Words of Wisdom: Celebrate 50 Issues of ‘Ukulele’ Magazine By Digging into the Archive
From the Fall 2025 issue of Ukulele magazine
Reading through all 49 previous issues of Ukulele in preparation for this special publication, I noticed a wealth of playing tips in the interviews with artists. Often they were tucked away in the answer to an unrelated question, or part of a tangent that led to a more conversational moment. The more I read, the more I felt that seeing these nuggets together in one place would be really useful for ukulele players of a variety of skill levels—not to mention teachers looking to pass along helpful tips to their students.
Not only are the artists quoted here longtime professional uke players, but many are teachers as well. And many play other instruments in addition to uke, which adds to the diverse perspective they bring to the instrument.
There are, of course, many quotes from Jake Shimabukuro—that’ll happen with someone who’s been featured on the cover five times! Fortunately for us, he’s not shy about sharing his knowledge. And there are a lot of other familiar names in this article, as well as some that may be new to you. (You can find all these quotes in their full context in our complete PDF archive at store.ukulelemag.com.)
You may also notice different sources giving similar bits of advice. When multiple pros are giving the same tips independently of one another, it’s a good idea to heed that advice! Some of these quotes contain really big ideas, so you may want to revisit this list and take them one at a time. But remember, while there may be a lot of good advice here, only you can determine the right path for your own ukulele journey. —Nicolas Grizzle
“The most important thing is to have fun. Just enjoy every note that you play and every chord that you strum. Break things down when they get too hard. Sometimes it helps to look at one song as a hundred different songs played very close together. View every note as if it were its own song.”
—Jake Shimabukuro, Issue #1
“I find that when I sit down with the uke, it feels a little bit different than a guitar, and sometimes it’s inspiring and will push you into some place you didn’t expect to go. It’s like if a songwriter learns some new chords, pretty soon they’re expanding their writing to include those chords; it’s the same with the uke.”
—Marcy Marxer, Issue #1
“Practice slowly and perfectly. Practicing fast and making mistakes here and there, you’re just teaching yourself to make those same mistakes over and over again. It’s much harder to undo if you learn that way than if you learn it correctly the first time. So if you practice slowly—painfully slowly but absolutely perfectly—you’ll be surprised by how much faster you can learn anything, no matter how easy or difficult. Break things down into little sections and do them.”
—Daniel Ho, Issue #3
“On the ukulele, the chords are so flexible. Players can get really complicated with the chording, with their left hand, and what their hand’s positioning is on the neck.”
—Victoria Vox, Issue #8
“You can have relatively simple parts that fit together nicely so the whole is interesting musically, so musical interest rather than individual virtuosity is the thing.”
—George Hinchliffe (Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain co-founder and artistic director), Issue #8
“When you have less to work with, you have to be more selective with each note. When jazz guitar players do chordal harmonies, they’re basically playing on the top three or four strings. That made me realize that you can get away with very complex ideas on just four notes because you can imply a lot.”
—Jake, Issue #12
“Practicing everything slow is the greatest approach. . . Taking that approach with your instrument is very effective because when you play things slowly, you suddenly become aware of every little thing that you’re doing, like how your finger comes off the string, the finesse of how you release the string and all those things. You become more aware of how the instrument breathes and the way each note breathes.”
—Jake, Issue #12
“Speak, don’t sing, the words while strumming the chords. This eliminates the melody, allowing you to focus on words and rhythm. Hum the melody while strumming the chords. This takes your mind off the words and allows you to focus on the chords and the melody. For a variation, sing the melody to
the syllables ‘lah,’ ‘loo,’ or ‘lay.’ Sing the melody and words while strumming a muted chord (the so-called ‘Z chord’). This takes your mind off the chord changes, allowing you to focus on melody, lyrics, and keeping the beat.”
—James Hill (on how to sing and play at the same time), Issue #13
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“Know what you want to do, play from the heart, and enjoy the ukulele. You gotta love the instrument and love what you wanna do with it. You don’t love it, you won’t play it right.”
