Using a Ukulele Chord Progressions Generator

Is using a ukulele chord progressions generator right for you?

It might be, especially if you have ever struggled to find that perfect chord progression when writing a song. 

Maybe you know a few basic ukelele chords that sound good together but are hoping to expand your knowledge of chords in different keys. If so, you’ve come to the right place! In this blog, we will talk about using a ukulele chord progressions generator to write songs.

While this article will look specifically at ukulele chord progressions, this tool can be applied and used with whatever instrument you play or whatever instrument you would like to learn!

How Do You Make a Good Chord Progression on a Ukulele?

A chord progression is simply the process of choosing the ukelele chords that sound the best and putting them together in the right order. Here are four good chord progressions you can make on the ukulele:

• I-IV-I-IV
• I-V-vi-IV
• I-V-II-VI-III
• Ii7-vi7-ii7-v7

Does that look (or sound) like all Greek to you? Here’s a video that might help break things down a bit so you understand how to write and play a song on the ukulele:

We’ll take a deeper dive into how to make ukulele chord progressions on your own and with a chord progressions generator in this post! 

Building Chord Progressions (On Any Instrument)

So just what the heck is a ukulele chord progressions generator, anyway? A chord progression is a series of chords played throughout a piece of music. These chords are usually (although not always) in the same key. What the chords have in common is that they all sound good together.  Musically, they tell a “story.”  

Here’s a video to help you understand how chord transitions work when you’re playing the ukulele:

Most guitar and ukulele players are familiar with at least some chords from two major keys- G and C, and with a series of 4 chords that sound good together within those keys. In these keys, several of these chords overlap.  Many popular songs use “G” “C” “Am” and “Em.” The reason for this is simple- they are easy to play and share chords from both the key of C and the key of G. As such, it is very common for a beginner guitarist or uke player to get stuck in a “rut” of only playing some variations of the same.

So how do we get out of that rut? Some basic music theory and understanding ukulele notes can help.

Chord Progressions Can Help You Out of a Musical “Rut”

Let’s look at the C major key. This is the easiest of keys to learn because it has only natural notes. That means no sharps or flats to memorize. Briefly, a key has seven chords in it. We notate the chords in the key signature using Roman Numerals; we number the chords in a major key like this: I ii iii IV V vi vii (diminished).

Every lower case Roman numeral tells us that we play a minor chord, and every uppercase Roman numeral tells us to play a major chord. So, if we remember that there are seven notes in the musical alphabet, and that the first chord of a key is how the key is named, we know that the chords in the key of C major are: C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor, and B diminished. You then repeat this formula with every key, taking into account the sharps and flats that belong to the particular key you are trying to play in. And of course, within each key, there are “7” chords, “6” chords, chord inversions, and so on!

Sound complicated? Now you see why ukulele players can find themselves repeating the same few chords, in the same few keys, over and over again. Thankfully, in 2020, we have the benefit of ukulele chord progressions generators to help us expand our musical knowledge and quickly learn new and varied chord progressions. All without memorizing all the possible keys in the musical language. 

6 Common Chord Progressions for Ukulele