How To Speed ​​Up Your Ukulele Play

If you're looking to improve your ukulele a little faster, there are some better ways than using a metronome. It sounds a bit paradoxical, but slowing down is one of the best ways to speed up.

Increasing speed on the ukulele can cover several areas. Maybe it's faster chord changes, maybe it's the flexibility of your fingering, the way you pluck... The good news is that the metronome method works equally well for all guitars. field.

Time for a metronome - Metronome

First you will need a metronome. There are a few options here. You can buy a physical metronome from a music store. Usually, they will cost around 500K – 1 million and for the most part they work very well. However, there is a problem with physical metronomes – they are very easily misplaced. I can't even tell you the location of my metronome.

There are a few other options – for starters, Google has its own built-in metronome that you can access just by searching for the word metronome. Also, and for me, the best way to always have a metronome with you is to download the app to your phone (assuming you have a smartphone). They are cheap (most are free) and will be with you all the time. Simple Metronome is a great choice on Android (which is what I use), and Pro Metronome is a great choice for anyone with an iPhone.

Now that you have a metronome, you need to know what to do with it.

Start slowly

The way I like to work with the metronome is to set it to a much slower speed than I'm comfortable with playing whatever I'm trying to play.

For this purpose, let's say I'm struggling to speed up a particular pluck. I'll slow the metronome down to a slower speed than I can sample. In some cases this will be extremely slow - 50bpm or less. That's exactly what you need to do.

Try and play in perfect timing with a metronome that focuses on fluency. If you can't manage to play at the speed you set the metronome to, slow it down a bit more.

Once you feel comfortable playing on the metronome consistently, you can increase its speed. It can be really hard to play at very slow speeds but it's all good practice. Again, I prefer to work at 5bpm or less. Every training session, I aim to progress more than 5bpm. You will find that if you spend at least 10 minutes in each session on this method, an additional 5 bpm increase can be achieved.

Every workout, I aim to progress at 5bpm.

Sometimes you will need to step back to move forward. Recently I am composing the song The Kesh Jig. My goal for this track is to be able to play it fluently at 100bpm. Initially when I started playing, I couldn't play faster than 60bpm.

Initially, I progressed at a rate of about 5-10bpm per day. Every day I made progress until I hit 95bpm. I tried 100bpm but can't manage it. When I back down to 95bpm, I'm still struggling. I stepped right back down to 85bpm and slowly but surely returned to my target.

It took me 1 week in total to get to the speed at which I wanted to play this song. I could have practiced 4-5 times that week and cranked up my song to 40bpm during that week. Now that's the kind of progress I'll happily make.

Using a metronome can sometimes feel a bit stiff, and I guarantee that I will allow myself time to practice without a metronome. Sometimes you need some freedom to play and you need to remove all restrictions and limitations.

Slow down to… speed up!

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