Movable `Ukulele Chords

Beyond memorizing a core set of basic open position chords, a couple of movable form chords as well as a basic set of 4-part chords. You can't possibly memorize all the possible chord shapes available on the ukulele. You need to be able to create chords on the fly as needed or draw from your exsisting chord vocabulary. With a basic knowledge of the principles of how chords are constructed and knowing the notes of the ukulele fingerboard you CAN create any chord you need, on the fly and in real time. So throw out the chord dictionaries, software programs and your chord charts and get started on REALLY knowing chords.

Go to 20 Plus Chords below

These Ukulele Chord, Movable Chord series of lessons presents additional information not in my Ukulele Chords, "C" Tuning book.

I constantly read on-line and hear, "What's the best site or software for chords? What's an Em7/A, add, sus4, etc...?"

Well, some bad news. Chord dictionaries, software and web sites are not the answer. Even traditional chord theory does not offer any insight into unraveling the complexity of chord voicings. There's no magic to learning chords on the ukulele or any chord capable instrument. It's the organization of the material to be covered, knowledge of where and what the notes are that are available on your instrument, how chords are constructed and just work, work, work on it.

This Ukulele Chord of The Week series of lessons is set up to address one common problem I have seen over and over with students learning any new topic, scale, chord or just about anything on the ukulele. That problem is that simply understanding something gives a student a false sense that it's easy and therefore give me more. Initial success is no indication of future success when learning chords and switching chords.

Understanding something is just the first-step and really one of the easiest steps. BUT - and a big but, it's the time needed for the motor skills to develop for anything new and for the new material to get into your more long term memory. This development of the new motor skills like switching chords or learning new fingerings for a chord takes time. There are no shortcuts to developing the physical skills needed to the point that the ear is in control and getting to chords operates at a deeper sub-conscience level – This takes TIME - you just need to do it over and over and over.... Even a marathon runner knows is more than just putting one foot in front of another faster than the other runners - it takes time. It take deliberate work and effort.

As far as learning new basic open position chords and basic movable form chords don't try and absorb more than you can handle. This can happen if coming to the ukulele from guitar. You must treat the ukulele as a new instrument that just happens to be the same relative tuning as the guitar. The theory and motor skills will transfer but the names have changed when using the standard "C" tuning for ukulele. And - this is nice - you don't have the strumming accuracy issues that is inherent in the guitar with the additional lower two strings, five and six.

Learning basic open position chords and the basic movable form chords presented in the Ukulele Chord, Movable Chord Lessons will set you up for the more advanced chords, typically called “jazz” chords.

As an advance jazz guitar student, I had been struggling with more advanced chords such as #11, 9#11, 13b5, 9#5, 6/9, etc... So I asked my mentor and music guru, Chuck Anderson, "How do you remember so many chord shapes?" The answer was quite profound and a real break through in my learning. His answer - "YOU DON'T MEMORIZE COUNTLESS SHAPES. For more advance chords you create them on the fly as needed from a solid base foundation of core chords." It's actually that simple. It's all about deriving new information from known material.

Core Chords

Beyond memorizing the basic open position, their movable form versions and a basic set of core 4-part chords. You create all other chords on the fly as needed. With a knowledge of how chords are constructed and the notes of the fingerboard this is possible. Heck, with this knowledge you can write you own dictionary, software or series of chord lessons. Ultimately your core chords expand to include more chords than you ever thought possible to learn.

Movable Form Chords

Basic open position and movable form chords are the basis for this Ukulele Chord a Week series of lessons. The original series ran in the first part of 2007 and has been enhanced and improved ever since.

Movable chord forms are chords with no open strings. These chords are transposable by moving each note of the chord the same number of frets up and down the neck. Each movable form is based on a common open position chord. Movable forms allow you to play chords not found in the open position. Movable form chords allow you to play in any key and transpose chords to any key. From these basic movable form chords more advanced chords can be created.