Chords on the Ukelele

As mentioned before, chords occur when you play three or more sounds simultaneously, or as an arpeggio.

Chords are used to accompany songs, or as a background when another instrument is playing a solo melody.

With the Ukelele, you have 4 strings evenly distributed across a wide audio spectrum, so this instrument can produce some simple and beautiful chords.

To produce a chord, you have to press the right strings on the right frets, in such a way that only notes from the chord produce a sound.

For example, if you want to make a C major chord, which has the notes C, E, and G, you would proceed as follows:

• 1st string is A, but when pressed on the 3rd fret, it produces a C, so we place a finger there;
• 2nd string is E, when played open, and it is part of the chord;
• 3rd string is C, when played open, and is part of the chord;
• 4th string is G, when played open, and it is part of the chord.

The following image shows this chord:

The following table shows the notes required to build some other basic major and minor chords:

Lets try another example, this time from the table above. Say we want to make the Gm7 chord.

The notes on this chord, from the table, are G, Bb, D, and, F. So we proceed as follows:

1st string is A, but when pressed on the 1st fret, it produces a Bb, so we place a finger there;

2nd string is E, but when pressed on the 1st fret, it produces an F, so we place a finger there;

3rd string is C, but when pressed on the 2nt fret, it produces an D, so we place a finger there;

4th string is G, when played open, and it is part of the chord.

So the resulting chord is as shown on the following image:

The important thing is to understand the theory behind intervals, and chord formulas, so you can easily make major, minor, 7ths, 6ths, augmented, diminished chords. Following this logic, you can construct all chords.

This is fine when you have plenty of time in your hands, but not when you want to play a song with some friends.

Fortunately, now you have the DG Ukelele Chords application for Android, which will show you how to make chords quickly.

NOTE: Bear in mind that the Ukelele has four strings, which means that you can only do triad and quad chords. For extended pentad chords such as 9ths, 9/6, you need to drop one of the notes in the chord (usually the 5th).

We recommend you learn by memory the basic major, minor, and seventh chords. The rest comes with practice as you need them.

After you learn some chords, learn to follow along some basic rhythms such as the waltz, and ballades. For lovers of Latin music, you need to know, at least, the bolero, and the bossanova.

Also learn some basic chord progressions.