Every hobby has its own little dictionary, and the ukulele is no exception — nut, saddle, barre, re-entrant, capo. None of it is complicated once someone tells you plainly what each word means. This is that plain-English list: the parts of the instrument, the playing words, the music-theory terms, and the notation you’ll meet in tabs and chord charts. Skim it, or look up the one word that’s tripping you up. Where a term has its own full guide, there’s a link.
Parts of the ukulele
Hold the uke up and work from the top of the neck down to the body. These are the names luthiers, teachers and shops all use.
Part
What it is
Headstock
The flat piece at the very top that holds the tuning pegs.
Tuners
The pegs you turn to change a string’s pitch. Also called tuning pegs, machine heads or gears.
Nut
The small slotted strip (bone or plastic) where the strings leave the headstock onto the neck. It sets the spacing and the open-string length.
Neck
The long bit you wrap your fretting hand around.
Fretboard
The flat playing surface glued to the front of the neck. Also called the fingerboard.
Fret
One of the metal strips across the fretboard — and also the space between two of them. Pressing “at the 2nd fret” raises that string two semitones.
The round opening in the body that lets the sound out.
Saddle
The thin strip the strings rest on at the body end — the mirror of the nut.
Bridge
The wooden block on the body that holds the saddle and anchors the string ends.
Strings
The four nylon or fluorocarbon strings, tuned g–C–E–A. More in the strings guide.
That’s the whole map. If you want to see them while you settle the uke against you, the how-to-hold guide points them out in context.
Playing & technique words
The verbs — the things your two hands actually do.
Strum
Brushing your fingers or thumb across all the strings at once to sound a chord. The rhythm of downs and ups is your strumming pattern.
Fret (verb)
To press a string down behind a fret with a fingertip, shortening it so it rings at a higher pitch.
Open string
A string you let ring without pressing any fret — its natural g, C, E or A pitch.
Fingerpicking
Plucking strings individually with separate fingers instead of strumming, to pick out a pattern or melody. See the fingerpicking patterns.
Barre
Laying one finger flat across all four strings at a fret, like a movable nut, so a whole shape can slide up the neck. The heart of barre chords.
Hammer-on & pull-off
Two ways to sound a note without re-strumming: hammer a finger down onto a fret, or pull it off to a lower one. Written h and p in tab.
Slide
Fretting one note then sliding the same finger up or down to another without lifting off. Shown by a slash in tab.
Capo
A spring clamp across all the strings at one fret, raising the whole instrument so easy shapes ring in a higher key. Full capo guide.
Re-entrant tuning
The classic ukulele quirk: the 4th string (g) is tuned high, not low, so the strings don’t climb in order. It’s what gives the uke its bright jangle. Swapping to a low-G string makes it linear instead.
Chords, keys & music theory
The words for what you’re playing, as opposed to how.
Note
A single pitch — A, C, F♯ and so on. Everything else is built from notes.
Semitone
The smallest step in Western music — one fret on the uke. Twelve of them make an octave. A tone (or whole step) is two semitones.
Chord
Several notes sounded together as one block, like C major. The shapes you hold are in the chord chart.
Scale
A set of notes played one after another in order, like C–D–E–F–G–A–B. Melodies and solos are drawn from a scale. See ukulele scales.
Key
The home note and scale a song is built around — “in the key of C” means C feels like home and the chords come from C’s family.
Chord progression
The order chords move in through a song, like C–Am–F–G. A handful of common progressions power most pop songs.
Major & minor
The two basic moods. Major chords and keys sound bright and resolved; minor ones sound darker or sadder. C is major, Am is minor.
Sharp (♯) & flat (♭)
One semitone up (sharp) or down (flat). F♯ and G♭ are the same pitch, just named from different directions.
Octave
The distance between a note and the next note of the same name — twelve semitones apart. They sound “the same but higher.”
Transpose
To shift a whole song up or down into a new key, keeping the same shape of melody and chords. The app’s chord transposer does the maths.
Reading music: tab & chord charts
The two kinds of diagram you’ll meet, and the symbols on them.
Tab (tablature)
Four horizontal lines for the four strings, with numbers showing which fret to press and when — for picking out a melody or riff. Full walk-through in how to read tabs.
Chord chart / chord diagram
A little grid of the top of the neck with dots showing where your fingers go to hold one chord. Tab is for melodies; a chord chart is for one strummed chord. See the chord chart.
Fret number
In tab, the number on a string line — 0 means play it open, 3 means press the 3rd fret.
Diatonic
“Belonging to the key.” The diatonic chords of a key are the natural family of chords you can build from its scale — the ones that sound at home together.
Roman numerals
A way to name a chord by its place in the key rather than its letter — I–IV–V, vi, and so on. It lets a progression be written once and played in any key.
Gear & setup words
Action
How high the strings sit above the frets. Low action is easy to press but can buzz; high action is harder work but cleaner.
Intonation
Whether the uke plays in tune all the way up the neck, not just on the open strings. Good intonation means a fretted note is the pitch it should be.
Soprano / concert / tenor / baritone
The four ukulele sizes, smallest to largest. The first three share g–C–E–A tuning; the baritone is tuned lower, D–G–B–E.
Laminate vs solid wood
Laminate bodies are layered (tougher, cheaper, more humidity-proof); solid-wood bodies are single pieces (richer tone, fussier about humidity).
The five words people look up most:
Nut — the slotted strip where the strings leave the headstock.
Re-entrant — the high-tuned 4th string that gives the uke its jangle.
Barre — one finger flat across all the strings.
Capo — a clamp that raises the whole instrument a few frets.
Tab vs chord chart — tab is for melodies, chord charts are for strumming.
Words make more sense with the uke in your hands. Open the app, get in tune, and try a couple of shapes — the vocabulary sticks fastest when you’re actually playing.
From the top down: the headstock holds the tuners; the nut is the slotted strip where the strings leave it; the neck carries the fretboard, divided by metal frets; the body is the hollow box with the soundhole; and the saddle and bridge anchor the strings at the bottom. The four strings are tuned g–C–E–A.
What does re-entrant tuning mean?
It means the strings don’t run low to high in order. The 4th string (g) is tuned high, so the pitches go high-g, low-C, E, A rather than climbing steadily. That high string is the source of the ukulele’s bright, jangly sound. A low-G string swaps it for a linear, deeper range.
What’s the difference between a chord and a scale?
A chord is several notes played together at once, like C major. A scale is the same kind of notes played one after another in order, like the C major scale. Chords are the blocks you strum; scales are the ladder melodies climb. They usually come from the same key.
What is a barre chord?
One where a single finger lies flat across all four strings at a fret, acting like a movable nut, while other fingers add the rest of the shape. Because the whole shape slides, one barre shape gives you many chords — handy for keys with no easy open shape.
What’s the difference between tab and a chord chart?
Tab shows four string lines with fret numbers for picking a melody one note at a time. A chord chart is a grid of the neck with dots for holding one chord all at once. Tab is for melodies; chord charts are for strumming. Both are covered in the tabs guide.