Learn How to Play the Ukulele: I Got Rhythm! (Or maybe you don't.)

Once you have your basic technique for strumming down, it's time to talk about rhythm. Rhythm is the big ol' bugaboo that I see so many people talking about in the ukulele forums and groups on social media, and for good reason: understanding how rhythm works can really take your playing skills up a notch. But just like anything else when you learn how to play the ukulele, it takes a little bit of time.

We can start talking about rhythm with a little bit of music theory. You don't necessarily have to know the names of all the notes on the staff, or whether it's a bass clef or a treble clef, but understanding the value of each note will give you an idea of the rhythm in each piece of music you want to play. 

For some of us, rhythm is just instinctual. If you've ever participated in a drum circle, you know what I'm talking about. Rhythm is just one powerful way to tell a story with music. So let's talk about the basic theory behind note value.

Whole Note, Half Note, Quarter Note

At the most basic level, we can talk about whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes. When I talk about the value of the note, or how many beats are in each note, how quickly or slowly you play those beats is entirely up to you. To get a sense of how long to hold a whole note, if you don't have a metronome handy, you can use the second hand of a clock. If you don't have a clock with a second hand (I must be a relic, because we still have clocks with second hands in our house), you can find an online metronome here: Google Metronome

If you're new to all this, start with the metronome set at about 50 BPM, or slow it down to a pace with which you're comfortable.

So when you see a whole note that looks like this, you count it for 4 beats.

A half note has half the value of a whole note (go figure), so when you see a half note, you hold that for 2 beats.

And then finally a quarter note has a quarter of the value of a whole note, so you hold that for one beat.

Most music that you'll be playing will probably have a wider range of notes, but for our purpose here of getting started with music theory, this is a great place to start.

As we continue with the value of notes, we half 8th notes that are half a beat, 16th notes that are a quarter of a beat. 

Single eighth notes with an eighth rest

A string of eighth notes

If you see a note in your music that has a dot after it, you hold that note for its value plus a half. So a quarter note with a dot in front of it (called a dotted quarter note) would be held for one beat plus a half a beat.

If you're struggling to get the rhythm down on a piece of music, there is a set of syllables you can use to help you vocalize the rhythm of a piece of music. There's more on that here: Kodaly System of Rhythmic Notation

Why should you learn about rhythm if you only read tablature? Well, most tabs that I know of have the music notation above the tab on the bottom. If you're learning an unfamiliar tune and just have the tab without any idea of how long to hold the notes, you might be in for a struggle. But if you have a basic understanding of how musical rhythm is notated and how long to hold the notes, it'll make mastering a new piece of music that much easier.