Hey ukulele players! The 3rd edition of Finger Fitness for ukulele is coming your way, along with a few basic warm-up exercises for your fingers. In this edition we’ll continue talking about plucking techniques by using the four fingers of your right hand. Enjoy!
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
In this finger fitness for ukulele blog post you’ll find:
Recap of the previous edition
In our previous Finger Fitness edition for ukulele we already started to talk about plucking techniques:
- Playing two open strings at a time by using these pairs of fingers on the right hand:
- Playing two strings at a time, based on the A chord, by using the same combination of two strings.
Now let’s learn how to pluck all four ukulele strings with the four fingers at the same time – p, i, m and a. As in the previous edition, we’ll make them ring together with the same level of volume. And as usual we’ll start with the right hand and open strings. Then we’ll add our left hand and will practice based on a certain chord.
Right hand plucking technique practice
You already know that the p-finger plays the 4th (G) string. The i-finger plays the 3rd (C) string, the m-finger plays the 2nd (E) string and the a-finger plays the 1st (A) string.
In order to be fully focused on the fingers of the right hand, we’ll pluck all four open strings at the same time. You should hear that the strings really ring together with the same level of volume.
Don’t forget to ensure that both your shoulders and hands are relaxed, and the fingers of your right hand are located next to the corresponding strings. And don’t forget to give your hands and your body a rest when you feel it’s needed.
Check out our video for this exercise.
Play these four open strings several times in a row, carefully listening to how these strings sound together. You can also find the note chart with tablature and finger names for this exercise below:
Combining the left and right hands
At this point, your fingers are already used to playing all four strings together with the same level of volume. And we can imagine you can’t wait to try playing a whole chord with this plucking technique. So, let’s do that, shall we?
In the previous edition we practiced on the A major chord. In this edition, we’ll practice on the D major chord.
Of course, you can practice with any other chord. We chose the D major chord since it has three adjacent pressed strings and only one open string. So, this is a good challenge for you to produce the same volume when you pluck all the strings together.
Play the D major chord by plucking all four strings several times in a row, carefully listening to how these strings sound together.
Again, make sure that both your shoulders and hands are relaxed and the right hand fingers are located next to the corresponding strings. And don’t forget to give your hands and your body a rest when you feel it’s needed.
Here is the note chart with tablature and finger names for this exercise:
As in the previous edition, we would like to encourage you to do the same exercise with other familiar ukulele chords. Playing different chords means you will press the strings on different frets, and this is a good way to train your fingers to pluck the strings and to produce the sound.
Final thoughts
In this article, we went through exercises on improving your plucking technique for playing all the ukulele strings using the four fingers of your right hand. Now you can play any chord on the ukulele as full as possible. And what can be more inspiring than jamming along with your favorite songs? Start with the easy songs playlist or explore our Top 50 Premium channel, where you can also check out our Premium features for free. You can also read our first and second editions for ukulele, if you missed them somehow.
Happy jamming!
