Ukulele: The Noob's Guide to Tuning

Argh! I am such a music/ukulele n00b.

After I restrung my ukulele with Aquila strings, it didn't sound much better. It wasn't the digital tuner. We tested it with some other instruments and it works just fine.

Facepalm

I've been watching some videos on music theory, ukulele chords, strumming patterns, etc. the past week. While I was on vacation, I was able to get in some practice switching between Cmaj, Fmaj, and Gmaj. Not too shabby, but the strumming sounded really sloppy. I moved my strumming position down toward the bridge and it improved, but not much. I chalked it up to my naivete.

I was tuning an octave lower than I should have. 

In my defense, this is my first musical instrument, I do not have an ear for music (but hope to develop one), and I was skittish about tightening the strings. When the chromatic tuner said it was tuned to GCEA, I assumed it was correct - and it was, sort of. No wonder the C string sounded twangy.

This tutorial, How to tune a Ukulele using a digital tuner, on YouTube uses a chromatic tuner that displays the frequency. When I tried tuning with a program on my iPod Touch that also displays the frequency, I realized I was way off. At least the comments under the video made me fell a bit better, I wasn't the only person who had the same problem. Lesson learned.