The ukulele is a beautiful piece that stands alone as a unique fretted stringed instrument. Although many may associate the ukulele with the guitar, the ukulele is unique in that it lends a large portion of its sound to rhythm and beat-keeping, as apposed to the more melodic and technical sound that is characteristic of the guitar. That being said, the ukulele is a still a tonal instrument and, thus, still relies heavily on proper intonation (tuning) in completing its sound.

In this article, I will highlight an alternative method to tuning the ukulele to itself that is separate from the adjacent string method highlighted in the article Tuning and checking the tuning on a Ukulele. To avoid redundancy, I will not repeat the method described in the aforementioned article. The non-adjacent string method is relevant because it is more effective on the ukulele than the adjacent string method, which is preferred on the guitar. A guitarist would probably use the adjacent string tuning method whilst attempting to tune the ukulele, while a true ukulele player will almost always use the non-adjacent method. I will explain why the non-adjacent method is more effective after I show you what exactly it is.

Before anybody attempts to do any tuning by ear, they must understand that tuning by ear is something that is only possible for SOME people. If a player cannot tune their instrument using Get-Tuned's Online Ukulele Tuner, that player WILL NOT be able to use this method. This method is what I call a "road tool", or something to resort to only when there is no other tuning method readily available. If, for example, you bring your ukulele on a camping trip, and so you can’t log on to the internet to pull up the ukulele tuner, this method will allow you to tune your ukulele to ITSELF, so you will be able to play ALONE. Keep in mind that two instruments tuned with this method will not necessarily be in tune with each other, and they almost always won’t be. Players in this situation will need to make sure that every string is in tune with its counterpart on the other instrument. This problem is easily solved by having one player tune his instrument to itself, and then having the other player tune each of her strings to each corresponding string on the first player’s ukulele.

Now, on to the good stuff. Please keep in mind that this article is specific to standard ukulele tuning, which is:

This is the tuning which most ukuleles will be in when they are on display in a shop, and it is also the tuning used by almost all beginners. For this method to work, the player must choose one string which he will arbitrarily assign as "in tune". I typically choose the E string, although technically the G and A strings tend to stay in tune best, out of all the strings. Still, for simplicity’s sake, let’s choose the E string, which is the highlighted above, to be our "in tune" string. Now that we’ve designated E as being "in tune," there is no need to tune the E string at all.

• Step 1: Using the "in tune" E string as a reference, we will begin tuning the rest of the instrument. Let’s begin with the G string. The third fret on the E string will give the note G, so the player should play both the open G string and the third fret on the E string and hear the same note. If these pitches are not exactly the same, carefully but deliberately adjust the tuner attached to the G string (NOT the E string) until the pitches match. This is step one on the second figure.
• Step 2: Now that you have the E and G strings in tune with each other, you can move on to the A string. The second fret on the G string will produce an A pitch, so play this along with the open A string. If these pitches are not exactly the same, adjust the tuner attached to the A string (NOT the G string) until the pitches are exactly the same. Now we are almost entirely in tune, aside from the C string, which brings us to step three.
• Step 3: The third fret on the A string will give a C, exactly one octave above the open C string. Play both the third fret on the A string and open on the C string and you should hear an exact octave interval (same note, but one is lower pitched than the other). If the octave is NOT perfect, adjust the tuner attached to the C string (NOT the A string) until the octave is perfect.

Here is an image to help aid in understanding the process.

Each number on the image corresponds to the step number, and the position your finger should be in to properly produce each tone. Each number is attached to a different string by a line; this shows which open string corresponds to each fretted note. Hopefully this helps visually show what I’m trying to demonstrate.

If all three steps are done correctly, the ukulele should be exactly in tune with itself! Verify this by playing an open C chord; hold the third fret on the A string, and leave all the remaining strings open. Strum all the strings together at once, and, if properly tuned, you should hear a beautiful C major chord! (If you hear something "ugly," you’ve probably failed to properly tune the instrument. Try starting over!)

Now that you’ve tuned your instrument, you may be wondering why this method is more effective than the adjacent string method. Most ukuleles are constructed economically, meaning that the fretting isn’t always exactly perfect. Also, the nylon strings allow the player to adjust the pitch of a fretted note simply by adjusting the amount of pressure being put onto the string. Both of these are causes for tonal distortion, which increases as the player move farther down the fret board towards the body. In other words, the farther you are fretting from the top of the instrument, the more out of tune each note will be. Therefore, when selecting a tuning method, a player should select that which requires the lowest fret numbers. Notice that the adjacent tuning method described in the other article requires the player to use fifth and fourth frets, while this method only requires third and second frets. This greatly reduces the effect of tonal distortion in tuning the instrument. Thus, tuning using the non-adjacent tuning method is much more effective in achieving the optimal tuning, which is why it is preferred by most ukulele players.

Again, I hope that this article is helpful to you. Now that you’re in tune, get out there and have fun!

Written by Michael Klear