Ukulele For Dummies (7 page)

A flat is represented by a lop-sided, lower case letter b:
.

Check out Appendix B for more on reading music.

Half steps and whole steps

Half step
and
whole step
are terms that refer to the distances between notes. Half a step is a distance of one fret on the ukulele fretboard and a whole step is a distance of two frets.

In more formal musical language, a half step is called a
semitone
and a whole step is called a
tone
.

Chords and scales

A
chord
is a group of notes played at the same time.
Simple
chords are made up of three notes, whereas
complex
chords have four notes. Some crazy jazz chords use even more than that. Chords with more than four notes create a bit of a problem for the four strings of the ukulele, but ukulele players are smart enough to find ways to get around that by leaving out one or more of the less important notes in the chord.

Scales
consist of a series of notes. Some scales are so common that you recognise them as soon as you hear them – even without any musical training at all. Melodies are created by picking notes out of a scale. For example, the major scale is used in a huge number of the most well-known tunes, ‘Happy Birthday' being the most well known of all.

Major and minor

The two broad categories of sounds in music are as follows:

Major
chords and scales are regarded as happy. ‘Happy Birthday' uses the major scale.

Minor
chords and scales are regarded as sad. ‘The Funeral March' uses the minor scale.

Some tunes lead to confusion, however. Barney the Dinosaur's ‘I Love You, You Love Me' uses the major scale but repeated hearing makes adults so unhappy that it has been suggested as a torture technique!

Pitching Into Tuning Basics

The note a string plays (known as its
pitch
) depends on three things, two of which you set before starting to play to select the tuning:

How tight the string is:
The tighter the string, the higher the note, and the looser the string, the lower the note. You can control the tightness of the string by using the tuning pegs. (Flip to Chapter 1 for a description of the uke's various parts.) Turn the peg counter-clockwise to tighten the string (and raise its pitch). Or turn it clockwise to make the string looser (to lower its pitch).

How thick the string is:
The thinner the string, the higher the note.

Most string instruments, such as the guitar, arrange their strings from fattest at the top (nearest to the player's head) to thinnest at the bottom from the point of view of the player holding the instrument. The ukulele, however, is ‘inside out' in that the two thinnest, highest-pitched strings are the outside strings (and are very close in pitch) and the fattest, lowest-pitched strings are the two inside ones.

How long the string is:
The shorter the string, the higher the note. You take advantage of varying the string length when you start playing: holding down a string against the fretboard makes it shorter and, therefore, higher in pitch.

Unravelling Tunings for Your Instrument

Ukulele tunings have changed over time, and plenty of variety still exists with different players using different tunings for their ukuleles. Several tunings are possible, such as gCEA, aDF
B and low-G, and I take a look at the common ones in this section.

Ukulele tunings are identified by starting with the string at the top (nearest your head when holding the uke) and moving downwards to the bottom string, farthest away and nearest the floor.

Although these groups of letters may look complicated, they simply indicate the pitch to which each string is tuned. For example,
gCEA
tuning means that the string nearest to you (known as the fourth string) is tuned to a high g note (when writing about uke tuning, lower-case indicates a high g as opposed to a lower-sounding G-string). The next string down (the third string) is tuned to C, the second to E and the first string (furthest away from you) is tuned to A (see Figure 2-2). Nip to Chapter 1 for some basics on notes and Appendix B for more on reading music.