Virtual Ukulele — Play Ukulele Online with Chords, Free

How to play it

Tap a chord in the row above the neck and its shape goes down on the fretboard: a numbered dot for each finger, and a ring at the nut for each string that rings open. Then drag across the four strings to strum — down, up, as quickly as you like — or tap one string to pick it. Tapping the same chord again strums it.

The row offers the chords of whichever Key is chosen; Any chord holds any of the 108 on the ukulele chord chart, and Another shape walks through the other places on the neck a chord can be played. Choose Notes to let go of the chord: every string then plays at whatever fret you press, which is how the songs under the neck are written out as tab.

On a keyboard, 1 to 7 hold the chords of the key, Space strums, 0 lets go, and Q W E R pick the four strings from the A string down.

Your first four chords

C, F and G7 are the three chords of the key of C, and they take one, two and three fingers. A minor is one more finger and turns three chords into the four that most pop songs are built from.

Every other chord — with its other shapes, its notes, and a microphone check that tells you which of your strings is wrong — is on the ukulele chord chart, and the chords that belong together are grouped by key, starting with the key of C.

Standard, low G and baritone

Standard is G–C–E–A with the high fourth string — the tuning of soprano, concert and tenor ukuleles. Low G drops that string an octave: the chord shapes do not change, the chords gain a bass note, and melodies can reach five notes lower. Baritone is D–G–B–E, the top four strings of a guitar, on a bigger body with a deeper voice — and its chord shapes are a guitar’s, so the buttons draw different shapes there. The notes and frequencies of each are on the ukulele tuning, low G and baritone pages.

The capo, and playing left-handed

Capo clamps the strings at a fret: the shapes and the fret numbers stay as they are, everything sounds higher, and each chord button says what its shape now sounds. Left-handed mirrors the neck so the nut is on the right, the way a left-handed player sees their own.

What the sound is made of

Nothing here is a recording. Each string is modelled as a plucked nylon string, and then passed through a model of a very small body. That body is most of what makes a ukulele sound like one: the air inside resonates near 300 Hz — above the instrument’s own lowest string — so the bottom notes are heard through their overtones rather than their fundamentals, and the notes are gone in about a second, which is why the instrument is strummed rather than left to ring. The baritone has a larger body and a lower resonance.

Those figures are typical ones for the size, not a measurement of a particular ukulele. It is here so a chord sounds like the chord and a tab sounds like the tune.

What it does not do

No strumming patterns played for you, no hammer-ons or slides between frets, and no shapes of your own — a held chord is one of the shapes the page finds. When your own ukulele sounds wrong, the ukulele tuner listens to it and tells you which string has drifted.

Frequently asked questions

What are the easiest ukulele chords to start with?

C, A minor, F and G7. C is one finger (the 3rd fret of the A string), A minor is one finger (the 2nd fret of the G string), F is two and G7 is three. C, F and G7 are the three chords of the key of C, so those alone play a very large number of songs; adding A minor gives the four-chord progression behind much of pop music. All four are open shapes in the first three frets.

Why is the top string of a ukulele higher than the next one?

That is re-entrant tuning. On a standard ukulele the 4th string — the one nearest your face — is tuned to the G above middle C, which is higher than the C string next to it. So the strings do not run low to high the way a guitar’s do: they go G, then down to C, then up through E to A. It keeps all four strings inside one octave, which is what gives a strummed ukulele its close, bright sound. A low-G ukulele replaces that string with one an octave lower.

Are low G chord shapes different from standard ukulele chords?

No. The low G string is the same note as the high one, an octave down, so every chord shape is exactly the same. What changes is the sound — the chords gain a bass note — and the range: a low-G ukulele reaches five notes lower, which is why it suits picked melodies. Choose Low G above the neck to hear the difference with the same shapes.

Are baritone ukulele chords the same as a regular ukulele’s?

The shapes are the same but they make different chords. A baritone is tuned D–G–B–E, a fourth lower than a standard ukulele, so the shape that is C on a soprano is G on a baritone. Its tuning is the top four strings of a guitar, so baritone chord shapes are guitar shapes with the two bass strings left off. Choose Baritone above the neck and the chord buttons draw the baritone’s own shapes.

Can I use this to check my own ukulele?

This page plays the chord so you know what you are aiming for. To check your own instrument, open the chord’s page from the ukulele chord chart: it listens through the microphone while you pluck the strings one at a time and tells you which string is sounding the wrong note. To tune the open strings first, use the ukulele tuner.

Ukulele songs, written out

Each of these opens the ukulele with the song loaded, and prints it as easy melody tab with the string and fret for every note, with a check of which sizes and keys play it.

All 36 ukulele songs → · Christmas songs for ukulele →