Chords for Ska Ukulele Tutorial
Tempo:
72.675 bpm
Chords used:
G
D
Ab
C
E
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
[Abm] We are going to show you how to play some ska music on the ukulele here
I used to play in a couple ska bands when I was a little bit younger and
So it was a style of music that I got really involved with and it kind of makes sense
you know because the ukulele becomes from an island Hawaii and
the genre of ska also originates from
Jamaica so yeah, it's kind of a nice match there nice match up there
And there's basically two
Fundamentals two kind of building blocks to really playing this genre music the first one
That we're going to talk about here is is your chord formations?
With [G] ska music you're doing a lot of a
[C] Lot of muting of the strings you [E] know it's a very percussive type of genre and [Db] so the chord formations are a big part of that
Open chords like you would play a C.
You would think [Ab] a C on a ukulele would be open like [Fm] that
You know open open open and then the third fret on the a string there
[C] But open chords are kind of the [E] enemy of ska music so we have to rethink
The kind of the kind of chord formations that we're going to be using so for a C
We're going to come up here, and we're going to [Db] play
Basically bar chords, [Cm] so this is going to be five four three three
[E] It's still a C chord, but you're actually able to mute the strings a little bit easier
And I'll show you the difference between see what I mean.
This is with [C] the bar to see up here
With [A]
[E] an open C.
You can see [C] the difference
[N] It doesn't sound the same
So that's [Db] kind of what we have to think about is we have to make sure that we are not playing any open strings in
Our chords so for a G
Again you would think of it G a standard G chord on [G] ukulele being an open string on [Db] the G and
[G] then two three two
[N] But again we have to rethink what we're doing here
So we want to make sure that we don't have any open strings
So the new G chord that we're going to be playing is actually going to utilize the fourth fret
There on the on the G string so it's going to go [G] four two three
[Gb] [G] And so [N] that's kind of the idea of the chord formation
So just make sure you're not playing any open strings it might take you a little bit to relearn
Some of your chord formations on that, but you'll get it
And the other the other key component to playing this type of music is all in the rhythm
And it's it's a it's it's easier to play, but it might take some time to
To get your timing right because the basic idea is we're going to go up down up down up down
But on the down we're going to just basically chunk it we're going to touch the string mute the strings there
Okay, and so to do that you just lightly touch the strings here with your fretting hand and
Then on the upstroke and all the accents and ska music come on the upbeat a lot of upbeat going on there
the upbeats we're going to
Lightly press down the strings and lift up
And so it might take you a little while to get into the swing of that
But you know it's always good when you're playing anything new to just start slow and work your way faster, so [G] starting slow
So we're muting
Lightly pressing down on the upstrokes
You press the new press you press the [E] press
That's kind of I did there and as you kind of get more familiar in your timing gets a little bit better because it's really
All in this [N] fretting hand right here being able to just very lightly [Ab] apply pressure [G] on those up strokes
And as your timing is a little bit better
[E] The other the other part of it here is there's obviously different rhythms that you can play you can play just kind of straight [G] rhythm
And [Ab] I like to play more of a kind of a swing shuffle type of [G] rhythm with it
[N] So that's kind of the basic ideas your basic building blocks
And as you get a little bit better with it you can start to add in some fun [Ab] things
And like you've noticed [G] sometimes.
I'm playing.
I'll play [Abm] the downbeat with [G] it like this
Just to give it a nice accent on that downbeat
And [D] [B]
sometimes I'll let the chords ring out on the upstroke a little bit more a lot of [D] times when I'm transitioning between
chords like this
[G] [N] So
There's some transitions you can kind of work out there
And there's also one of the fun things you can do with skull music is these little slides where basically you're taking your chord formation
Let's say we're on this G [G] chord four two three two okay
And as you're playing that you can [Ab] actually slide your whole chord formation down one fret and bring [G] it back up like this
[Gb] [G] And [Gb] [G] [Gb] [G] [A] you can do that with the next chord with [D] the D
[D] [G] [Ab] I
Give you kind of a nice a little embellishment there [Dm] another fun thing that you can start to develop is
Sort of a triplet fill which is a harder technique something.
I don't actually do that well
But as you're playing along here
You can take [N] you're going to start with your with your ring finger here
And you're actually going to hit with your ring finger you're going to come down
With index finger and then with fall with your thumb, so you're getting that trip
[B]
[Ab] I
Don't quit with that with some [G] chords here
And [N] so you can start to do those little things to kind of spice up your playing a little bit and
Just to kind of show you a little song with it.
