Natural Ukulele Harmonics

Series Summary

The ukulele is a Hawaiian instrument that was developed in the 19th century and modeled after a smaller version of the guitar brought over by the Portuguese. After the ukulele's journey across the Pacific to mainland America it's worldwide familiarity began to grow. Today many popular bands and artists of every genre use ukulele's for live music performances and in recording studios. It's distinct sound is unmistakable and innocent sounding. Unlike a guitar, a ukulele has only four strings and is about 1/3 the size of a normal acoustic guitar. Some are made of wood, others plastic but they still sound very similar.

This free video clip series will take you on a journey from the headstock to the bridge of the ukulele. Although there are some differences between ukuleles and guitars much of the playing styles are similar. Our expert will show you some great playing styles and techniques such as palm muting, fret hand muting, raking, and tapping. By the end of these videos you'll be ready to write your own ukulele music so take a look and you'll see why the ukulele is the instrument of the future!

Video Transcript

"First I'm going to talk about natural harmonics. Now a brief synopsis of the way a string works, a string is nothing more than a wave. If you look at a wave, the central point or anywhere where it crosses the zero line, would be considered a node. A complete wavelength, where it goes above, back down, and then back to its starting point, would be thought of essentially as the length of a string. So when you strike that, this string is vibrating in that kind of pattern. Now right in the middle, where that middle node is, would be the twelfth fret. If you divide a string in half it will create an octave, the same note but an octave up. So if we play very lightly that string using the fleshy part of your finger print there right at the twelfth fret which is half way, it will create a harmonic."