chords are simply a group of notes played together. When you strum your uke you are playing a chord. You can play different chords by pressing down on a string behind the little metal bars on the neck with your fingers. Those little metal bars are called frets, and the wood the frets are laid upon is called the fretboard.

It is important to press down on a string BEHIND the fret because if you were to press down directly on top of the fret the string would make a buzzing sound when you play it.

It is also important to ARCH your fingers so that only your fingertips touch the strings and not keep any other strings from vibrating.
   
In this blog I will show you four commonly used chords. I will be using chord diagrams from ukulele boogaloo and my own pictures to help show the finger positions for each chord.

To understand the chord diagrams imagine that you are looking directly at the fretboard of your uke. The thin horizontal lines are the frets, and the black circles with numbers are where you should place your fingers. The numbers tell you what fingers to use for each chord.

• Your index finger is your 1st finger,
• your middle is your 2nd,
• your ring is your 3rd,
• and your pinky is your 4th.

You DO NOT have to follow the chord diagrams exactly for which fingers to place above each fret. As long as you cover the same fret, you can use whichever fingers you feel comfortable using.

The first chord I will show you is the C chord, also known as the C Major chord.

1. Simply place your ring finger on the 3rd fret of the A string. That's it! Easy yeah?
   

Next will be the  G (or G Major) chord.

1.  Place your index finger on the C string 2nd fret,
2. your middle finger on the A string 2nd fret,
3. and your ring finger on the E string 3rd fret.

Try to keep your thumb behind the neck of the uke so that your fingers can arch and not touch other strings.








D (or D Major)

1. Place your index on the G string 2nd fret,
2. your middle on the C string 2nd fret,
3. and your ring on the E string 2nd fret.

Notice that in my picture I am holding the chord differently from the chord diagram. I am only using one finger (my middle finger) to hold down the G, C, and E strings of the 2nd fret. Fretting multiple strings with one finger is called barring.



Am (or A Minor)

1. Place your middle finger on the G string 2nd fret. Another easy one! Yay!

To get a clean sound with this chord you have to arch your middle finger so that you don't touch any of the other strings and only the fingertip of your middle finger touches the 2nd fret of the G string.

You just learned four chords! Time to learn a song!



"You Belong With Me" - Taylor Swift

The best way to practice newly learned chords is through song! With C, G, D, and Am you will be able to play Taylor Swift's hit single "You Belong With Me"!

The Strumming Pattern
D DU UDU (the spaces in between the two D's and the two U's indicate a small pause as if you were strumming in between)

The Chord Progression:
Verse: G, D, Am, C
Pre-Chorus: Am, C, G, D, Am, C, G, D
Chorus: G, D, Am, C (same as the verse)

For the majority of this song you will be following the strumming pattern D DU UDU. Repeat this pattern twice for each chord before you change to the next chord. For example, you're gonna start off with the G chord strumming [D DU UDU][D DU UDU], and then you're gonna change to C. Repeat this until the pre-chorus, which is when you sing, "she wears short skirts, I wear sneakers..." At this point the strumming pattern will change to just D D D D. Strum down 4 times for each chord then change to the next chord.

Song Summary:

1. Repeat the pattern D DU UDU twice for each chord during the verse.
2. Switch to a four-beat down strum for each chord of the pre-chorus.
3. Switch back to repeating D DU UDU twice per chord for the chorus.