This is a [Ab] song called little district
[Bbm] [Ab] Remember who wrote it, but it's a [G] Jamaican scotts on the sword
Oh, we have a little district try that again.
Oh, we know little district
[D]
neighborhood
[G] People move it slip like they think they [D] should
Word from your mouth your likes get knocked down blast to you later you [G] move and slip
[D]
If you [G] have to just trip
[C] Don't know how to manage
[G] Don't believe me mister.
They do
[C] If you ever live [D] there you will listen and don't be no fool
[G] in a little [Bm] district in a neighborhood
[D] People move it [G] slip like they think they [D] should
One from your mouth your likes get knocked down blast to you later you [G] move and trip
[N] Some basics there, and you can play around with it.
Have a good time
Like I said, it's a timing thing just keep working on it.
If you're not good at
Doing that at first
Hey, man practice makes perfect
You know so just keep on trying
Eventually that timing will come to you, and it will it will start to feel a little bit
I used to play in a couple ska bands when I was a little bit younger and
So it was a style of music that I got really involved with and it kind of makes sense
you know because the ukulele becomes from an island Hawaii and
the genre of ska also originates from
Jamaica so yeah, it's kind of a nice match there nice match up there
And there's basically two
Fundamentals two kind of building blocks to really playing this genre music the first one
That we're going to talk about here is is your chord formations?
With [G] ska music you're doing a lot of a
[C] Lot of muting of the strings you [E] know it's a very percussive type of genre and [Db] so the chord formations are a big part of that
Open chords like you would play a C.
You would think [Ab] a C on a ukulele would be open like [Fm] that
You know open open open and then the third fret on the a string there
[C] But open chords are kind of the [E] enemy of ska music so we have to rethink
The kind of the kind of chord formations that we're going to be using so for a C
We're going to come up here, and we're going to [Db] play
Basically bar chords, [Cm] so this is going to be five four three three
[E] It's still a C chord, but you're actually able to mute the strings a little bit easier
And I'll show you the difference between see what I mean.
This is with [C] the bar to see up here
With [A]
[E] an open C.
You can see [C] the difference
[N] It doesn't sound the same
So that's [Db] kind of what we have to think about is we have to make sure that we are not playing any open strings in
Our chords so for a G
Again you would think of it G a standard G chord on [G] ukulele being an open string on [Db] the G and
[G] then two three two
[N] But again we have to rethink what we're doing here
So we want to make sure that we don't have any open strings
So the new G chord that we're going to be playing is actually going to utilize the fourth fret
There on the on the G string so it's going to go [G] four two three
[Gb] [G] And so [N] that's kind of the idea of the chord formation
So just make sure you're not playing any open strings it might take you a little bit to relearn
Some of your chord formations on that, but you'll get it
And the other the other key component to playing this type of music is all in the rhythm
And it's it's a it's it's easier to play, but it might take some time to
To get your timing right because the basic idea is we're going to go up down up down up down
But on the down we're going to just basically chunk it we're going to touch the string mute the strings there
Okay, and so to do that you just lightly touch the strings here with your fretting hand and
Then on the upstroke and all the accents and ska music come on the upbeat a lot of upbeat going on there
the upbeats we're going to
Lightly press down the strings and lift up
And so it might take you a little while to get into the swing of that
But you know it's always good when you're playing anything new to just start slow and work your way faster, so [G] starting slow
So we're muting
Lightly pressing down on the upstrokes
You press the new press you press the [E] press
That's kind of I did there and as you kind of get more familiar in your timing gets a little bit better because it's really
All in this [N] fretting hand right here being able to just very lightly [Ab] apply pressure [G] on those up strokes
And as your timing is a little bit better
[E] The other the other part of it here is there's obviously different rhythms that you can play you can play just kind of straight [G] rhythm
And [Ab] I like to play more of a kind of a swing shuffle type of [G] rhythm with it
[N] So that's kind of the basic ideas your basic building blocks
And as you get a little bit better with it you can start to add in some fun [Ab] things
And like you've noticed [G] sometimes.
I'm playing.
