Ukulele tabs are the easiest way to learn to pick a song. With just fours lines and some numbers, anybody – even if you don’t read standard notation – can make sense of uke tablature.
Below is a large collection of free ukulele tabs for a number of different skills and styles. They are all created (and in a couple cases, vetted) by me with an eye for detail and accuracy.
If you’re specifically looking for easy tabs, follow the link for a collection of beginner-appropriate picking melodies.
These ukulele tabs are in PDF format created with Guitar Pro, Powertab, or good ol’ Microsoft Word. Ukulele tabs marked with “lead sheet” are Guitar Pro transcriptions of the melody, words (if applicable), and chords. 20 Progressive Fingerstyle Studies for Uke. 10 Classical Essentials for the Ukulele: Volume. She has tons of other books too – click her name on this page to see them all. Jazz Chord Solos For Ukulele – 10 Standards Arranged for Tenor Ukulele (Book/CD with TAB) Note: These arrangements are for Low G tuning.
Rock/Pop Ukulele Tabs:
These songs can often be found elsewhere, transcribed for guitar, but not necessarily arranged or tabbed for ukulele. My uke-specific interpretations follow.
Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen
Carlos Santana
Europa
Carlos Santana (Lead transcription & chords)
Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue
The California Ramblers (Solo Arrangement)
Jump
Van Halen
Moondance
Van Morrison†† (Lead sheet)
Puff The Magic Dragon
Peter, Paul, and Mary (Lead sheet & solo arrangement)
Stairway to Heaven
Led Zeppelin (low G – Guitar parts)
Ukulele Blues Tab Pdf SheetTennessee Waltz
Bonnie Raitt and Norah Jones (Lead sheet)
Ukulele/Hawaiian Instrumentals:
The songs found here mostly feature ukulele as the lead instrument. As such, most tunes are from Hawaiʻi-based artists I grew up listening to and emulating.
To me, these are Hawaiian ukulele “standards,” if not by song then by style. If you want to study the Hawaiian sound, this is the section for you.
Beachwalk
Herb Ohta Jr. (Note-for-note transcription)
Body Surfing
Ohta-San (Note-for-note transcription)
Glass Ball Slack Key
Brittni Paiva/Herb Ohta Jr. (Note-for-note transcription)
Ledward Kaapana Slack Key Ukulele Tribute Medley
MIDI File | Etude for Slack Key Ukulele
Little Rock Getaway
Da Ukulele Boyz (Note-for-note transcription)
Olinda Road
HAPA (Note-for-note transcription
Pahala We Go
Herb Ohta Jr. & Daniel Ho (Note-for-note transcription)
Pandanus
The Peter Moon Band (Note-for-note transcription)
Sand Castles
Herb Ohta Jr. (Note-for-note transcription/Solo arrangement)
Song For Shelly
Brad Bordessa (Note-for-note transcription)
Together
Herb Ohta Jr. (Note-for-note transcription)
Ukulele Boogie
Brittni Paiva (Note-for-note transcription)
Hawaiian:
General purpose Hawaiian songs with lyrics are filed here.
E Ku’u Morning Dew
Eddie Kamae (Low G – Solo Arrangement)
Lovely Hula Hands
Troy Fernandez (Note-for-note transcription)
Somewhere Over The Rainbow/Wonderful World
Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole (Solo Arrangement)
Jazz/Bossa:All of Me
Frank Sinatra/Ella Fitzgerald (Solo arrangement)
Misty
Erroll Garner (Solo Arrangement)
Reggae Ukulele Tabs:King Without a Crown
Matisyahu (Note-for-note transcription)
Soundtrack/Themes:Jeopardy
Merv Griffin (Lead sheet)
Star Wars: Main Theme/Vader’s March
John Williams/Uke Duke (Note-for-note transcription)
Folk/World:Csardas
Brittni Paiva (Note-for-note transcription)
The Leaving of Liverpool
Traditional (Solo arrangement)
Rose of Allandale
Mary Black (Solo arrangement – low-G)
Streets of London
Ralph McTell (Solo arrangement – low-G) Printkey 2000 ware.
