ukulele
for geeks
secrets of the
pentatonic scales
ignite sydney ’09
christian crumlish
mediajunkie.com

An easy instrument to learn
• Just four strings!
• Punk as hell
• Enthusiasm beats expertise
• Learn a few chords (not from me)
• Learn a few fingering patterns (yay)
• ???
• Profit!!

Pentatonic Scales for the Win
• Pentatonic means five tones
• The black keys on a piano are a
pentatonic scale
• Every combination, even random ones,
sounds good
• Pentatonic scales can be used to
accompany any song

Many songs use just 5 notes
• My Girl
• Under the Boardwalk*
• Suicide is Painless
• First There is a Mountain
_________
* ok, maybe six but mostly just the five… more on that later

Open strings
• The open strings on a guitar are in a
pentatonic scale
• The open strings on a uke are in several
pentatonic scales (as there are just
four)
• Thus “accidentally” hitting open strings
is usually fine
• The uke is basically “in C”

C maj pentatonic
• CDE GA
• To make it bluesy add Eb (aka D#)
• C D (Eb) E G A

C min pentatonic
• C Eb F G A
• To make it bluesy add Gb (aka F#)
• C Eb F (Gb) G A

Forget the note names
• It’s all about the patterns, yo
• Little dippers, all in a row
• That one weird string interval
• Find the root or key and the patterns
“just work”
• Make “big dippers” to go to big-boy
scales

Cowboy Scale (C maj)

Little Dipper (C maj)

Little Dippers (C maj)

Little Blue Dippers (C maj)

Cowboy Scale (C min)

Blue Cowboy Scale (C min)

Little Dipper (C min)

Little Dippers (C min)

The Key
• Dippers are movable
• Whatever key a song is in, just find the
relative dippers
• You don’t need to know the key
• Just fiddle around till it “locks in,” then
follow the pattern up and down the
fretboard

Big Dippers
• Five notes often not quite enough
• “Under the Boardwalk” is hexatonic
• Many songs are diatonic, etc.
• So learn how to extend the little
dippers into big dippers to make larger
sales

Big Dipper (C maj)

Big Dippers (C maj)