Ukulele For Dummies (15 page)

Down-up (half a beat each)
=
Ka-la

You use these mnemonics by strumming on each syllable. So a down strum would be a long ‘Flea' and a down-up strum would be down on the ‘Ka' and up on the ‘la'.

Therefore the rhythm is ‘Flea Ka-la Flea Ka-la'. After you master this particular strumming pattern, try adding it to ‘Li'l Liza Jane' from the earlier section ‘Starting your first song: ‘Li'l Liza Jane''. You need to do the down-down-up, down-down-up pattern once for each single strum you do in Figure 4-7.

Take a look at Figure 4-10, which relates to Track 3, to see the whole ‘Li'l Liza Jane' chord chart.

Keep your wrist nice and loose when you strum to avoid robotic sounding rhythms and to keep from tiring out.

Discovering Seven Chords

When you've perfected the two-chord song described in the earlier section ‘Playing a Song Using Two Chords', you're going to want to add more chords in order to play more complicated songs.

A great way to add interest to a chord progression is to use what are known as
seven chords
. An effective chord progression needs to build tension, and a seven chord is full of tension and begs you to move on to the next chord – providing you with momentum in the song.

The shorthand for a seven chord is simply the number 7. So, for instance, C seven is written as C7.

Getting to grips with G7

I'm going to start with G7. This seven chord is another step up in difficulty from the F and C chords because it requires three fingers. Take a look at Figure 4-11 to see the chord diagram.

Figure 4-12 shows how G7 looks in real life.

Play G7 with your fingers in the following positions:

Index finger on the E-string at the first fret.

Middle finger on the C-string at the second fret.

Ring finger on the A-string at the second fret.

The g-string is open.

Adding the E7 chord

Next up is the E7 chord, and again this uses three fingers. The chord diagram is shown in Figure 4-13 with the fingering illustrated in Figure 4-14.