The ukulele is a great instrument to learn. The basics are really easy to pick up. It's particularly suited to young children, with its diminutive size, and will teach a number of skills that translate to other instruments, particularly the guitar. To get you started on your journey, here are ten tips that will kick start your ukulele playing.

Take the time to tune up properly. Because it's short, it can be quite hard to get the Ukulele for sale in uk in tune. But it has to be done. If your ukulele is out of tune, you WILL sound terrible. There are plenty of tools online to help you to do this. My particular favourite is the AP Tuner.

I will also use an easy form of tablature notation that will help you find your way around your ukulele guitar. Guitar tablature or guitar tab is very common on the internet. It is a notational system with six lines representing the strings on a guitar and numbers on the lines indicating which frets to press down.

As you can see this chord is the same chord as a D major on a guitar. A little bit confusing if you also play guitar but I guess you will get Ukulele for sale in uk used to it.

Learn to read Ukulele tab. Tablature is a method of showing how to play melodies on the Ukulele as well as chords. It's easy to understand - much easier than standard music notation. There is plenty of ukulele tab available on the net and it's a lot of fun to play. Search for 'how to read ukulele tab' on Google and you'll find some helpful articles.

Now you will learn to interpret this notation. The digit before the slash indicates the fret to press down. The digit after the slash shows you Ukulele for sale which string to play.

These fingerings will help you as you play in many ways. With one finger taking care of one fret each you will not have to look at your fingers as much as you will feel your way around on the fretboard better.

Hold down the second string (from the top) at the 4th fret, and pick it alternating with your open string underneath it. Tune this open 3rd string to sound the same as fretted one above it.