Learning Ukulele with Curt
Basics the Beyond with Curt Sheller Your "TMI", "Total Music Information" Site…
Getting Started
Tune-Up! Tuning Your Ukulele

With so many electronic tuners available and at affordable prices. There is no reason to be playing out of tune. Always remember you are training you ear and need to feed it accurate information.

photo by Louis Martin
UPDATED:
8 August 2025
What Tuning?

ANY tuning is possible on a ukulele as long as the ukulele's construction supports the required string tension and a string is available . The manufacture or the builder of the ukulele would or should have this string tension information. The string manufacture typically has the tension information for their strings on their respective web sites.

There are three common tunings in popular use today, C, D and G tuning — with C tuning being the most popular.

Re-entrant Ukulele Tuning?

If coming from the guitar world where the strings, tuned low to high, is often called a linear tuning. An instrument like the ukulele with a higher pitched string four is called a re-entrant tuning where the lowest note of the instrument might not be the lowest string. This can seem a little strange at first. The re-entrant tuning, places all the notes of a chord within one octave, is part of the unique ukulele sound. This tuning is especially common for the smaller soprano and concert ukuleles.

Tuning is one of the aspects of the ukulele that gives it its charm. Or, it's a plot by builders and manufacture to have you buy more ukuleles.

Reference Tuning
For C Tuning ( g C E A ) the above fretted notes are ALL the exact same pitch (A 440 Hz, the A above middle C, ) when using the re-entrant, "high G" tuning. And when using a low G string, the A (220 Hz) on the string four is one octave lower than the others
To tune the ukulele relative to itself, compare the fretted notes on string four ( closest to your nose ) fret(2), string three (fret 9), and string two (fret 5) to the open string one. Tune up or down to the match this open string one's note. I listen for the notes to sound as one note.
Way before there where electronic tuners and you had to tune by ear, It was always a struggle for me (Curt) and getting my guitar in tune until a family friend and musician showed me this cool trick to help you get in tune, Virginia Schawacker , a folk guitarist, showed me when I was around 11 or 12 was to play the A on string two at fret (5), and if string one is in tune, which should be the same A as well, it will vibrate

Virginia Schawacker

Virginia Schawacker founded Shaw Strings in 1989 and provides you with a string quartet, trio, duo, solo harp, violin or flute, double quartet, or any combination of these players for your wedding, cocktail hour, or special event.
No Excuse For Being Out of Tune

In this electronic age where you can ask, "Who doesn't make a clip on tuner?". Simply get an electronic tuner or download an app to your smart phone and get in tune.

Web Sites for Tuning Up
Software and iPhone/iPad apps

Here are a few of the software tuners I've used. - The Peterson iStroboSoft is the software tuner I currently use on mu iPhone.

- or - just buy an electronic tuner and get in-tune quickly and accurate.

It is a also good to actually learn to tune by ear. If your ever stranded on a desert island and are without your tuner or have it with you and the battery dies. You need to learn how to tune the ukulele to itself!!!

Recommended Tuners

The Peterson StrobeClip HD, D'Adarrio NS Micro Headstock Tuner are my favorite tuners. I the D'Adarrio NS Micro Headstock Tuner on all my performance ukuleles. The new Peterson StroboClip HD is for all other ukes and if I really what super precision when tuning. I really have grown to like strobe tuners.

At our family music store, Funky Frets we carry a the of D'Adarrio Eclipse and Snark clip-on tuners. I clip either the Peterson StrobeCLip HD or one of the D'Adarrio Eclipse tuners on in the morning at home as part of my `Ukulele uniform for the day. The repair and setup bench always has a Peterson StrobePLUS HDC Handheld Tuner / Metronome / Timer fired up

The Micro Headstock Tuners are the go to tuner that I use on ALL my ukuleles for a quick tuning check. — Curt

For more detailed and precise tuning I use the Peterson Strobe Tuners. — Curt

(from Peterson Tuners) If you are new to strobe tuners, you will notice that they are much more sensitive and accurate than your previous tuner. It's OK if the strobe image doesn't completely stop. It may shift slightly due to the 'real-time' speed of a strobe tuner. If you play a stringed instrument, it helps to use your finger or thumb to gently pluck the string instead of a plectrum.

USA IL
Peterson
Peterson Electro-Musical Products, Inc.

