Learning to Play the Uke from YouTube
Many beginning players ask if they can actually learn how to play the uke by watching YouTube videos. I have to tell you, I wondered the same thing in the beginning of my own ukulele journey.
I had taken music lessons when I was a kid and I had worked through guitar music lesson books when I was a teen, so the idea of watching a video and learning seemed too good to be true. It felt like watching television rather than learning! But I soon found that with a little practice, patience, and quite a bit of browsing, there is a place for YouTube in the learning process.
Allow me one disclaimer: In my experience, lessons with an “in-person” teacher are the best way to learn. You have immediate feedback and constant correction on posture, hand and finger position, tempo and chord forms. But, that requires a schedule that will accommodate a regular lesson and lots of focused practice. It is still the best way to learn but not always practical. And that was the situation I found myself in when I picked up the uke. I had a very busy job, a long commute, and a family. There wasn’t a lot of time for either lessons or practice. YouTube ukulele tutorials made sense for my situation. I could decide the frequency of the lessons and progress at my own pace as time allowed.
I was able to carve out a few evening hours each week to work through song tutorials and that proved to be quite enjoyable - new chords, new strums, new songs. I would choose a song and browse through all the different tutorials on that same song from a variety of “teachers”. It was like a smorgasbord of music! YouTube song tutorials were a perfect answer to expand my song repertoire.
For a beginning uke player, and even for more experienced players, song tutorials are fun and quite helpful to get you playing more and keep you playing. And the more you play, the more comfortable you are playing. You can improve your skills using song tutorials if you choose songs with progressively challenging arrangements, unfamiliar chords, different strum patterns, and different genres of music. Each musical style has its own chord and tempo “vocabulary”. This is one of the huge benefits of YouTube in that it offers a wide variety of music.
But sooner or later you may grow tired of learning just songs or playing beginner arrangements. You’ll be ready to learn more. What you’ll need is a different type of tutorial, ones that focus on skills.
There are plenty of ukulele skill videos on YouTube. The challenge is knowing which one you’ll need first. There is an order to learning skills, and trying to learn a skill that is too far above your capability is pretty frustrating. I jumped into Jazz tutorials pretty early on in my uke journey and, though I love the music, the level of difficulty was far beyond my level of playing at that time. I just figured I could go a little slower and work a little harder and I would get it - I didn’t. At least not at that time. I wasn’t ready.
Working on music that is too difficult can actually set you back in your skill development. You may finger chords in ways that don’t allow for the best movement of your hand and wrist or accommodate changes easily. When you practice incorrect movement, you make any mistakes “permanent” through the repetition. And, it takes twice as long to “undo” those mistakes.
So how do you find tutorials that are on your level? Well, that is the disadvantage you using YouTube - everything is available and, if you don’t have some kind of guide, finding the right “next step” can be daunting. YouTube will continue to offer up more and more options with each search. In fact, I think the most challenging part of using YouTube as your only instructional resource is the vast number of options - it can be not just overwhelming, but paralyzing. What to do first? What do I need to know?
You could find a few channels that offer the skills you’re looking for and then browse through to see if there are “introductory” videos and maybe some kind of order to follow. Not many channels organize videos that way so it is up to you to search out what you need. One of the things I did was to purchase a ukulele lesson book to find out how lessons were organized - what comes first, second, third, etc. I searched YouTube videos for topics that matched that organization.
It didn’t always work, but it gave me a better idea of what to look for, and I did have the music lesson book to follow if I couldn’t find a video. I also found that some of the teachers on YouTube have paid video lessons. I signed up for quite a few over the years to learn different things at different times. They are a viable option. Just make sure you commit to using those paid video library “memberships” to get your money’s worth!
These days, there are many more instructional videos on YouTube than there were 12 years ago when I first started playing, and a simple search for a term like, “learn to play fingerstyle ukulele” will bring up a good number of video options. The sheer magnitude of content on YouTube makes it a good resource for any level player, but you have to learn how to browse all those options mindfully to find what you need.
All that to say, “yes” you can learn to play ukulele watching YouTube videos - to a point. Song tutorials are great for gaining experience with chord forms and strums. Chord melody tutorials can help you develop finger-style skills. Books can round out your understanding of skills and music overall. But the reality is, at some point, you will need a teacher. Whether you choose someone with online lessons, a video lesson library, or (best) a live-and-in-person teacher, choose someone who acknowledges and even validates the use of videos, books, and song tutorials as a viable part of learning.
If you are just starting out with the ukulele, why not try our Uke Camp program? It is completely free and will walk you through a step-by-step map of what to learn. There is both written and video tutorials to jump start your uke journey!
Want a brief outline on how to use YouTube for learning the ukulele? Download our free guide…
