Dance on Mostly Open Strings for high G ukulele

Change one note in “Dance on Open Strings” and it still works. Let’s experiment with changing different notes, starting with mostly open strings. You are ready for the exercises on this blog post IF you don’t have to babysit your fingerpicking hand. In other words, your right hand fingers continue playing the piece as before. Just your left hand — which in “Dance on Open Strings” holds the ukulele neck — needs to get into action. You will now produce your own version of Dance on Mostly Open Strings.

Does changing one note preserve the overall structure of the piece?

In other words, keep the right hand fingers the same but change one note in the left hand.

Exercises in “tweaking” the open-string dance

What would happen if we substituted an open-string note with a different note (that requires pressing on a fret)?

Try the following changes (one string at a time). Listen to what you play. Does it sound good (consonant) or not so good (dissonant)? In each case, there are three open strings and one fretted string. In other words, your left hand (fretting hand) will use one finger to press one string on a specified fret. At all times, the remaining three strings are open (not pressed, not fretted).

1. Press the third fret of A-string. The four notes you’d play are G, C, E, C. As shown in the score above, there are two C-notes, an octave apart.
2. Press the second fret of A-string. The four notes you’d play are G, C, E, B.
3. Press the first fret of the E-string (instead of leaving it open). The four notes you’d play are G, C, F, A.
4. Press the third fret of the E-string. The four notes you’d play are G, C, E, G. Only three differently pitched notes.
5. Press the second fret of the C-string. The four notes you’d play are G, D, E, A.
6. Press the second fret of the G-string. The notes you’d play are A, C, E, A. Only three differently pitched notes.
7. Press the fourth fret of the G-string. The notes you’d play are B, C, E, A.

Checklist Table of Possibilities

This exercise explores the notes in the C major scale. For beginners, it’s a great way to make sure you are pressing the single string on the fret to produce a sound as good as the other open strings. It’s also a way to learn the notes on the ukulele fretboard.

The table shown below contains 17 columns. The first column labelled “X” refers to the exercises. 0 is the “Dance on Open Strings” and 1 is the first exercise shown in the score above.

The next four columns labelled GCEA refer to the frets to press for those strings.

The remaining columns with red letter labels are the names of notes you’d play in that exercise.

Notice there are two Gs, As and Bs. These notes are the exact same pitch on the high G ukulele but played in different locations. The two Cs are an octave apart.

Indicate what sounds good or not in the last column labelled with the question mark (?) with an x for dissonant and y for consonant. Alternatively, you can use your own ranking with numbers or letters.

X	G	C	E	A	G	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C	?
0	0	0	0	0	G			C		E			A
1	0	0	0	3	G			C		E					C
2	0	0	0	2	G			C		E				B
3	0	0	1	0	G			C			F		A
4	0	0	3	0	G			C				G	A
5	0	2	0	0	G				D	E			A
6	2	0	0	0		A		C		E			A
7	4	0	0	0			B	C		E			A

Advanced players

For more advanced players, see if you can come up with chords that can accompany each of the exercises shown above. In other words, which chords sound good in each measure.

Try first with diatonic chords (that is, chords that use the notes in the same major scale). Diatonic and non-diatonic chords are contained in a forthcoming book (currently in my Ukulele Exercise book of Common Chord Progressions). See More Information below for the link to the book order form.

Another challenge is to change more than one note, so that two strings are pressed (fretted). Or even three or four strings are fretted (no longer open).

Practice suggestions

Be sure you have memorized the right hand fingerpicking patterns of “Dance on Open Strings“so that you can play the entire piece with just the right hand (two fingers).

Follow the checklist table and change one string for each exercise with your fretting finger. Typically you’d use the left index finger for the first fret. Second finger (middle finger) for the second fret. Third finger for the third fret. Of course, because you are only pressing one string on one fret, you can use any finger you want.

More information

Get access to the sheet music, notification of new work, and table of contents of this Daily Music Writing Project.