In 1948, 10 years after the invention of the strobe tuner, Chicago-based Peterson Electro-Musical Products began building instrument tuners under the direction of Dick Peterson, a pioneer of solid state electronics. The first Peterson tuner was the Model 150 in 1952. This was updated to become the Model 200 in 1959 and the design was advanced to solid state with the Model 300 in 1966.

USA NY
PlanetWaves
Planet Waves

In 1994, Howard and Robert Silagy started a small guitar strap company in Hicksville, N.Y. Their approach to business was simple: make attractive, durable straps using high-quality materials and people will buy them. Over the next four years, the company grew, with sales skyrocketing because of the growing popularity of Planet Waves colorful, attractive designs and the line's thick, heavy-duty leather tabs.

Peterson Electro-Musical Products, Inc.

Peterson Electro-Musical Products, Inc. is a music-electronics company founded by Richard H. Peterson in 1948. The Peterson company introduced the first commercial hand held electronic tuner for musicians, the Model 70, in 1964, and later its models of strobe tuners became popular among touring and studio musicians such as the Grateful Dead, The Who, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and Neil Young. Since its inception the company has also contributed notable inventions and innovations to the electronic organ, and its products are in use in many thousands of pipe organs, and hundreds of thousands of electronic organs, worldwide.

Peterson StroboClip HD Clip-On Tuner

Clip-on tuner for guitar, bass, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, dobro, brass and woodwind instruments, violin, steel guitar, bagpipes, and more.

The StroboClip HD (SC-HD) features a high-definition, real-time tuning display that delivers 1/10th cent (1/1000th of a semitone or fret) tuning accuracy. It comes complete with alternate temperaments for a vast array of string, brass, and wind instruments. Over 50 exclusive, preset Sweetened Tunings are onboard to help correct inherent tuning issues exhibited by many instruments. Designed and engineered by Peterson Strobe Tuners –pioneers in the field of tuning and metronome equipment.

Peterson StroboPlus HD Desktop Strobe Tuner

Desktop strobe tuner for guitar, bass, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, dobro, Buzz Feiten, brass and woodwind instruments, violin, steel guitar, pedal steel, bagpipes, and more.

Charge up this large-screen chromatic StroboPlus HD tuner (with over 90 Sweetened tunings) and use the built-in microphone or ¼” input to plug in and tune it’s that simple! Edit with software to customize this tuner to be precisely what you want it to be!

Peterson StroboStomp HD

Pedal strobe tuner with true-bypass operation and buffered output tuning modes for guitar, bass, Buzz Feiten, steel guitar, pedal steel, and more.

The StroboStomp HD boasts a high-definition, LCD screen that incorporates a variable color LED backlight. The user-selectable colors can be used to personalize the tuner or to increase display viewing quality in different levels of ambient lighting depending on the usage environment. The vibrant screen colors can also be assigned to stock or user presets to significantly reduce menu navigation time and increase on-stage tuning confidence at the gig.

🚀 🚧 End of Site Content 🚧 🌍
NOTE: PICS ARE FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. FAIR USE NOTICE:: This site contains images of which have not been pre-authorized. This material is made available for the purpose of analysis, teaching, comment and critique. The 'fair use' of such material is provided for under U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107, material on this site (along with credit and attributions to original sources) is viewable for educational and intellectual purposes - (frwebgate.access.gpo.gov). If you are interested in using any copyrighted material from this site for any reason that goes beyond 'fair use,' you must first obtain permission from the copyright owner.
On the web since 1992 and a Mac since 1987 (Mac II) • Serving up Ukulele content since 2003 ( 22 years ago )Lets Kanikapila!!! v12.13.0 (8.2.23) • And, since Sept 2020, happily on Pop!_OS Linux and a System76 Thelio. Half the cost of the iMac and a real treat to use. I use it for ALL development work. Only wish the Affinity Suite of apps by serif where available on Linux (and I do know you can run them in Wine with a few hacks).
This sit has ben profesionaly red. awl tpyos aree free and no aditonal chrge • I'm blaming it on “jazz” fingers. “Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Site developed, coded, and maintained by Curt Sheller, Curt Sheller Publications and hosted on DigitalOcean, eCommerce using stripe, managed using Laravel Forge, and analytics (which we DO NOT share) by Plausible.
Made with by Curt Sheller for LearningUkulele.com / Learning Ukulele with Curt and the ukulele community • © 1992 - 2026 Curt Sheller