I'll play [Abm] the downbeat with [G] it like this
Just to give it a nice accent on that downbeat
And [D] [B]
sometimes I'll let the chords ring out on the upstroke a little bit more a lot of [D] times when I'm transitioning between
chords like this
[G] [N] So
There's some transitions you can kind of work out there
And there's also one of the fun things you can do with skull music is these little slides where basically you're taking your chord formation
Let's say we're on this G [G] chord four two three two okay
And as you're playing that you can [Ab] actually slide your whole chord formation down one fret and bring [G] it back up like this
[Gb] [G] And [Gb] [G] [Gb] [G] [A] you can do that with the next chord with [D] the D
[D] [G] [Ab] I
Give you kind of a nice a little embellishment there [Dm] another fun thing that you can start to develop is
Sort of a triplet fill which is a harder technique something.
I don't actually do that well
But as you're playing along here
You can take [N] you're going to start with your with your ring finger here
And you're actually going to hit with your ring finger you're going to come down
With index finger and then with fall with your thumb, so you're getting that trip
[B]
[Ab] I
Don't quit with that with some [G] chords here
And [N] so you can start to do those little things to kind of spice up your playing a little bit and
Just to kind of show you a little song with it.
This is a [Ab] song called little district
[Bbm] [Ab] Remember who wrote it, but it's a [G] Jamaican scotts on the sword
Oh, we have a little district try that again.
Oh, we know little district
[D]
neighborhood
[G] People move it slip like they think they [D] should
Word from your mouth your likes get knocked down blast to you later you [G] move and slip
[D]
If you [G] have to just trip
[C] Don't know how to manage
[G] Don't believe me mister.
They do
[C] If you ever live [D] there you will listen and don't be no fool
[G] in a little [Bm] district in a neighborhood
[D] People move it [G] slip like they think they [D] should
One from your mouth your likes get knocked down blast to you later you [G] move and trip
[N] Some basics there, and you can play around with it.
Have a good time
Like I said, it's a timing thing just keep working on it.
If you're not good at
Doing that at first
Hey, man practice makes perfect
You know so just keep on trying
Eventually that timing will come to you, and it will it will start to feel a little bit
Key:
G
D
Ab
C
E
G
D
Ab
[Abm] We are going to show you how to play some ska music on the ukulele here
I used to play in a couple ska bands when I was a little bit younger and
So it was a style of music that I got really involved with and it kind of makes sense
you know because the ukulele becomes from an island Hawaii and
the genre of ska also originates from
Jamaica so yeah, it's kind of a nice match there nice match up there
And there's basically two
Fundamentals two kind of building blocks to really playing this genre music the first one
That we're going to talk about here is is your chord formations?
With [G] ska music you're doing a lot of _ a
[C] Lot of muting of the strings you [E] know it's a very percussive type of genre and [Db] so the chord formations are a big part of that
_ Open chords like you would play a C.
You would think [Ab] a C on a ukulele would be open like [Fm] that
You know open open open and then the third fret on the a string there
[C] But open chords are kind of the [E] enemy of ska music so we have to rethink
The kind of the kind of chord formations that we're going to be using so for a C
We're going to come up here, and we're going to [Db] play
Basically bar chords, [Cm] so this is going to be five four three three
[E] It's still a C chord, but you're actually able to mute the strings a little bit easier
And I'll show you the difference between see what I mean.
This is with [C] the bar to see up here
_ With _ _ [A]
[E] an open C.
You can see [C] the difference
_ _ _ [N] It doesn't sound the same
So that's [Db] kind of what we have to think about is we have to make sure that we are not playing any open strings in
Our chords so for a G
Again you would think of it G a standard G chord on [G] ukulele being an open string on [Db] the G and
[G] then two three two
[N] But again we have to rethink what we're doing here
So we want to make sure that we don't have any open strings
So the new G chord that we're going to be playing is actually going to utilize the fourth fret
There on the on the G string so it's going to go [G] four two three
_ _ _ _ [Gb] _ [G] And so [N] that's kind of the idea of the chord formation
So just make sure you're not playing any open strings it might take you a little bit to relearn
Some of your chord formations on that, but you'll get it
And the other the other key component to playing this type of music is all in the rhythm
And it's it's a it's it's easier to play, but it might take some time to
To get your timing right because the basic idea is we're going to go up down up down up down
But on the down we're going to just basically chunk it we're going to touch the string mute the strings there
_ Okay, and so to do that you just lightly touch the strings here with your fretting hand and
Then on the upstroke and all the accents and ska music come on the upbeat a lot of upbeat going on there
the upbeats we're going to
Lightly press down the strings and lift up
And so it might take you a little while to get into the swing of that
But you know it's always good when you're playing anything new to just start slow and work your way faster, so [G] starting slow
So _ we're muting
Lightly pressing down on the upstrokes
You press the new press you press the [E] press
That's kind of I did there and as you kind of get more familiar in your timing gets a little bit better because it's really
All in this [N] fretting hand right here being able to just very lightly [Ab] apply pressure [G] on those up strokes
And as your timing is a little bit better
[E] The _ _ _ _ other the other part of it here is there's obviously different rhythms that you can play you can play just kind of straight [G] rhythm
And _ [Ab] I like to play more of a kind of a swing shuffle type of [G] rhythm with it
_ _ _ [N] So that's kind of the basic ideas your basic building blocks
And as you get a little bit better with it you can start to add in some fun [Ab] things
And like you've noticed [G] sometimes.
