Open chords

Standard GCEA ukulele is the same pitches as a guitar’s highest four strings with a capo at fret 5 (guitar open D–G–B–E become G–C–E–A). Ignore the two bass strings.

So the shape matches a guitar open chord on those four strings — but the name is a perfect fourth higher (guitarists: think “D shape → G chord” on uke). With the capo on, the sounding pitches line up with the uke.

Baritone uke is different — it is open DGBE (no capo needed), so its shapes match guitar top-four names directly. See Tunings.

Learning a shape takes an afternoon. Moving between two shapes in time is what takes weeks, and it is a different skill that most people never practise directly — they just play songs badly and hope. Four things that make changes fast, roughly in order of how much they help:

• Find the finger that does not move. Between C and Am nothing is shared, but between F and Am the middle finger stays on G string fret 2 — leave it down and pivot around it. Every pair of chords has an anchor or a near miss; look for it before you drill.
• Move all the fingers at once. Placing them one at a time is the single most common cause of slow changes. Lift the whole hand into the next shape in the air, then land it as one unit — even if you land badly at first.
• Change early. Make the switch on the last upstroke of the previous bar, not on the downbeat. A change that arrives with the beat is already late.
• Practise the change, not the song. Two chords, one strum each, back and forth, with the metronome in the practice bar as slow as it takes to be clean. Count how many you manage in a minute; do it again tomorrow. That number is your actual progress.

Pairs worth owning first, hardest last: C–Am (both one-finger chords), Am–F (the middle finger never leaves), C–F, F–G (the awkward one — nothing is shared, every finger moves), then the full C–Am–F–G loop. Play them over a real progression on Play along once each pair is honest.

G7 → C and C7 → F are the first tension chords most players need.

Clean fretting (no buzz), then timed changes with the metronome:

Then: Strumming · Barre & movable · Play along