Week 1- Becoming Familiar With the Ukulele

For the first step of my genius hour I learned about the structure of ukulele and how to tune a ukulele. Here is a picture to outline all of the different parts of a ukulele!

Discover ukworld. (n.d.). Ukulele Diagram [Online Image]. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2m7azkw

Some parts of the ukulele you should be particularly familiar with are the frets, strings and tuning pegs. The frets are pieces of metal that are on the fret board. When you play the ukulele you use the frets to distinguish where you should place your fingers for particular notes and chords. The tuning pegs are used to tune your ukulele. You turn the pegs in order to tighten or loosen a string.

When tuning a ukulele you can use different types of tuners. Here's a helpful website that explains the different kind of tuners you can use. One is a chromatic tuner. This kind of tuner uses a microphone. You play a note in order for the tuner to recognize the note. You then adjust the tuning of the string you are playing. This type of tuner is affected by other sounds in the room that the microphone will also pick up. Another type of tuner you can use is  a clip on tuner. These tuners don’t use a microphone. Instead you clip the tuner to the head of the ukulele and it recognizes the note through the vibrations. This kind of tuner does not need to “hear” the note you are playing in order to recognize it because the vibrations travel through the instrument. Therefore other sounds in the room do not impact your ability to tune the instrument using a clip on tuner. I chose to use a clip on tuner because that would allow me to tune the ukulele anywhere, even in noisy environments. When tuning a ukulele you play one string at a time. The tuner will tell you the pitch of the note you are playing. Pitch refers to how high or low a musical note is (Montgomery, 2002). You then need to adjust the tune of the string depending on if you need to raise the pitch of the string or lower it. For example if you play a string and it’s an F but you need that string to be an F# then you turn the tuning peg in the direction to tighten the string and raise the note to an F#.

Additional References:

Montgomery, A. P. (2002). Teaching towards musical understanding: A handbook for the elementary grades. Toronto, ON: Pearson Education Canada Inc.