“Quick Start” Guide 6 – playing lots of songs with just 4 chords

The title of this post is quite true. It’s quite amazing that there are lots of songs, if not hundreds of songs, that you can play by just using four chords on your ukulele. So I expect that you’re wondering just what are those special chords. In fact, they are the four chords mentioned in a previous post (C, Am, F and G7).

If you try strumming through those chords a few times you’ll start to recognise the chord progression of some well-known songs. Then if you change the order slightly you’ll recognise even more songs. This is because the combination chords work well together, so much so that musicians keep coming back to this progression time and time again.

Here are three well-known popular songs which use these chords:-

  • King of the Road – C, F & G7
  • Rockin’ All Over The World – C, F & G7
  • Stand by Me – C, Am, F & G7

King Of The Road (with C-F-G7 diagrams)

Rockin’ All Over The World (with C-F-G7 diagrams)

Stand by Me (with C-Am-F-G7 diagrams)

I’ve included the music as .pdf files so that you can print off copies and practice strumming the various chords. Try strumming through each of these songs in a steady rhythm, perhaps slowly at first and then gradually build up the speed as you become more comfortable with the chord changes. My next post will be on the topic of different strumming patterns you may like to use.

By the way, you can find the music for hundreds of different songs on the internet and I would recommend Jim’s Ukulele Songbook as a valuable resource.