Ukulele For Dummies Read Online Free PDF Page A

composers wrote great melodies that are still effective when played unadorned on a ukulele.
    Today, the uke can truly be called a globally played and appreciated instrument. You can play any imaginable genre and style of music on the ukulele. You can even hear the ukulele in the pop charts, from hip-hop act Janelle Monae to indie bands such as Beirut and pop stars Train.
    So, read on and don’t be left out!

Chapter 2
    Tuning Up to Sound Great
    In This Chapter
    Discovering the basic musical terms
    Turning on to tuning up
    Deciding which tuning to use
    Examining various ways to tune
    I ’m sure that you’ve heard the various parts of an orchestra tuning up before a concert; that’s because musical instruments need to be tuned before they can be played harmoniously. This process is easier for some instruments than others: for example, those rich, lazy piano players hire someone to tune their instruments for them. Humble ukulele players, however, have to tune up themselves, which can be a chore (but allows us to feel superior!).
    Tuning your uke properly is vital – it’s the difference between making a pleasant sound and sounding like a cat stuck in barbed wire. When you tune your uke, you’re adjusting the pitch of the strings so that:
    The strings are in tune with each other. For example, if you play a B note on the thinnest, highest-pitched string (the A-string) it sounds the same as a B played on the g-string.
    The ukulele is in tune with other instruments. For example, an A chord on your ukulele sounds the same as an A chord on a guitar.
    In this chapter, I explain the tuning process so you can be sure that you always make a beautiful sound when you play. Along with that, I explain a few terms involved in the tuning process (so you’ll know how to refer to strings, frets and notes) and some musical terms (like chords and scales ) that you’ll hear all the time on your musical journey. So read on . . .
    Knowing Some Musical Terms
    When learning to play an instrument, you’re going to come across a huge pile of musical jargon. Enough is out there to fill a whole book, and in fact you may want to check out Music Theory For Dummies by Michael Pilhofer and Holly Day (Wiley) to find out more. In this section, however, I go over just a few of the musical words and concepts that you’re sure to encounter.
    Notes as letters
    In music, notes are given the names of letters A to G. After G, the letters go straight back to A.
    In order to confuse the uninitiated, the musical alphabet starts with C, and that’s handy for ukulele players because the lowest note on the ukulele is middle-C (so called because the note is smack-dab in the middle of the piano’s 88 keys).
    To confuse matters, some notes lie between these letters: these are known as sharps and flats (the black keys on a piano). For example, the note between A and B can be called either A sharp or B flat (see Figure 2-1). But, and this is where it gets really confusing, not all letters have a note between them.
    Figure 2-1: Locating A /B on the piano.

    Don’t give yourself a headache by trying to remember all the sharps and flats at this stage. You’re sure to pick them up as you go along. Just remember what the words mean when you come across them:
    A sharp is represented by an italic hash sign: .
    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.