Ukulele Theory - The Circle Of Fifths

A minor theory lesson on Got A Ukulele with something that you may find useful - the Circle Of Fifths. An incredibly helpful chart for any musical instrument player, not just ukulele players.

Below you will see a Circle of fifths chart that you can print off and keep in your ukulele songbook. It's called a 'Circle Of Fifths', because going clockwise around the circle from the 12 o clock position are all twelve musical pitches, going up by a fifth each time. Anti-clockwise they go down by a 4th..  More on that in a moment.  Laying the pitches out like this allows you to work out lots of cool things. Basically, the circle of fifths organises keys into groups that relate to each other musically. In fact, to sound more evangelical - it's a diagram that basically explains how a significant part of music WORKS.

Firstly, you can use the Circle as is to immediately tell you what chords go well together in any specific Key.  Take the key of G Major for example - locate the G on the outer wheel.  The Circle tells you that any chord that touches that G box will work "well" in a song in the key of G, i.e. C, D and Em. The next closest but not touching chords (The Am and Bm) may work also, and the further you move from that G box, the harder it will be for the chords to work in that song. It's not a firm and fast rule, but a good general rule of thumb that is underpinned by so much music that has been written.  The relationship works as moving clockwise from any Key you move to the Dominant (the V) of the previous key. Moving counterclockwise you move to the Fourth (IV) of the previous key. You would be amazed at just how much of popular music rotates around those note relations (i.e. I, IV, V) - and they do that because they sound naturally pleasing to the ears. The most common songs on the planet use this progression, such as Happy Birthday - but so many others. For more on that topic - take a look at this video which explains more - THE I I IV CHORD SEQUENCE FOR UKULELE

(Just a quick side note here for beginners - you may be reading this thinking 'what on EARTH is a fifth?? - simple - a perfect musical fifth is five notes in a standard diatonic scale - or seven semitones. It's part of a very pleasing sequence of music that works well on the ear - try this. Sing the song 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in your head. Whatever note you start on for the first 'twinkle', the second twinkle will be one fifth above it... What is a semitone? Well picture a piano keyboard and remember the old rhyme 'half steps are from key to key with no keys inbetween..'  So basically it's the 'full' notes as it were on a piano. If you run up a piano keyboard hitting each white AND black key you play all the half steps or 'semitones'. Basically it includs the sharps / flats)

You can also use the Circle as a transposing tool - that is to say a guide for changing the chords in a song up or down in keys to suit your voice or other players.  Print off two copies of the Circle, but make one copy smaller. Cut out both circles and separate the inner from the outer ring. Putting the smaller of the outer ring copies inside the larger, you can now line up the change in key you want and automatically work out what all the other chords change to. For example, say you have a song in the key of G, but want to play it in the key of C, lay out the larger ring with the G at the top. Put the smaller ring in so the C chord is lined up with the G.  Now you can use that smaller inner ring to read off what new chord you would need to play for any of the original chords (Still following me....?)

You can do this without the cutting and copying - just make a note of the chords you want to transpose from and where you want to go and the other chords will slot in place - for example - if you have a song that goes from F, to Am to Em - and you want to move it so it starts in D - using the same 'pattern' in the boxes, you can see that D to F#m to C#m will be the same progression - just in a different key.

There's much more to the Circle - like using it to build scales but for starters, this guide should set you on the path to using it for the most useful.  So, anyway - here's your diagram - click on it to open a bigger version and either print direct or right click and save it to your computer. Enjoy!

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Ukulele Beginners - Basic Ukulele Theory - part 4 - 7th chords

In our last guide HERE we looked at Minor Chords, and in this post we turn to 7th Chords.

A 7th chord is shown on chord sheets as A7, C7 G7 etc, and are an important part of adding more feel to your music playing.

If you remember our basic chord theory for the major chords, we learned that a major chord was made up of the root, third and 5th notes from the major scale of the chord you are forming.  A major 7th chord simply adds another note that is a third above the root note.

On a ukulele this is usually achieved by taking the higher of the root notes and dropping it down two half tones.

If we take the C chord which is fingered 0003 we have a C note on the open third string, and also a C note on the 1st string that you have fingered at the third fret.    This is also the higher of the two C notes in the chord, so if we drop that down to half tones (ie two frets) the chord fingering becomes 0001, and that plays you a C7!

Let's try that with the A chord, which is fingered 2100.  The two A notes we have created in that chord are on the 4th string at the second fret and the open 1st string which is naturally tuned to A.  The highest note on a re-entrant tuned uke is actually the 4th string at the 2nd fret, so we drop that down two half tones and that take you to the nut.  Therefore we play that open and the fingering becomes 0100 - which is an A7 chord.

Let's turn to G7.  A standard G chord is fingered 0232.  In that chord we have a G on the 4th string, and a G on the 2nd string at the 3rd fret.  If we drop that G on the second string down two half tones we get a G7 and  the fingering would be 0212.

Try it with the other major chords!

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Ukulele Beginners - Basic Ukulele Theory - part 3 - Minor Chords

In our last guide HERE we looked at Major ukulele chords.  It is important that you know the majors, but you will not get very far without some variations on these chords.  In this theory guide we look at Minor Chords.

A minor chord is a variation on the major chords we looked at last time, and is shown in chord notation with a small "m" after the Chord, like Am, Cm etc.  The minor chords are often referred to as the sad chords, and provide real expression to you songs.

When we looked at the major chords (on the link above) we saw that a major chord is made up of the 1st, third and fifth of the scale of the chord you are looking for.

A minor chord is exactly the same, but the third  is played down half a tone (or flat).

