Ukulele Chords for Beginners

The fastest way to start playing is to learn a handful of easy chords. Just four of them, C, Am, F and G, already cover a huge number of songs and a few more (C7, G7 and Dm) fill in most of the rest. Here are the essential beginner chords, easiest first. New to all this? My ukulele tips for beginners cover the ten habits that make everything below easier.

Which are the ukulele basic chords for beginners?

Do not panic, but there are dozens of chords and hundreds of ways to play them on a ukulele (see them all in the UkuTabs Chord Library).

You might run into problems with difficult chord diagrams, painful fingers, strumming, feeling the rhythm, tablatures and so on. Although the UkuTabs chord charts already show you the easiest way to play all the “main chords” (180 in total), you can slim things down quite a bit more. Read on. Having trouble reading chord diagrams? Check out how to read chord charts here.

1. Seven absolute basic ukulele chords

The four numbers are the frets to press on the g, C, E and A strings, read from top to bottom. A 0 means play that string open. Master C, Am, F and G first, they alone unlock hundreds of songs. Each one has its own page if you want every variation: C, Am, F, G, C7, G7 and Dm.

The first basic ukulele chords you should start learning are Am, C, F and G. Learning these four will allow you to play most popular songs in the C key, by artists like Bob Dylan, Adele, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Ready for some more? Add D and Em to the mix and you are set to play almost all songs in the G key. Learn E major as well and the key of A opens up too.

While these seven ukulele chords already open up a very wide range of songs, it is only the tip of the metaphorical ukulele chords iceberg. Ready for the next step? Here are the major, minor and seventh chords.

Four chords, four songs to try right now

Nothing makes a chord stick like using it. Every one of these sits on C, Am, F and G, so once you have those four shapes you can play all four songs today:

• Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, the song that sold most people on the ukulele.
• Can’t Help Falling In Love, slow enough to give your fingers time to move.
• I’m Yours by Jason Mraz.
• Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.

There are thousands more in the easy ukulele songs list and the three-chord songs archive is the natural next stop.

2. Major Chords

Everything starts with the seven major chords: A B C D E F G (= La Ti Do Re Mi Fa Sol). The most important ones are A, C, D, E, F and G. So basically all of them except the B chord. The B is not used that much, which is a good thing because it is not that easy to play.

Another chord that is not easy to play is the E chord. Unfortunately, this one is used in quite a lot of songs. That is why I have written a guide dedicated entirely to it. Want help on how to play the horrific E chord?

3. Minor Chords

After the major chords come the minor chords. They are also among the basic ukulele chords for beginners. Minor chords are widely used and they can give a song a more intimate feel, whereas major chords sound happier and more upbeat.

The ones that matter most when you are starting out are Am, Dm and Em. For reference, here are all the minor chords.

4. Seventh Chords

Some people may dispute this, but I personally think 7th chords are also very important basic ukulele chords and actually not that difficult to play either. They add a groovy, funky feeling to a song and are used a lot in jazz, soul and uptown songs.

My favorite is the F7, but I would recommend learning all of them (except maybe the B7). They will also help you when improvising and changing things up to make a song sound more interesting. There is a full guide to seventh chords if you want to go deeper.

How many chords do you actually need?

In my opinion these are the ukulele basic chords that every player should learn at the beginning. You can pick a few to start with and then expand. If you know all the chords listed on this page (or most of them) you will already be able to play a very wide range of songs. Keep in mind that you can always transpose a song to a different key to make it a little bit easier and a capo does the same job in one clamp.

Want to learn more chords? Take a look at the UkuTabs Chord Library, which contains an archive of almost every ukulele chord out there. Select a chord and it immediately shows you how to play it. There are also free A2 posters and A4 PDFs available with all the chord diagrams.

Basic ukulele chords FAQ

Now put them to use

You only need C, Am, F and G to play along with loads of songs, so pick one from the list above and start today. Look up any shape in the free chord library and when a chord feels hard the simplify difficult chords guide has quick fixes. Feel free to contact me whenever you need more information about learning your first ukulele chords.