Soprano, Concert, Tenor, and Bass Ukulele

The ukulele is a tiny guitar, in my humble opinion. Traditionally, ukulele is used as a starter instrument for future guitar players for the following reasons:

1. Less strings to worry about

2. The pitch intervals between the 4 strings have similarities to the higher-pitched 4 strings of a guitar

3. Chord shapes translate to guitar

As someone who started on guitar first, I did not like the ukulele for the longest time because even though the instruments have these similarities, the pitch differences made it somewhat unplayable for me until I found the correlation:

Open position on ukulele is like putting a capo on the 5th fret of a guitar, and only playing the high 3-4 strings

Once I started thinking of ukulele in this way, I began playing it a lot more. I also ignored the G-string of the ukulele for single note playing because It was an octave too high for guitar note and scale patterns.

Moral of the story:

Guitar players should ignore the ukulele G-string for single note lines, and pretend like they are playing near the 5th fret of the guitar.

Before reading this, please read the above article on the correlation between uke and guitar. When we understand that the string numbers 1-6 on a guitar go from high to low pitch (bottom to top), then it gets confusing when ukuleles can have a high G (4th string on top). Since I started playing guitar before I played ukulele, I got used to the logical pattern of how to find lower vs. higher notes by choosing vertically higher or lower strings. With the ukulele G string pitched an octave higher than I feel like it should be, it then renders all of the scale patterns that I have practiced on the guitar uselesss on that string. To compensate for this, I decided to only use the G string for chord shapes and to never use it for single note lines. Luckily strings 1-3 follow the more logical higher to lower pitch sequence, so all of the scale patterns from guitar translate onto those 3 strings so I at least can play melodies to an extent. If you are bothered by this as much as me, then there is good news for you! If you own a concert or tenor ukulele, then you can get a Low G set of strings, which lowers the pitch of the 4th string back down the octave to where it darn well should be! These strings aren't really meant for soprano ukuleles, but I suppose you can try them if you want. If I buy a new ukulele, it will either be a concert or a tenor, and before I even play it, I will restring it with the Low G set of strings! Problem solved!