A Curated Set of Lessons

Lesson Series

Reading Standard Music Notation for Ukulele

Published: 01 Jan 2003 Updated: 01 Jan 2003Visits: 132Code: UL23

Reading music on ukulele is all about learning what the notes look like and where they are on the instrument for your favorite tuning.

Reading standard music notation also involves understanding the various elements and symbols used in sheet music and leadsheets to represent musical pitch, rhythm, dynamics, and other musical instructions. Here are the key components involved in reading standard music notation:

  • Staff: The staff consists of horizontal lines and spaces on which the musical notes are written. It traditionally consists of five lines and four spaces.
  • Clef: The symbol placed at the beginning of the staff to indicate the pitch range of the notes. The most common is the treble cleg or G clef and the one used for notating music for ukulele.
  • Notes & Rests: the primary symbols used to represent musical pitches. They are placed on the lines and spaces of the staff, and their vertical position determines the pitch. Different note shapes (such as whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, etc.) represent different duration or lengths of sound. Rests, indicate periods of silence in the music. They have shapes and durations similar to notes and are placed on the staff to indicate the duration of silence.
  • Time Signatures: The time signature appears at the beginning of a piece of music and consists of two numbers stacked on top of each other. The top number indicates the number of beats in each measure, while the bottom number represents the note value that receives one beat.
  • Key Signatures: The key signature is a set of sharps or flats placed at the beginning of a staff to indicate the tonality of the music. It tells the musician which notes are to be played higher or lower than their natural pitch.
  • Dynamics, Articulation, Expressions, and Tempo markings indicating volume intensity, accents, staccatos, slurs, fermatas, etc. Tempo markings are simply the speed or pace of the music. Indications include "adagio" (slow), "allegro" (fast), "moderato" (moderate), and many others. Can also be expressed as a metronome marking indication the beats per minutes (bpm) to perform the piece or section.

Registered Members Only Access

5 Lessons in the “Reading Standard Music Notation for Ukulele” Series

Viewing the lessons in this Lesson Series is only available to Registered visitors with a Verified email address. This is all in an effort to cut down on the amount of spam registrations that we've been receiving.

The lessons are also available individually in the Lessons area of the site. A Lesson series simply organizes these lessons into a logical sequence for learning.

Site Access Plans for LearningUkulele.com

Forever Access - With Forever Premium Access, you get ALL the benefits of a Premium Access Subscription such as Unlimited 24/7 access to ALL lessons, downloads, songs, play-along jam tracks, videos, email access to Curt, resources, related assets, and ALL books by Curt as FREE downloads. Pretty much everything on the site, and NEVER worry about a subscription or surprise payment again. And jump the queue for responding to any questions.

If you're anything like me (Curt) and getting Subscription overloaded with everything and everybody on-line wanting money from you once a month — I'm with you. For like-minded individuals, this forever plan is a pay once, and you're done.

The price for Unlimited Forever access is right around the cost of a few months of private lessons. I can guarantee there is more than enough material on-line to keep you busy for a long, long time. And, you get all of my books for FREE. That alone is more than the cost of this plan.

Premium Access - This premium gives you Unlimited 24/7 access to ALL lessons, downloads, songs, play-along jam tracks, videos, email access to Curt, resources and related assets. As well as ALL books by Curt Sheller as FREE downloads.

Basic Access - A limited selection of basic lessons — ( currently over 140 ) and 100+ songs for ukulele as well as basic general music reference material — Completely FREE — Simply Register/Signup. HOWEVER - I've been doing ukulele and LearningUkulele.com since 2003 and probably have given too much away already - as reflected in my income from the site in relationship to the time spent on the site. So help support this site and its continued development by signing up for one of the below Premium Access Plans or buy a few of my books. - Thanks, Curt

NOTE: Each higher access level includes ALL the benefits of the lower levels. Private Lessons include all the benefits of a Premium Access Plans as long as you remain a student on the schedule.

Just browsing over both books, they look fantastic! I'm a guitarist and uke player for over 25 years and was thinking about writing a ukulele book but you've already written what I think are the best, most comprehensive and thorough books I've ever seen for the instrument. I just might end up buying every book you've written and I'll be giving my highest recommendation for your books to my friends and students. Thank you so much for taking the time to write such great books!Peter Rhee

Aloha, Curt, All I can say is WOW! What you have accomplished is simply incredible! All the bestGlen Hirabayashi, The Aloha Boys

Folks, if you haven't stopped by Curt's site, do so right now! ..And get his books, they are fantastic. This guy knows his stuff and is able to pass it along too.Alan Johnson Proprietor, The 4th Peg

I can highly recommend Curt's Uke books — I have four of them and they are excellent.fatveg — Portland

Want to drop LearningUkulele.com & Learning Ukulele with Curt a nice comment . We always like to know how we are and you are doing. We'll post any comment, quotes throughout the site and you can help spread the word .

Thanks for visiting and checking out the site!

curtieAnim.gif rw.vg.gif

Original Curtie Animation from 1987 for my first web site on a Macintosh II, 37 years ago. Man, does time fly.

“Built for myself (Curt), and sharing with the `Ukulele community!”

LearningUkulele.com has one of the largest collections of lessons, songs, and TABS, Luthiers, ukulele builders, ukulele festival and club information, and, ukulele links on the web. Curt has been on the ®Internet since the early 1990's and This site just never stops growing!!!

Content is added and updated daily — so check back often. I really do need to get out more ;-)

Love LearningUkulele.com? • Show your support!
Support development via a monthly membership or a one-time forever membership!