Ukulele For Dummies (26 page)

Note that D
7 is the same as C
7: D
and C
are the same note, as are E
and D
. Check out Chapter 2 for more on the names and arrangements of the notes.

Discovering new moveable chord shapes

Moveable chord shapes are based around open chords – you're simply moving the shape up the fretboard and replacing the nut of the uke with a barre.

Having seen in the preceding section how you can easily move the barred Bm to a barred B
m by moving down a fret, I now show how you can move from an open Am chord to a barred B
m.

Take the open A minor chord but fret the g-string with your ring finger (rather than your middle finger). Now move every note up one fret. So the second fret on the g-string is now a third fret and all the open strings are moved up to the first fret (but played with a barre). You now have the B
m chord shown in Figure 6-11 in the earlier section ‘Budging up barre chords'.

You can turn any open chord you know into a moveable chord shape using the following steps:

1. Rearrange the fingering of the chord so that your index finger is free.

2. Move the chord shape up one fret.

3. Barre across at the first fret.

When you have this shape down pat, you can move it up and down the fretboard and the chord keeps its flavour (major, minor or seven) but changes its name (C, D, E
and so on).

Shifting the F shape

You can use the system for creating barre chords with any of the open chords you know. Follow these steps using the F chord:

1. Free your index finger by fretting the chord with your middle and ring fingers (as shown in Figure 6-13).

2. Move the notes up by one fret so that the g-string is played at the third fret and the E-string at the second fret.

3. Barre the first fret with your index finger.

The result is the chord in Figure 6-14, which being one fret higher than F is F
(F sharp).