I'm playing.
I'll play [Abm] the downbeat with [G] it like this
_ Just to give it a nice accent on that downbeat
And [D] _ _ _ [B]
sometimes I'll let the chords ring out on the upstroke a little bit more a lot of [D] times when I'm transitioning between
chords like this
_ [G] _ _ [N] So
There's some transitions you can kind of work out there
And there's also one of the fun things you can do with skull music is these little slides where basically you're taking your chord formation
Let's say we're on this G [G] chord four two three two okay
And as you're playing that you can [Ab] actually slide your whole chord formation down one fret and bring [G] it back up like this
[Gb] [G] And [Gb] _ [G] _ [Gb] _ [G] _ [A] you can do that with the next chord with [D] the D
_ [D] _ _ [G] _ [Ab] I
Give you kind of a nice a little embellishment there [Dm] another fun thing that you can start to develop is
Sort of a triplet fill which is a harder technique something.
I don't actually do that well
But as you're playing along here
You can take [N] you're going to start with your with your ring finger here
And you're actually going to hit with your ring finger you're going to come down
With index finger and then with fall with your thumb, so you're getting that trip
_ [B] _
_ _ _ _ [Ab] I
Don't quit with that with some [G] chords here
_ _ _ _ And [N] so you can start to do those little things to kind of spice up your playing a little bit and
Just to kind of show you a little song with it.
This is a [Ab] song called little district
[Bbm] [Ab] Remember who wrote it, but it's a [G] Jamaican scotts on the sword
Oh, we have a little district try that again.
Oh, we know little district
[D] _
neighborhood
[G] People move it slip like they think they [D] should
Word from your mouth your likes get knocked down blast to you later you [G] move and slip
[D]
If you [G] have to just trip
_ [C] _ Don't know how to manage
[G] Don't believe me mister.
They do
[C] If you ever live [D] there you will listen and don't be no fool
[G] in a little [Bm] district in a neighborhood
[D] People move it [G] slip like they think they [D] should
One from your mouth your likes get knocked down blast to you later you [G] move and trip
[N] Some basics there, and you can play around with it.
Have a good time
Like I said, it's a timing thing just keep working on it.
If you're not good at
Doing that at first
Hey, man practice makes perfect
You know so just keep on trying
Eventually that timing will come to you, and it will it will start to feel a little bit
I used to play in a couple ska bands when I was a little bit younger and
So it was a style of music that I got really involved with and it kind of makes sense
you know because the ukulele becomes from an island Hawaii and
the genre of ska also originates from
Jamaica so yeah, it's kind of a nice match there nice match up there
And there's basically two
Fundamentals two kind of building blocks to really playing this genre music the first one
That we're going to talk about here is is your chord formations?
With [G] ska music you're doing a lot of _ a
[C] Lot of muting of the strings you [E] know it's a very percussive type of genre and [Db] so the chord formations are a big part of that
_ Open chords like you would play a C.
You would think [Ab] a C on a ukulele would be open like [Fm] that
You know open open open and then the third fret on the a string there
[C] But open chords are kind of the [E] enemy of ska music so we have to rethink
The kind of the kind of chord formations that we're going to be using so for a C
We're going to come up here, and we're going to [Db] play
Basically bar chords, [Cm] so this is going to be five four three three
[E] It's still a C chord, but you're actually able to mute the strings a little bit easier
And I'll show you the difference between see what I mean.
This is with [C] the bar to see up here
_ With _ _ [A]
[E] an open C.
