The first string on your ukulele is the bottom string with the highest pitch. If you have tuned your ukulele in the common C tuning your first string will be an A, your second string an E, the third string a C and the fourth string a G.



If you have a piano around you will find these notes in the fourth octave on your piano. This is the middle octave on your piano or on a keyboard.

It is common on guitar and sometimes even on ukulele to notate the music and the chords with the help of tablature or tab notation.

Tablature is a music notational system that tells you how to put your fingers on a guitar or ukulele in order to play chords or melodies.

Tabs use lines to represent the strings and numbers on these lines to indicate which frets to press down on the strings. This type of notation works fine if you have control over the text fonts used as the tabs usually are notated with the help of a word processor.

I use these tabs on my website but on article sites it is much safer to use other forms of notation. In this ukulele lesson you will learn the melody by the following means:

1. First you will see the lyrics to the song one line at a time.

2. Below every line of lyrics you will find the corresponding number tabs that show you how to play the melody on your ukulele.

3. Below the number tabs I will give you a decription with words on how to play the melody.

How to read number tablature

Number tablature is a form of ukulele tab notation that I use on articles sites. In this type of notation every note is notated with two numbers. The first number tells you which fret to press down. The following number indicates the string to use. If the first number is a 0 you will play a string without pressing down a fret.

Remember, the first string is the bottom string of your ukulele!

Here comes the first line of lyrics with ukulele tab and a decription on how to play:

Mary had a little lamb

02 23 03 23 02 02 02

Play the open second string. An open string is a string that you play without pressing down a fret. Then play the second fret third string, open third string, second fret third string, open second string three times.

Little lamb, little lamb

23 23 23 02 32 32

Second fret third string three times, open second string, third fret second string twice.

As you can see you will use open strings and the first, second and third fret on your ukulele. One tips for you that will help you play smoother is to use your left hand index finger to play the notes on the first fret, you middle finger for the notes on the second fret and your ring finger for the third fret.

Time for the next ukulele tab:

Mary had a little lamb

02 23 03 23 02 02 02

Open second string, second fret third string, open third string, second fret third string, open second string three times.

It's fleece was white as snow

02 23 23 02 23 03

Open second string, second fret third string twice, open second string, second fret third string, open third string.

This is it! I suggest that you learn to play the melody by heart by learning one line at a time!