When you first start playing the ukulele, it can be very frustrating to get your chord changes flowing smoothly and sounding right. You’ll often hear beginner ukulele players strumming along and then have to slow down or stop completely when they have to change chords.

In this article we hope to help you overcome these problems and take your playing to the next level.

Tip 1: Get Super Slow

The problem of jerky playing arises when you try to play at too high a tempo. The best thing to do when tackling a new tune is to start slowly - VERY slowly! Once your fingers get used to it, it will be easier.

If you’re playing too fast, you will make mistakes. And the more mistakes you make, the more your fingers will repeat that same pattern and continue to make mistakes.

Tip 2: Keep Your Playing Even

This tip follows on nicely from the first. The idea is to play at such a speed that you can change chords without interrupting the flow of the music. If that means you have to play very slowly indeed, that’s not a problem at all.

Doing it this way will mean you playing is much tighter and less sloppy once you start to increase the tempo up to full performance speed.

Tip 3: Think Ahead

You should have in your mind and which chord comes next and how you’re going to change to it. Think of ways you could make that change easier for yourself.

A useful illustration of this idea is the change to a G chord (which is played 0232) from a C chord (0003). For the G chord, you’ll need to have your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the A string. And you can have it there while you are playing the C chord (since that requires you play the third fret with you ring finger).

You can also get ready for the chord change by having your fingers just over the fret and string they will be playing. So, in the example of the C to G change, you could have your index finger just above the second fret of the C string.