Using our example from the last lesson on the A chord, we learned that the A was made up of the notes A, C# and E.  On the Am, we need to take that middle note, the third, down a half tone and flatten it.  Taking a C# down a step takes it to a C.  We therefore know that for Am, we need the notes A, C and E on the Uke.

Looking at the notes on the strings, the A note remains the same as in the Major A chord - the G string and the second fret.  Unlike the A chord though, for the Am, the next note is not a C# but a C.  We know that the third string on a uke is a C when played open, so it doesnt need fretting.  The first and second strings also can be left alone because they play A and E respectively, so work for this chord.

And thats it.  To turn any major chord into a minor, just take that third, middle note in your chord down a half tone.  Easy - try it with the other major chords you learned.

Good luck!

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Ukulele Beginners - Basic Ukulele Theory - part 2 - Major Chords

Part two in my basic ukulele theory series - this time we are looking at Major chords.

What is a chord?  Put simply, a chord is just a collection of notes played together.  You can, of course simply use a Ukulele Chord Chart and memorise your chords, but perhaps you want to know a little more than that.

In this lesson we are just dealing with Major Chords - these are the chords that are just represented by a single letter such as C, D, F and G, without any small m or 7 after them (we will deal with those in another lesson).

A chord name is always representative of the first note that is played in the collection of notes.  As such in an A chord, the first note in the chord is an A, and in a C chord, the first note is a C.  Simple!

To make up the chord, we take that first note (called the root note), and then add what is called the 3rd and the 5th in the major scale of that root note.  In my post on the theory of notes we explained how the notes progressed down the strings of the ukulele, and that each note was a semitone apart.  The 3rd of the root is 4 semitones above the root and the 5th of the root note is 7 semitones above.

So taking the C Major chord, we start with our root note of C.  The 3rd note is the the note 4 semitones above the C.  If we remember how are notes progress, the progression of notes 4 semitones above C would run as

   1         2       3        4
C#/Db - D - D#/Eb - E

Therefore our next note, 4 semitones up is an E.

To get the third note of the C chord, we continue the sequence up to 7 semitones from C, and if you follow the scale of notes you will find that takes us to a G note.

Using this theory of root, 3rd and 5th, we know that the notes in a C chord are C, E and G.

Now, there are four strings on the ukulele, tuned G, C, E and A.  To form the chord we need to ensure that we are only playing the notes C, E and G.  Helpfully with the C chord, three of the strings are G, C and E when played open (the three nearest the ceiling!!).  We can therefore play those open and know that they will work with the C chord.  Our problem string is the first string, the one nearest the floor.  If we play that open we get an A, and that wouldn't work in a C chord.  If, however, we fret that string at the third fret, we get another C.  By doing that you are fingering the most simple form of the C chord.

Let's try that again with the A chord.  Our root note for the A chord is, of course A.  The 3rd is 4 semitones above an A which is C# and the 5th (7 semitones) is an E.  We therefore need to look at the ukulele and ensure that when strummed we are playing the notes A, C# and E.

Our first string nearest the floor plays an A when open so we can leave that alone.  The second string plays an E when open, so we can leave that one alone also.  Our third string played open is a C which would be incorrect, so by fretting that at the first fret we get our required C#.  Our fourth string plays a G when open which is no good either but be fretting up 2 frets we get an A which is one of our required notes.  Playing these frets gives you an A!

Using this theory you can work out the fingerings for all of the major chords.  The simplest form of those chords is to find the easiest fingerings that create the desired notes nearest to the nut, but you can play all of the major chords in a variety of ways all over the neck, so long as the notes you are playing fit with the three notes of the chord.

Have a look at the chord chart, and the major chords and use this theory to check how this works!

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Ukulele Beginners - Basic Ukulele Theory - part 1 - notes

Whilst I started Got A Ukulele as an absolute beginners blog, it would be amiss of me to avoid music theory altogether. I will therefore create a few new posts that cover the absolute basics of music theory that you should probably get your head around!

In this first issue, we deal with the absolute basics of the notes on the uke.

As we have discussed in an earlier post, the strings on a standard tuned Uke are tuned to G,C,E and A (G on the string nearest the ceiling, and A on the string nearest the floor).

But of course, the neck of your ukulele is covered with frets. When you fret a string on the uke you shorten the length of the string which changes the way it vibrates and makes it sound higher. Knowing this and that moving up each fret moves you up a "half step" in the notes scale, by knowing your open strings are tuned GCEA, you should be able to work out any note on the neck.

So how do we work up the note scale? Well, as you probably know, major notes in music are named as A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. It does however get a little more complicated as we have sharps and flats, and these represent intermediate notes between these major notes.

The sequence actually runs like this:

A - A#/Bb - B - C - C#/Db - D - D#/Eb - E - F - F#/Gb - G - G#/Ab - and back to the next A.

This run of notes from that lower A to the next one up is called an Octave.

The '#' symbol above means a sharp note and the 'b' means a flat. They are named together as they are essentially the same note - the A# plays the same as a Bb!

But hang on, you are asking, why are there no sharps/flats between some of the notes, like between the B and C and the E and F? Well, they don't exist! If you can picture a piano keyboard, the black keys represent the sharps and flats. If you look, the black keys dont appear between each and every white key, in some cases the white keys are next to each other. These are the keys that represent those notes above that don't have a sharp or a flat.

So, now you know how the notes run on the scale, if you take your ukulele and look at the G string - using the list of notes above, you now know that the first fret will play you a G#/Ab, the second fret an A, the third fret an A#/Bb, the fourth fret a B and so on. You can apply this to the other strings as well, and using the sequence work out any note at any fret on the ukulele!

If you are feeling brave you could try to memorise them all, but I would suggest that you do try to memorise all of those up to fret four of five on each string.

Good luck as always!

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