How to Tune a Ukulele

The four notes

• 4th string: G4, 392 Hz. Nearest your chin. In standard re-entrant tuning this is the second-highest note on the instrument.
• 3rd string: C4, 261.63 Hz. Middle C, and the lowest note on a re-entrant ukulele.
• 2nd string: E4, 329.63 Hz.
• 1st string: A4, 440 Hz. Nearest the floor, and conveniently the reference pitch itself.

Mnemonics, if you want one: Good Cooks Eat A lot, or the first four notes of the old “My dog has fleas” jingle, which is literally these four strings strummed in order.

Why the strings are out of order

On almost every stringed instrument the strings run from lowest to highest. A standard ukulele does not: the fourth string jumps up an octave. This is re-entrant tuning, and it squeezes all four strings into a range of about an octave.

The consequence is that a strummed chord arrives as a tight cluster instead of a spread from bass to treble. No string is acting as the bass, so every string is a voice, and the chord sounds bright and compact rather than grounded. That is the ukulele sound. It is also why a ukulele sits so well underneath a singing voice: it is not competing for the low end at all.

Low-G tuning drops that fourth string an octave to G3 and puts the strings back in order. You gain five low notes and a fuller fingerstyle tone; you lose the chime. It needs a different fourth string, usually a wound one. You cannot simply detune the high G, which will go slack and buzz.

Tuning it

1. Work one string at a time, muting the others. A tuner hearing four ringing strings will pick one, and it may not be the one you are turning.
2. Turn slowly: ukulele pegs are sensitive. The strings are short and under low tension, so a small turn moves the pitch a lot further than it would on a guitar. Tiny adjustments.
3. Finish by coming up to the note. If you overshoot, drop clearly below and come back up, so the string is seated under tension rather than sitting on slack.
4. Go round at least twice. Changing any string changes the tension on the neck and pulls the others with it.
5. Strum a C chord and listen. The number check and the ear check are different checks. If all four read green and the chord still sounds sour, see below.

Nylon strings and the two-week problem

A new ukulele will not stay in tune, and nothing is wrong with it. Nylon and fluorocarbon stretch far more than steel, and a fresh set keeps creeping flat for days, sometimes a couple of weeks of daily playing before it settles.

Speed it up by stretching deliberately: hold the string down at the first fret, pull it gently away from the fretboard a couple of centimetres along its length, then retune. Repeat three or four times per string. You will drop the pitch every time, which is the point: you are doing in five minutes what a fortnight of playing would do.

If an old ukulele will not hold, the usual culprit is friction pegs slipping. Most have a small screw in the centre of the button; a quarter turn tighter is normally enough. The other common cause is too many messy windings around the post, leaving slack that gradually pulls through.

In tune but still sour

Two likely causes, and neither is the tuning. Ukuleles are short-scale instruments, so pressing hard bends the pitch sharp much more easily than on a longer neck. A light left hand fixes more intonation complaints than any adjustment. And cheap instruments frequently have their bridge or nut in slightly the wrong place, which no amount of tuning corrects; check by comparing an open string to the same string at the 12th fret, which should be the same note an octave up.

A drone is the fastest way to hear which string is causing a chord to churn: hold the chord over a sustained C and listen for the beating. The method is in practicing with a drone, and it applies to any instrument.

Other sizes, other tunings

Soprano, concert and tenor all use G C E A: the bodies and scale lengths differ, the tuning does not. Baritoneis the exception at D G B E, which is exactly a guitar's top four strings, so guitarists find it immediately familiar and every chord shape they know transfers. Some soprano players also use the older D tuning, A D F♯ B, a whole tone above standard, which suits small bodies and old sheet music.

All of these, with note, octave and exact frequency, are in the tuning reference, along with twenty-odd other instruments and a piano you can sound any note from if you would rather tune by ear.

Then play something

Twenty seconds of tuning buys you an hour that does not fight you, and on an instrument this small and this quick to pick up, the tuning is most of the maintenance. Get the four notes right, then put a click behind it.