ukemusic

Your songs

Play along and practise. The songs come from the desktop app: there, the library’s Songs for the web… saves them in one file; here, Update songs loads it.

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On iPhone and iPad, Safari's Share button → Add to Home Screen gives ukemusic its own icon. Key, capo, instrument and tempo changes are kept on each device.

Download

Files are saved to your device (on iPhone and iPad: Files or the share sheet).

How Practice works

Finger exercises (the spider walk)

Warms up the fretting hand: it builds finger independence, accuracy and stretch, which makes chord changes and fingerpicking easier.

What the picture shows

  • The neck, seen from the front, like tab: the A string is on top and the G string at the bottom. The nut is on the left; fret numbers are under the board. Hold the ukulele as usual; the G string is the one nearest your face.
  • Your left hand (drawn above the neck): the grey box is where the hand sits, one finger per fret. Finger 1 (index) covers the box's first fret, 2 (middle) the next, then 3 (ring) and 4 (little finger). The finger in use reaches down to its string; the others hover, ready. The box slides along when the exercise moves up the neck.
  • 1 Red circle: the note to play now. The number is the finger to use, the line it sits on is the string, and the column is the fret.
  • 2 Blue dashed circle: the next note, so you can get ready.
  • 1 Faint red: fingers still down from the notes before on this string. Leave them down as you walk up the frets; lift them when you move to the next string.
  • Your right hand: the red arrow on the right points at the string to pluck. It's always the string the red circle is on: on the G line, pluck the G string. Use your thumb or index finger.
  • The tab under the picture is the whole round, with the note now lit. The line under that says the same thing in words, e.g. "Middle finger (2) · C string · fret 2 · pluck the C string".

How to practise

  1. Press Show me to watch and hear one slow round.
  2. Choose Sound → Hear it, then you: the first round plays the notes, the next is just the click and you play, and so on.
  3. Start slowly (60 bpm or less). Every note should ring clearly, without buzzing. When a round is clean, add 5 bpm.
  4. Press just behind the fret wire, on your fingertips, with the thumb behind the neck. Keep fingers close to the strings when they're not in use.
  5. When 1-2-3-4 is easy, try 1-3-2-4, 1-4-2-3 and 4-3-2-1, or the Warm-up (all four), and tick Move up a fret each time round.
Strum

The big chord is the one to play now, with its diagram; the smaller one is next. The row of arrows is the strum pattern for one bar: ↓ down, ↑ up, ✕ a chuck (a strum with the strings damped), · a miss (keep the hand moving but don't touch the strings). The lit box is the stroke now, and the numbers under it are the count (1 & 2 & …). The dots are the beats of the bar; the big one is beat 1.

Keep your strumming hand moving down and up all the time, like a pendulum, and only touch the strings on the strokes shown.

Progression fills in the chords of a common progression (I–V–vi–IV and others) in any key. The rhythm ladder climbs from quarter notes to eighths, triplets, sixteenths and a syncopated pattern, two bars each. Soft / loud alternates quiet and loud pairs of bars, for control.

12-bar blues

The 12 bars of the blues are shown as a grid of three lines, lighting up as you go. Choose the key; 7th chords give the bluesy sound. A quick change goes to the IV chord in bar 2; the turnaround puts the V chord in bar 12 to lead back to the start.

Shuffle: on beats 2 and 4, put down one more finger two frets above a note of the chord (the second diagram shows where, and the note under it says which finger), then lift it on beats 1 and 3. That's the classic boogie rhythm.

Chord change

Back and forth between a chord you know and the one you're learning, every bar or every 2 beats. Both diagrams are shown; the tips say which finger can stay down between the two shapes. Changes are counted: aim to make each change in time, without stopping, before speeding up.

Chord shapes drill

A chord name comes up with its diagram. In the silent bar ("Form it now") put the shape down; on the next bar strum it once and listen: every string should ring clearly. Then lift off completely, ready for the next one. Choose the chords to drill, or one of the sets.

One-minute changes

Choose two chords. Press Start, then change back and forth between them as fast as you can cleanly for one minute: tap Space (or the big button) every time you land a clean change. The app can't hear you, so be honest: every string should ring. Your score for that pair is saved, with a little graph of your last scores, so you can watch it climb day by day.

Scales, picking, melodies and ear training

These use the same fretboard as the finger exercises: the red dot is the note to play now, the dashed blue one is next, and a hollow dot left of the nut is an open string (don't fret it). The arrow on the right points at the string to pluck.

Picking: the left hand holds the whole chord (pale dots); the right hand picks one string at a time. The letters say which finger: p thumb, i index, m middle, a ring.

Scales: say the note names as you play. Sequences play the scale in small groups (1-2-3, 2-3-4…), which is how scales turn into tunes.

Call and response: the app plays a short phrase with the fretboard hidden. Play it back by ear in the gap, then the answer is shown and played so you can check yourself.

Noodling over a backing

The app strums a chord loop; you make things up on top. The dots on the fretboard are notes that fit the key: any of them will sound fine. The orange ones are the notes of the chord playing now (they change with the chord): landing on one when the chord changes sounds strong. The ringed dot is the key note, home.

Start with three or four notes only, then the pentatonic (five notes, nothing sounds wrong). Question and answer: the app plays a two-bar phrase, you answer in the next two bars. Rhythm ideas suggest a rhythm for each pair of bars, so you play with timing, not just notes.

Found a tune you like? Save as a new song makes a song with the backing chords and an empty tab block to write it down in.

Metronome

A click to practise anything with. Choose the beats in a bar, an optional softer click in between (eighths or triplets), and whether beat 1 is accented. Tap tempo: tap the button along with a song (four times or more) to find its speed.

Progress and routines

Time is counted while an exercise plays (the ⏱ clock). ✓ That was clean marks a clean round: it's logged and the tempo goes up 5 bpm for next time. Each card shows when you last did it, your last and best tempo and the time spent; the top bar shows today's practice and how many days in a row. All of this is kept in practice.json in your songs folder.

My routine: a few exercises back to back, each for a set number of minutes (counted while playing); it moves on by itself. Start one of the ready-made routines, edit it, or make your own. Next ▶ skips to the next exercise.

Tempo, sound and the rest

Choose a category on the left, then an exercise; ← All exercises (or Esc) goes back to the menu. The badge says how hard it is: Beginner, Improver or Intermediate.

Tempo changes straight away, even while playing. Volume is for the notes; the Metronome click marks every beat. Count in gives one bar of clicks first. Space starts and stops; Esc goes back to the menu, and from the menu closes Practice.