Step 1 Tune your ukulele
Tap a chip under the dial to hear a target note, or start the microphone and play each one until it turns green. Audio is analysed on your device and never leaves it.
Got a New Ukulele? Start Here
Four steps for your first week with a ukulele: tune it (and learn why it will not stay in tune yet), find the four strings and your first chords, play five easy songs, and follow a seven-day plan that takes ten minutes a day.
It will not stay in tune this week — that is normal
New nylon and fluorocarbon strings keep stretching for days, and a fresh set can fall a quarter tone overnight. Nothing is wrong. Tune all four, then gently pull each string a little away from the fretboard along its length, retune, and repeat a few times: it speeds the settling. Expect to retune every time you pick it up for the first week. After that they hold.
The G string is supposed to be higher than the C
Standard tuning is G4–C4–E4–A4, and the string nearest your face, the G, sounds above the C beside it. If the dial reads G3 you are an octave low and the string is slack — the commonest ukulele tuning mistake. Read the letter first and the needle second: a C string that reads B or C♯ is just more than half a step away yet, so keep turning towards C.
A string that creeps flat while you play
If the pegs pass straight through the headstock with a small screw in the end, they hold by friction: a quarter turn on that screw stops the creep. Geared tuners barely slip at all. The ukulele tuner page covers the rest, including chords that sound sour when every open string reads green.
Step 2 Learn the layout
Songs36 songs to play
Every song here is public domain — traditional melodies and classical pieces free for anyone to publish. Pick one to hear it played on the strings, or switch to practice mode and the instrument will wait for you to find each note. Want something else? and share it as a link. See every song written out, to read or print →
3 more songs need notes this instrument does not have. Changing the ukulele brings some of them into reach.
4 strings · C4–A5 · G–C–E–A with the high, re-entrant G: soprano, concert and tenor ukuleles.
Tap a string, or tap a chord and drag across them to strum. On a keyboard the letters on the strings are the ones to press — Q, W, E and R are the four strings, A first; 1 to 7 hold the chords of the key, Space strums, and 0 lets go.
Four strings, named from the one nearest your face when you hold it: G, C, E, A. The neck above is drawn the way ukulele tab is written, with the A string on the top line and the G on the bottom, and every fret is one semitone. With no chord held, tap a string at any fret to hear that note; the labels show the fret number and the note.
Your first chords are C (one finger), A minor (one), F (two) and G7 (three) — the chord buttons above put each shape on the neck so you can copy it, and the chords in the key of C page has the diagrams and a microphone check that tells you which of your strings is wrong.
The full instrument, with every size and key, is on the online ukulele page.
Step 3 Your first five songs
Easiest first: the library marks each tune easy or harder, and within that the songs covering the fewest notes come first — on a ukulele, range decides more about how hard a tune is than speed does. Every one is a public-domain melody.
1. Hot Cross Buns
0E2C0C–0E2C0C–
0C0C0C0C2C2C2C2C0E2C0C–
Play Hot Cross Buns on the online ukulele → It loads with the song ready: Play plays it for you, Practice lights each note and waits.
2. Going Home (New World Largo)
0E0G0G–0E2C0C–
2C0E0G0E2C–––0E0G0G–0E2C0C–2C0E2C0C0C–––
Play Going Home (New World Largo) on the online ukulele → It loads with the song ready: Play plays it for you, Practice lights each note and waits.
3. Mary Had a Little Lamb
0E2C0C2C0E0E0E–
2C2C2C–0E0G0G–
0E2C0C2C0E0E0E0E2C2C0E2C0C–
Play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the online ukulele → It loads with the song ready: Play plays it for you, Practice lights each note and waits.
4. Ode to Joy
0E0E1E0G0G1E0E2C0C0C2C0E0E2C2C–
0E0E1E0G0G1E0E2C0C0C2C0E2C0C0C–
Play Ode to Joy on the online ukulele → It loads with the song ready: Play plays it for you, Practice lights each note and waits.
5. When the Saints Go Marching In
0C0E1E0G–––0C0E1E0G–––
0C0E1E0G–0E–0C–0E–2C–––
0E0E2C0C––0C0E–
0G0G0G1E––0E1E0G–0E–0C–2C–0C–––
Play When the Saints Go Marching In on the online ukulele → It loads with the song ready: Play plays it for you, Practice lights each note and waits.
Every ukulele song · Christmas songs for ukulele
Step 4 A seven-day plan
Ten minutes a day is enough, and the same ten minutes every day does more than an hour on Sunday. Tick each task as you go; this page remembers where you got to.
0 of 7 days done
Day 1 Tune it, then tune it again
Day 2 Two chords
Day 3 The F chord
Day 4 Three chords make a song
Day 5 Strumming in time
Day 6 All four chords
Day 7 Your first set
Ticks are saved in this browser only.
Sizes and types of ukulele
Soprano (about 13 in of string), concert (15 in) and tenor (17 in) are all tuned G–C–E–A, so every chord chart, tab and song here works on all three; they differ in tone, volume and how far apart the frets are. The tenor is the size most often strung with a low G, which keeps the letters and drops that string an octave. The baritone (19 in) is different: it is tuned D–G–B–E, the top four strings of a guitar, and its chord shapes are a guitar’s.
Not sure which you have? The ukulele tuner has the size table, and the ukulele chord chart covers standard, low G and baritone from the same shapes.
Back for a retune?
The ukulele tuner has the full checking routine and every note chart.
🎙 Open the Ukulele Tuner