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Guitar Tabs to Ukelele

neiryth

Joined: May 30 2011

Can anyone tell me how to tranpose from guitar to ukelele. I would like to play some songs that I can only find in guitar tabs.

Submitted on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 17:05

surreal

Eric: tank,godlike

Location: Arizona

Joined: Jan 04 2009

Before I bother, I'll need to know what kind of ukelele you have.

Soprano, Tenor, Baritone?

Submitted on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 17:10

RexLeRouge

IMPACTO

Joined: Aug 15 2008

put a capo on the 5th fret
only play with the 4 first strings
and you have a wonderful standard tuning (GCEA) soprano ukulele on your guitar

Submitted on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 17:13

neiryth

Joined: May 30 2011

Soprano

Submitted on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 17:13

surreal

Eric: tank,godlike

Location: Arizona

Joined: Jan 04 2009

RexLeRouge said

put a capo on the 5th fret
only play with the 4 first strings
and you have a wonderful standard tuning (GCEA) soprano ukulele on your guitar

Implying he has a guitar.

Okay, I'll start off by hoping you have some basic music sense and go about it directly.

Guitar standard tuning is E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4

Take note of the numbers after the letters, those signify the octave. The number goes up by 1 every time you pass the C note.

So all the notes excluding sharps/flats on a guitar between open E on the 6th string (E2) and open A on the 5th string (A2) will be E2 to F2 to G2 to A2

All the notes (excluding sharps/flats again) from open A on the 5th (A2) to open D on
the 4th (D3) will be A2 to B2 to C3 to D3

See how that works? Every time you hit C that number is going to increase.

Okay so now lets approach how a soprano Uke is tuned. G4 C4 E4 A4

Take note how the Open G on the 4th string is tuned higher than the Open C on the 3rd string. This term is called Reentrant tuning, so take care not to get confused there.

A uke's lowest note is C4, wheras on guitar it is E2. This means it'll be quite likely that you'll have to shift the guitar tab up an octave or two to properly fit your instrument's range.

It's not hard so much as it's basically taking something apart and building it again note for note. Just remember to keep the spaces between each note (the intervals) the same.

Submitted on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 17:35

btw thanks i get it, all ihave to do is find the note on the guitar and then find the note on the uke. Just trial and error to find the corect one. example. If i have a c then i have to find the c on the uke that is in the octave.
Is this correct
and thanks

Submitted on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 17:44

Re: btw thanks i get it, all

surreal

Eric: tank,godlike

Location: Arizona

Joined: Jan 04 2009

Just take care in keeping the note intervals the same.

If you shift a low note two octaves higher, you'd usually have to shift all the other notes two octaves higher each to match. You can always try to just move a low note up one and leave others the same, but that's a matter of trial and error.

When doing this you have to make the call on whether or not to leave a lower note out entirely to preserve playability. You have to to try and make the best accommodation for the range of your instrument overall. Don't force yourself to shift melodies super high just so a low note barely fits.

You're basically arranging rather than just transcribing here, so keep that in mind.

Submitted on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 18:02

Re: put a capo on the 5th

Frogma

Joined: Jun 25 2008

surreal said

Okay, I'll start off by hoping you have some basic music sense and go about it directly.

Guitar standard tuning is E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4

Take note of the numbers after the letters, those signify the octave. The number goes up by 1 every time you pass the C note.

So all the notes excluding sharps/flats on a guitar between open E on the 6th string (E2) and open A on the 5th string (A2) will be E2 to F2 to G2 to A2

All the notes (excluding sharps/flats again) from open A on the 5th (A2) to open D on
the 4th (D3) will be A2 to B2 to C3 to D3

See how that works? Every time you hit C that number is going to increase.

Okay so now lets approach how a soprano Uke is tuned. G4 C4 E4 A4

Take note how the Open G on the 4th string is tuned higher than the Open C on the 3rd string. This term is called Reentrant tuning, so take care not to get confused there.

A uke's lowest note is C4, wheras on guitar it is E2. This means it'll be quite likely that you'll have to shift the guitar tab up an octave or two to properly fit your instrument's range.

It's not hard so much as it's basically taking something apart and building it again note for note. Just remember to keep the spaces between each note (the intervals) the same.

Oh dude, you're the man.

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"Frogma is not a communist! He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a communist, but he is not a porn star!"

Submitted on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 09:42