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Chords 03: F major
Tamás GállIn this part of our beginner series – followingC major and A minor – we learn F major. This is the first chord that requires more than one finger – two, to be exact. If C major and A minor already feel secure, it is time to put the middle and index fingers to work at the same time. It is not a diffi…
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Chords 04: G major
Tamás GállThe fourth basic chord is G major. Add it to the C major, F majorandA minorwe have already learned, and we will be able to play quite a large number of songs – at least accompany them with chords. Compared with the first three chords, G major initially seems the most complicated, because the first t…
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Chords 05: C major, A minor, F major and G major
Tamás GállWe have already learned four chords. I hope you have managed to memorise how to fretC major,A minor, F majorand G major . These are excellent basic chords with which to begin learning because they appear in songs constantly. There are very few songs in which at least one of the four does not occur.…
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Chords 06: D major
Tamás GállWe have completed the first four chords and hopefully can now strum C major, A minor, F major and G major with confidence. The series continues with D major, taking us into the category of slightly more difficult chords. The challenge with G major was forcing the fingers into a somewhat unusual hand…
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Chords 07: E major
Tamás GállThis may be the first chord that makes beginner ukulele players genuinely wince. However we twist our fingers, E major is simply not very comfortable to fret. There is no need to be frightened of it, of course; it simply requires a little more patient practice than something like C major. In the vid…
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Chords 08: A major
Tamás GállAfter the difficulties of E major, we get a little relaxation and learn A major. If we had arranged these chords strictly by difficulty, A major really should have come before E major, but never mind – this is the order we ended up with :). Anyone who can already fret F major and A minor will have a…
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Chords 09: F minor
Tamás GállF minor is a classic example of a chord that looks difficult but really is not . At least when we first look at a hand fretting F minor, it may seem as though the ukulele player's hand has cramped up. In reality we are simply seeing a slightly rotated wrist and fingers carefully placed at the follow…
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Chords 10: E minor
Tamás GállThe easiest way to remember E minor is to say that we are building a “small staircase” with our fingers. The only thing we need to memorise carefully is where the staircase begins. Start at the second fret of the lowest string, then move one string over and one fret higher each time as we place thre…
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Chords 11: G minor
Tamás GállG minor is the drunk person's staircase. If E minor is a beautiful, orderly staircase, G minor looks as though the bricklayer forgot to sort the bricks by size. :) Compared with G major, only one note is different, but because of where that note falls, the fingering changes completely: 0231. The upp…
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Chords 12: D minor
Tamás GállI often say that anyone who knows F major also knows D minor. That is a slight exaggeration, of course, but it is true in the sense that F major provides an excellent starting point. We simply add a ring finger capable of flattening neatly and squeeze it onto the second fret of the second string, be…
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Chords 13: C minor
Tamás GállC minor is the second chord in our series where barre technique is effectively required. We touched on the subject with D major, but here it becomes much more important. We will learn two C-minor fingerings, 0333 and 5333. In the first we use a small barre covering only the three lower strings. In t…
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Chords 14: C7
Tamás GállC7 is one of the easiest chords in the world. In terms of simplicity, it rivals C major. I did make one mistake in the video: I forgot to show the alternative fingering. C7 can be played not only as shown on the left — and in the video — but also as you can see in the picture on the right: barre the…
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