The ukulele isn't a toy guitar. It's the most welcoming instrument ever made — a first-week guitarist is still fighting for a clean E minor while a first-week uke player is already strumming You Are My Sunshine at the campfire.
In ~30 minutes you'll be able to:
- Play C, F, and G7 — the three chords behind hundreds of songs
- Strum the one pattern that carries most beginner songs
- Start You Are My Sunshine — and finish it by Friday
You'll need: a ukulele and a $10 clip-on tuner. That's it.
Four sizes, one obvious first pick
Bigger means deeper tone and more room between frets. That's the whole tradeoff.
| Size | Length | Sound | Pick it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soprano | ~21" | Bright and plinky — the classic uke voice | You want the sound everyone pictures, or have small hands |
| Concert | ~23" | A little warmer, a little roomier | You're an adult buying a first uke |
| Tenor | ~26" | Fuller, almost guitar-like low end | You have larger fingers, or bigger ambitions |
| Baritone | ~30" | Honestly? A small guitar | You already play guitar (see the FAQ) |
What to buy first
Get a concert. It's roomy enough to be comfortable, small enough to still feel like a uke, and it matches every tutorial you'll ever watch. Spend $80–150 on something with geared tuners, not friction pegs — a uke that won't stay in tune isn't fun, no matter how cheap it was.
The tuning is G-C-E-A — and the G is high on purpose
Soprano, concert, and tenor ukes all tune to G-C-E-A, from the string closest to your face to the string closest to the floor.
Here's the weird part: that G is high — higher than the C and E next to it, so a downward strum zigzags in pitch instead of climbing. The zigzag is called re-entrant tuning, and it's where the ukulele's bouncy, cheerful sound comes from. Leave it.
Tuning takes a $10 clip-on tuner clamped to the headstock: pluck a string, turn the peg until the needle centers on the right letter, repeat four times. Do it every time you pick the uke up — an out-of-tune ukulele is the fastest way to hate your ukulele.
New strings stretch and drift flat for the first week or two; keep retuning and they'll settle.
Your strumming arm holds it — no strap required
Sit down. Press the body gently against your ribs and lay your strumming forearm across the top edge of the uke — that arm alone keeps it in place. Your fretting thumb floats behind the neck, opposite your index finger. Don't grip: the uke should stay put even if you let go with the fretting hand entirely.
Sitting is fine. Sitting is the way.
C, F, and G7 — the easiest first trio on any instrument
Together these three cover the key of C major and hundreds of songs. Here they come, one finger at a time.
C — one finger
CRing finger on the third fret of the A string — the string closest to the floor. Strum all four strings.
Two seconds of work. Already a chord.
F — two fingers
FIndex on the first fret of the E string, middle on the second fret of the G string. Strum all four.
The hard part isn't the shape — it's curling your fingers so they don't mute the open C and A strings. Press with the fingertips, not the pads.
G7 — three fingers
G7Index on the first fret of the E string, middle on the second fret of the C string, ring on the second fret of the A string. Strum all four.
What you just learned
In the key of C major these three are the I, IV, and V7 — the most important chords in the key. G7 does the heavy lifting: it builds the tension that makes the music want to land back home on C, and that tension-and-release is the engine behind most popular music. The full story is in chord progressions explained.
One strum pattern carries you for months
D-D-U-U-D-U — down, down, up, up, down, up. Six strums per measure.
Your strumming hand never stops moving. On the skipped strums it swings past the strings without touching them.
The motion is constant. The contact is selective.
Loop the pattern on C alone until your wrist stops thinking about it. Then a bar of F, a bar of G7, back to C. Now you're playing music.
Skip the pick
The classic uke strum is your bare index finger — nail brushing down for a bright, percussive plink, pad brushing up for a warmer answer. Most pros never touch a pick. Some strum with the thumb instead; try both and keep whichever feels right.
Your first song by Friday
With C, F, and G7 you can already play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday, and You Are My Sunshine. Start with Sunshine — it holds each chord the longest, which buys you time to switch.
- "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine" — C, then F, then C
- "You make me happy when skies are gray" — C, then G7, then C
- "You'll never know dear, how much I love you" — F, then C
- "Please don't take my sunshine away" — C, G7, C
If you can get through that song without stopping — even slowly, even with mistakes — you're playing the ukulele. Most people get there by day five.
Four more chords cover most requests
Once C, F, and G7 are reliable, add these:
| Chord | Fingers | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Am | 1 | The relative minor of C — the chord songs turn wistful on |
| Dm | 3 | The other minor every beginner needs |
| D7 | 2 | Bright and bluesy — the V7 that pulls to G |
| A7 | 1 | The V7 of D minor, all over uke songbooks |
With C, F, G7, Am, Dm, D7, and A7 — seven chords total — you can play probably 80% of the popular songs anyone will ever ask you to play on a ukulele.
The songs every uke player ends up playing
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Israel Kamakawiwoʻole) — the song that revived the ukulele
- I'm Yours (Jason Mraz) — one four-chord loop, entire song
- Riptide (Vance Joy) — Am–G–C, that iconic intro
- Hey Soul Sister (Train) — four chords, relentless D-D-U-U-D-U
A month inside those four songs makes you a competent ukulele player — not by music-school standards, but by the only standard that matters: people enjoy listening to you.
Which size ukulele should a beginner buy?
Concert. It's roomy enough for adult hands, small enough to still sound like a uke, and it uses the standard G-C-E-A tuning every tutorial assumes. Spend $80–150 and insist on geared tuners rather than friction pegs.
Do I need a pick?
No. The standard uke strum is the bare index finger — nail brushing down, pad brushing up. If fingers feel wrong, a soft felt pick works fine, but most players never use one.
Why is the G string higher than the C string?
That's re-entrant tuning: the strings don't run low to high, so every strum zigzags in pitch — the source of the ukulele's signature bounce. If you want a more linear, guitar-like voice, you can fit a low-G string, but high G is the canonical ukulele sound.
What's a baritone ukulele?
The biggest size, about 30 inches, tuned D-G-B-E — exactly the top four strings of a guitar, so every guitar chord shape transfers directly. It sounds like a small guitar rather than a plinky uke. A great second uke for guitarists, but a confusing first uke, since nearly all tutorials and chord charts assume G-C-E-A.
- Strumming Patterns — the right hand, upgraded
- How to Read a Chord Chart — decode any songbook
- Every ukulele chord — when the songbook asks for more
A year from now, you'll be the person at the party who actually picks up the ukulele instead of pretending the request didn't happen.
Play You Are My Sunshine by Friday.