—Led Kaapana, Issue #19
“Nothing beats your inner voice, your true instincts. Be open-minded and take time to think things through. With music, you don’t have to rush. Being creative, everyone works at a different pace.”
—Raiatea Helm, Issue #20
“One of the most important things I’ve realized in playing the old music that I like is the space in-between the beats. By that, I mean where there’s no sound. To create that you have to learn how to mute your strumming. The muting is not a separate activity; it’s the conclusion of the strum. It also has to be a very even pattern.”
—Casey MacGill, Issue #21
“The biggest mistake most folks make is thinking that by practicing the ukulele they can become better singers. It doesn’t work like that.”
—Ralph Shaw, Issue #23
“Everyone has written songs that sound different, because everyone
is different. The main thing is to not overthink it. Don’t think about what
it sounds like or what you want it to sound like, or the artist you’re trying to resemble. Just write and be yourself. It definitely will suck in the beginning—I guarantee that you won’t write a great song in the beginning—but when it comes to writing, practice . . . With practice you will get better and you will learn to control what you want to sound like.”
—Grace VanderWaal, issue #24
“A uke is a music-making tool. You don’t need to apologize for wanting a low G, or a strap, or needing a tuner. The question is, ‘Is it going to help you make music?’”
—Mim, issue #24
“To me, tenors sound like a bad soprano, but once you tune them down a little bit, they come alive. The same is true for concerts. I tune them down to Bb [F Bb D G] and suddenly they have a bigger, much fuller sound and finally you can make use of the bigger body. If you have more than one concert (size), try to tune one of them down to Bb. With tenors, I like to tune down to A.”
—Ukulelezaza, issue #29
“It’s okay to copy and emulate other musicians you admire. That’s how you learn. If you want to take it further, though, you have to enjoy the process.”
—A.J. Leonard, issue #32
“I think the biggest challenge is not on the technical side, because with ukulele there is nothing that is difficult if we take the time to break things down . . . The problem is sometimes we unconsciously believe that just because our brains can understand something really quickly, our hands will be just as quick,
and they’re not.”
—Kimo Hussey, issue #32
“Arranging for the ukulele is largely a process of reduction. While it is possible to play many pieces from the guitar repertoire on the ukulele, I often have to leave out notes or put notes up an octave. However—and this is what I love about reentrant tuning—once you start thinking in a non-linear, non-guitarist way, a whole new world of possibilities opens up.”
—Sam Muir, issue #32
“I love the sound of the natural ukulele, of course, but I also like experimenting (with effects) because when the voice of the instrument changes so drastically, it makes you play differently because the sustain is different, the attack is different, the tones you’re hearing are different, so it makes your phrases and the ideas you come up with different than if you were playing ‘clean’ . . . The most important thing is to be in the moment and sensitive to what’s happening in that moment, and to make adjustments so you can be tasteful and musical.”
—Jake, issue #35
“When people come to any type of stringed instrument, guitar or ukulele, they think they have to learn a ton of chords. No. It’s your right-hand
technique; that’s where the music is.”
—Gerald Ross, issue #35
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“Twelve-bar blues is also ‘Twist And Shout’; 12-bar blues you can take to church. You can take 12-bar blues anywhere depending on what you sing on top of it.”
—Kelle Jolly, issue #40
“People learn a lot in preparing to record and post a video. They don’t post their first crack at it. They’ll practice getting a good take before they are ready to share a video. This practice makes people better musicians—they’ve worked on something long enough to be proud to put it out there.”
—Greg Gent, issue #45
“You start off with a bunch of chords way down at the nut, but you’ve got all this marvelous potential on the baritone because it has more frets than the tenor, concert, or soprano.”
—Ginger Johnson, issue #47
“Every note that you execute, every strum that you strum has its own personality, its own emotion. And how we execute those notes is so important because we need to convey the right thing.”
—Brittni Paiva, issue #48
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