How to choose a ukulele for beginners

You may be dazzled by the many methods of choosing a piano on the Internet, so how do beginners choose a ukulele? Below I have compiled tips for beginners to choose a ukulele for your reference. .

How to choose a ukulele for beginners: Correct the thinking of beginners when choosing a piano

The mainstream thinking on the Internet is: Beginners should buy a bad ukulele at first, etc. Learn to buy a good ukulele again. In fact, this concept is completely wrong. First of all, a bad ukulele feels very bad. The feel comes from two aspects. The first is that the string distance is too high and cannot be adjusted. The string distance reflects the workmanship of a ukulele. In order to save costs, many factories make ukuleles. They are all a group of aunt-level people. They don’t know anything about piano-making technology, let alone how to ensure quality. The various parts of the ukulele are produced by machines and then spliced ??together in just a few clicks. There is no craftsmanship to speak of. As long as it's in the shape of a ukulele. The ukuleles under 200 and ukuleles under 100 on the market now come from such factories. No matter how they package them and what quality they are, they are actually the same, fire sticks. The second is that the fingerboard is flat (except for ukulele and classical ukulele). The fingerboard is a very critical thing, which determines whether we can get started. In order to save costs, the factory will directly cut the fingerboard into flat shapes with a cutting machine, which reduces the processing cost and saves wood. But when we press the ukulele horizontally, some strings in the middle will not be pressed tightly, causing noise. Your interest will be slowly lost, and you will eventually give up learning ukulele. According to my experience, 80% of beginners give up learning ukulele because the piano is too bad. So why do you buy a ukulele worth 500 or 600 yuan in a music store and they still guarantee you to learn ukulele? It’s worth one or two hundred, but if you try it for two or three times and your hands hurt and there’s a lot of noise, you’ll naturally give up. Of course the boss will laugh!

How to choose a ukulele for beginners: No Blind pursuit of brands

Nowadays, various ukulele brands are very popular on the Internet, and many piano players have spent a lot of money on them, but have you got a ukulele that is worth the money? I'm afraid there is a big question mark. I have been involved in the ukulele industry for more than ten years, and I have concluded that the price that beginners expect when buying a ukulele is generally within 600, but are famous-brand instruments within 600 good? For example, they are now sold very well online. A popular brand, made of spruce and basswood, costs around 600. The material is of course very poor, but the appearance is good-looking. In fact, it is just like other-name pianos costing 200 to 300 RMB. There are also many so-called famous brand pianos that actually come out of the same production line as off-brand pianos, but the final LOGO is different, and the value is very different. Some of them are directly imitations. 60% of the so-called famous brands on Taobao It's an imitation. It can be said that if you spend money to buy a famous brand piano with less than 600 yuan, you may spend 1/3 of the money to buy this LOGO. But some people will say that the famous brand piano has good quality and quality assurance, otherwise how can it be famous? Haha, any brand is just a cloud in the eyes of the marketing director. Here we can say: Long live marketing! But it costs more than 600 or even thousands. You can still buy Wan's pianos from famous brands, because their real focus is on those high-end pianos, and many domestic factories may not have the ability to make them. But the low-end ones are actually pretty much the same. Apple phones are expensive and good, but the phone screws produced by Apple are actually the same as those produced by other brand-name phone manufacturers.

In fact, there are many domestic brands that are very good, such as Surprise, Artemis, Pomelo, Ladon, dadarwood (Dada). Some of the better musical instrument factories include Qianwei Musical Instruments, Weile Musical Instruments, and Salter Musical Instruments. I have been engaged in the production of musical instruments for a long time. I am familiar with the situation in these factories and have many friends in these companies. This represents only my personal opinion.

How to choose a ukulele for beginners: How to choose a ukulele that suits you

First of all, novices should choose a ukulele with adjustable string distance ( Except for ukulele and classical ukulele). Except for the one or two hundred fire sticks, other ukuleles can basically adjust the string distance, but we can't just look at whether the string distance is adjustable to determine the appropriate time.

At this time, we need to look at the adjustable margin of the bridge and the bending shape of the neck. There is a saddle on the bridge. We first need to look at the height of the saddle. If the strings are slightly higher, if it can If about 5MM is exposed, then the guitar is within the adjustable range; if the exposed part is below 3MM, then the string spacing adjustment range of your ukulele is limited. No matter how you adjust the neck, the string spacing will remain the same. If it doesn't reach the standard height, it's basically a useless instrument. Then there is the neck. Although the neck can be adjusted through the inner hexagon, not all deformations can be adjusted, such as the S shape. If your neck is S-shaped, then I can tell you that it is a Feiqin, etc. If the strings are slightly lower, the frets need to be fretted. In order to avoid frets, the strings can only be adjusted higher, but it is difficult to press the strings. The neck can be bent, but it can only be bent in a C-shape (concave forward or tilted back). Any other bending shape will render the instrument useless. Neither the ukulele nor the classical ukulele itself has a neck adjustment screw, so when buying it, you must try to choose a straight one. Some are slightly curved, which is acceptable, but it must not be bent so that it is difficult to press or fret. If it doesn't work, then it's useless.

Secondly, novices should choose a ukulele with decent sound. There are two aspects to sound quality: material and workmanship. In terms of materials, novices can generally choose spruce basswood, spruce sapele, spruce rosewood, and full sapele. Spruce is also divided into many grades. If you talk about it too professionally, you may not understand it. You just need to remember that when choosing, panels with no obvious oil knots, clear lines and no big bends are generally better. Let’s talk about spruce and basswood. Nowadays, there are many all-basswood ukuleles on the market pretending to be spruce and basswood. They look the same, but the texture of the panels is different. Basswood basically has no texture, it is just wood. As for the color, there are patches of dark random grains inside. The tone of the entire basswood can basically be described as extremely poor, which is basically incomparable with spruce, so everyone must pay attention to this. For beginners, I suggest you choose spruce basswood. The sound of spruce basswood is crisp and clear. Novices generally cannot hear the difference in tone within two years. If you have enough money, you can consider spruce sapele, spruce rosewood, and all-round wood. Sapele. The market price of linden is generally around 400, spruce sapele is around 500, spruce rosewood is 500-600, and full sapele is 400-600. The prices are for reference only. And in terms of workmanship, it can basically be distinguished by the naked eye. The main thing is that the paint should not be too thick, the piano case should not be transparent, and all parts should be smooth, and there will be no problem!

Beginners should choose ukuleles. Method: Where can newbies buy ukuleles

If you have enough money, you can go to a physical store and see it in person, but the price is definitely much more expensive than online. If you have a limited budget, you can go to Tmall. The quality of Tmall is still guaranteed. After all, the musical instrument merchants there have paid a deposit of 100,000, and any problems will be solved for you. Moreover, Tmall has very high service requirements for merchants. , so I feel more confident when buying a ukulele. Many of my students basically buy their ukuleles on Tmall. For example, Qianwei Musical Instruments Store is quite good. They basically sell new pianos with good price and quality. All OK.