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So my recent ukulele post talked all about my nephew and his ukulele. Actually, it was more about missing my guitar while I was on vacation, but my nephew got me thinking about ukuleles.

The thing that I forgot to mention about ukuleles… and I am really out of my element here because I have never strummed a ukulele a single time… is that there are different sizes. From looking at Musician’s Friend, there is a regular uke, a tenor uke, a concert uke, and a soprano uke. And from prior experience with musical instruments, there are probably some others that I don’t know about yet.

So this is the cool thing in terms of me missing my guitar… from what my nephew says, the tenor ukulele (which is a bit bigger than a regular uke) is sorta like playing the first four strings on a guitar. They are the same notes on a guitar. So if this is correct, I am wondering if the chord patterns are the same - as long as you only use chords from the first four strings (ie, such as the f chord or the d chord).

If that was the case (and I don’t know if it is, but it seems like the odds are pretty good), then I could have just run out and gotten a tenor ukulele at the beginning of me vacation, and it would have sorta been like playing the guitar. I know, a really messed up notion… but such is the mental state I am in.

My more serious guess is that getting that ukulele would have been an entirely different experience, and I would have found it valuable in its own right.

Could my guitar be replaced by a ukulele?

OK, so I am on vacation… and I am without my guitar. I already wrote about it in my last blog entry. So last week I visited a Guitar Center for the first time - and I was suitably impressed with more guitars in one place than I have ever seen.

But that was in Chicago… now I have moved on and I am sitting in a nice house on a beautiful lake in a very small town. No guitar center here. And that means I am not playing guitar at all. And it sure would be nice to have a guitar to play while I am sitting at the beach.

And then my nephew mentioned that he has been playing the ukulele for the last six months or so. Now I know almost nothing about the ukulele at all. In fact, the only thing I know about it is that one of my friends who was a role model for me learning to play guitar said that he originally started three years ago when he happened to pick up a cheap ukulele when he was on vacation in Hawaii. That led to getting a nicer ukulele, then he got a guitar.

So I got to thinking… maybe I could do the reverse evolution for a week or so - going from guitar to ukulele while I was on vacation. So I did a bit of poking around at musician’s friend, and you can get ukulele’s for REALLY cheap. I am talking about $29 to $49 - and the most expensive ones look like they are about $250 (of course, like any musical instrument, I am sure the sky is the limit).

So my question is, should I get a cheap ukulele to bang around on while I am on vacation?

I am away on vacation, and I am missing my guitar. I just figured it would be hard to bring a full size acoustic dreadnought guitar on a plane, so I left it home. I haven’t ever tried flying with a guitar, and I am sure it is possible… but it seemed like it would be a hassle. So I left my guitar at home, and now I am missing it.

I have been away from my guitar for over a week now. I did stop in a Guitar Center a few days ago, so I spent a little bit of time playing. That was my first time ever in a Guitar Center, and wow… that was really something. Talk about a huge quantity of guitars!! They had one huge room with nothing buy electric guitars and amps. Then another big room with nothing but acoustic guitars. Then a third room with drums and a fourth room with keyboards. Obviously, I didn’t spend my time in the third and fourth rooms… but I had fun with the acoustic guitars and the electric guitars.

The first thing I did was go in the acoustic room. I started off with the Taylor 314ce. That was sweet, and I am really liking the Grand Auditorium guitar shape. Then I just went up the Taylor line… all the way to the 814ce. NICE stuff.

I was also eyeing the Ibanez Day Tripper… which looks like it would make a fine travel guitar.

Guitar Center,
guitar

After my last post about barre chords, I found this really cool video at Ultimate-Guiter.com. The video is basically a tutorial on how to play barre chords, and it is oriented towards beginners.

Check out the video on barre chords here.

This is the amazing thing about learning to play guitar in the age of the internet… I can’t imagine trying to learn to play guitar before you could download tabs, lessons, and entire courses about guitar.

I am pretty amped about this barre chord video… I just downloaded it and played it through for the first time. The download is huge - 35 megabytes, but it was worth it. As I mentioned before, I was just starting in on these barre chords, so this is pretty cool to come across a free video on how to play barre chords.

tags: guitar chords,
learn to play guitar
,
barre chords

So where are all the barre chord fans out there? It seems like after I was playing for only a month or two on the open chords, I started to hear about
barre chords. I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was. Then a friend of mine spent a few minutes showing me how you can move a barre chord up and down the fret board, and I started to clue into why barre chords are cool.

The other thing about that basic intro to barre chords was that I started to understand just a little bit about the fret board and how you can figure out the various notes and chords. Now mind you I am not an expert… in fact, I am barely even a beginner. But just the slightest glimmer of understanding is starting to seep in.

It seems like the E shaped barre chord is one of the favorites… or at least one of the easiest barre chords. And it didn’t take too long for me to be able to form that E shaped barre chord and move it around. It didn’t always sound great (and it still doesn’t), but I am making progress. However, I still really stink when it comes to moving to it in any type of a timely fashion.

Then another friend pointed out that the good old F major chord is really a barre chord, since you are holding down the first two strings on the first fret. Well now, here is a barre chord that I can actually make with some degree of alacrity.

In my last post I asked if I could move this barre chord - the F major shape - around the fret board to make different chords. Logic seems to say yes, but I can’t find any references to it in any of my “learning guitar” books, or even any chord reference books.

Reference tags: guitar,
guitar chords

OK, so every beginner hates the F chord (ie, the F major chord). And six months into learning to play the guitar, I have to admit that the F chord was a major hurdle. I mean, the G chord, C chord, D chord, A chord, and E chord are pretty easy to learn to form and get a good sound. But the F chord is one that can take a while - and I am talking about playing at a “no tempo” speed. Even if you take a minute or two to form that F chord, beginners often can’t get it to sound right.

The reason is that the F chord is really your first barre chord (that is pronounced “bar” chord)… where you have to use one finger to hold down two or more strings. At first this seems literally impossible. But take my word on this… it gets easier over time. In any case, with that F chord you have to hold down both the first and second strings at the first fret with your first finger (ie, you index finger.

Of course, that is not all you have to do to make that F chord… you also have to hold down the third string at the second fret and the fourth string at the third fret. Oh, and you have to be sure not to play the sixth string… and you probably shouldn’t play that fifth string either. That means that it might be a good idea to wrap your thumb around the neck and deaden that sixth string with your thumb (for you experienced players, I am not trying to start a debate here!).

So this is my question for you experienced guitar players out there… I often read about the various barre chords - the E shaped barre chord and the A shaped barre chord seem to be the most popular. But can I use the F chord as a barre chord and just slide it up the neck?

reference: barre chords,
guitar