Sizes & setup

This room assumes soprano / concert / tenor in GCEA. Baritone players: use guitar top-four shapes, or see Tunings.

Scale length — the distance the strings vibrate over — is the only number that really changes how the instrument feels, and it changes three things at once. A longer scale means wider fret spacing (more room for adult fingers, more of a reach for small ones), higher string tension at the same pitch (firmer under the fingers, louder, more sustain) and a fuller, less plinky voice.

• Adult hands, first ukulele: concert. It is the size that stops being fiddly without stopping being a ukulele.
• You want the classic sound — bright, short, cheerful: soprano. Chords in the first four frets are what it is built for.
• You mostly fingerpick, or want low G: tenor. The extra tension and length give a low G string something to work with; on a soprano a low G can sound slack.
• Small child: soprano, and check the instrument holds tune at all — the cheapest ones often cannot, which is the single most common reason a beginner quits.
• You already play guitar: a baritone will feel immediately familiar because its shapes are your guitar's top four strings — but then this room's diagrams do not apply to it. Read the baritone note below before you decide.

Everything else — wood, brand, laminate versus solid top — matters far less at the start than whether the instrument is set up well and holds pitch.

Most “I am not good at this” beginner problems are the instrument, not the player. Three things to check, none of which need tools:

• Action — the string height above the frets. If pressing a chord at fret 1 or 2 feels like hard work, the action is high, and a shop can lower it in minutes. Do not spend months building strength against a badly set-up ukulele.
• Intonation — play an open string, then the same string at fret 12. It should be the same note an octave up. Badly out means the saddle position is wrong, and no amount of tuning will make chords sound right up the neck.
• Tuner gears — if a string drifts within a minute of tuning and the string is not brand new, the tuning pegs are slipping. That is a repair, not your technique.

Nylon (or fluorocarbon) strings are cheap and they age. If an instrument sounds dull and nothing you do helps, new strings are the first thing to try.

A baritone is normally strung D G B E — the top four strings of a guitar, at guitar pitch. That has one large consequence: every chord shape in this room still works, but it sounds a fourth lower than the name on the diagram. The C shape gives you a G chord; the F shape gives you a C.

So a baritone player has two honest options. Read this room's diagrams as guitar top-four shapes and use the chord names from the guitar room, or transpose every diagram down a fourth in your head. The second option is a lot of work for no reward — if you own a baritone, borrow guitar's chord names and treat the shapes here as fingerings only.

High G (reentrant) — the G string is higher in pitch than the C string. Traditional Hawaiian sound; great for strums and campanella sparkle.

Low G (linear) — G sits below C, like a small guitar. Easier for bass lines and some fingerpicking patterns. Chord shapes stay the same; the sound of open G changes.

This site’s audio defaults to high-G MIDI (G4–C4–E4–A4). Prefer low-G sound in the browser: toggle on Tunings · Low G (diagrams stay the same).

• Cradle the body; neck angle slightly up. Don’t clutch the neck with your palm.
• Left-hand thumb behind the neck — fretting tips, not pads.
• Right hand: soft fingertip or fingernail downstrokes for strums; pima for picking.
• Tune often — nylon drifts with temperature. Use the shared tuner (match G C E A).

Foundations · Open chords · Strumming