You can see [C] the difference
_ _ _ [N] It doesn't sound the same
So that's [Db] kind of what we have to think about is we have to make sure that we are not playing any open strings in
Our chords so for a G
Again you would think of it G a standard G chord on [G] ukulele being an open string on [Db] the G and
[G] then two three two
[N] But again we have to rethink what we're doing here
So we want to make sure that we don't have any open strings
So the new G chord that we're going to be playing is actually going to utilize the fourth fret
There on the on the G string so it's going to go [G] four two three
_ _ _ _ [Gb] _ [G] And so [N] that's kind of the idea of the chord formation
So just make sure you're not playing any open strings it might take you a little bit to relearn
Some of your chord formations on that, but you'll get it
And the other the other key component to playing this type of music is all in the rhythm
And it's it's a it's it's easier to play, but it might take some time to
To get your timing right because the basic idea is we're going to go up down up down up down
But on the down we're going to just basically chunk it we're going to touch the string mute the strings there
_ Okay, and so to do that you just lightly touch the strings here with your fretting hand and
Then on the upstroke and all the accents and ska music come on the upbeat a lot of upbeat going on there
the upbeats we're going to
Lightly press down the strings and lift up
And so it might take you a little while to get into the swing of that
But you know it's always good when you're playing anything new to just start slow and work your way faster, so [G] starting slow
So _ we're muting
Lightly pressing down on the upstrokes
You press the new press you press the [E] press
That's kind of I did there and as you kind of get more familiar in your timing gets a little bit better because it's really
All in this [N] fretting hand right here being able to just very lightly [Ab] apply pressure [G] on those up strokes
And as your timing is a little bit better
[E] The _ _ _ _ other the other part of it here is there's obviously different rhythms that you can play you can play just kind of straight [G] rhythm
And _ [Ab] I like to play more of a kind of a swing shuffle type of [G] rhythm with it
_ _ _ [N] So that's kind of the basic ideas your basic building blocks
And as you get a little bit better with it you can start to add in some fun [Ab] things
And like you've noticed [G] sometimes.
I'm playing.
I'll play [Abm] the downbeat with [G] it like this
_ Just to give it a nice accent on that downbeat
And [D] _ _ _ [B]
sometimes I'll let the chords ring out on the upstroke a little bit more a lot of [D] times when I'm transitioning between
chords like this
_ [G] _ _ [N] So
There's some transitions you can kind of work out there
And there's also one of the fun things you can do with skull music is these little slides where basically you're taking your chord formation
Let's say we're on this G [G] chord four two three two okay
And as you're playing that you can [Ab] actually slide your whole chord formation down one fret and bring [G] it back up like this
[Gb] [G] And [Gb] _ [G] _ [Gb] _ [G] _ [A] you can do that with the next chord with [D] the D
_ [D] _ _ [G] _ [Ab] I
Give you kind of a nice a little embellishment there [Dm] another fun thing that you can start to develop is
Sort of a triplet fill which is a harder technique something.
I don't actually do that well
But as you're playing along here
You can take [N] you're going to start with your with your ring finger here
And you're actually going to hit with your ring finger you're going to come down
With index finger and then with fall with your thumb, so you're getting that trip
_ [B] _
_ _ _ _ [Ab] I
Don't quit with that with some [G] chords here
_ _ _ _ And [N] so you can start to do those little things to kind of spice up your playing a little bit and
Just to kind of show you a little song with it.
This is a [Ab] song called little district
[Bbm] [Ab] Remember who wrote it, but it's a [G] Jamaican scotts on the sword
Oh, we have a little district try that again.
Oh, we know little district
[D] _
neighborhood
[G] People move it slip like they think they [D] should
Word from your mouth your likes get knocked down blast to you later you [G] move and slip
[D]
If you [G] have to just trip
_ [C] _ Don't know how to manage
[G] Don't believe me mister.
They do
[C] If you ever live [D] there you will listen and don't be no fool
[G] in a little [Bm] district in a neighborhood
[D] People move it [G] slip like they think they [D] should
One from your mouth your likes get knocked down blast to you later you [G] move and trip
[N] Some basics there, and you can play around with it.
Have a good time
Like I said, it's a timing thing just keep working on it.
If you're not good at
Doing that at first
Hey, man practice makes perfect
You know so just keep on trying
Eventually that timing will come to you, and it will it will start to feel a little bit