Since so many of the folk songs people make ukulele tabs for are in the public domain, it’s pretty easy to find high quality, professional transcriptions. (Other genres are always at risk of being taken down on copyright grounds.)
Ken Middleton is as effective an arranger as anybody and has a collection of free bluegrass and Celtic style tabs available. He’s also published a few eBooks of transcriptions.
Classical:
PDF Minstrel provides a selection of great classical ukulele tabs.
Traditional:Happy Birthday
Melody tab and song chords
Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Lead sheet
You Are My Sunshine
Solo Arrangement
Christmas:Mele Kalikimaka
Bing Crosby/Jimmy Buffett/Don Ho/Blue Hawaiians/etc… (Lead sheet)
Credits:
These ukulele tabs are in PDF format created with Guitar Pro, Powertab, or good ol’ Microsoft Word.
Ukulele tabs marked with “lead sheet” are Guitar Pro transcriptions of the melody, words (if applicable), and chords.
Fingerstyle “solo arrangement” tabs shown below include the melody interlaced with the chords, intended to be played by a single player and imply harmony and lead simultaneously.
These are my own interpretations, not necessarily a transcription of a specific performance. I try to keep them as simple as possible because I feel that it’s easier to add your own flavor than to sift through someone else’s style. Xbox controller driver for windows 10.
“Note-for-note transcriptions” are ukulele tabs of a specific recording and transcribed as accurately as possible.
Some of the best ukulele tabs you can find anywhere are from Dominator. We’ve been working together to create a current index for his excellent work here:
These tabs are mostly note-for-note transcriptions of epic uke songs for intermediate and advanced players.
What is an Ukulele Tab?
Tablature (or “tab” for short) is a simple system of notating music. It uses numbers on lines to represent the frets and strings of an ukulele.
The main advantage of a tab over a piece of standard music notation is that there is very little learning curve. If you can count you can play from a tab.
Each tab system is made up of four horizontal lines:
As you can see by the string names on each line, the top line represents the A-string and the bottom line represents the G-string. The C and E-strings sit between.
Think of it as rolling the uke out and down flat on your lap.
Numbers placed on the lines show which fret to press down and are read left to right. (“0” means open string.)
This shows the open strings being plucked one at a time from the top string down.
The above example is all played on the A-string: 3rd fret, 5th fret, 7th fret, 3rd fret.
Anytime you see numbers stacked vertically you should play them simultaneously as a chord. Here’s a C:
For much more, check out this guide to reading tab for better understanding the lines, numbers, and symbols.
Where to Find More Ukulele TabsFree Tabs
There are lots of user-sourced tab sites that get a ton of traffic, such as the massive ukulele-tabs.com and even massive-er ultimate-guitar.com.
While you can find almost any popular song on these sites, be aware that the quality of these tabs vary with the skill of the transcriber. Especially on Ultimate-Guitar, the star rating system can help you find the most accurate version.
A lot of ukulele tab sites copy/paste songs from elsewhere on the internet. Besides adding no additional value to the web and plagiarizing someone else’s work, if they’re incorrect, these tabs get perpetuated.
That said, there are lots of really great sources of free ukulele tabs out there!
My other favorites for top-notch transcriptions are:
Premium Tabs
If you have some cash to spend on buying a book of uke tabs, there are more options every day.
Since licensing popular music is a huge pain in the neck for small operations, you’re probably going to find most books of mainstream tablature printed by a major publishing house. Hal Leonard has put the most effort into expanding their ukulele lineup (and includes transcriptions for Jake Shimabukuro’s latest albums), but Alfred also has some options.
Independent artists are also publishing some of their work. Daniel Ho has a couple books of tablature and Daniel Ward has Arpeggio Meditations For Ukulele.
Other Tab Articles/Resources
Here are some links to information regarding how to read tab and other related articles.
Converting guitar and high/low-G tabs to the tuning you play in – How to shift the numbers around so you can play a tab that isn’t necessarily meant for your tuning.
How to Figure Out Songs – Being able to ear out a song is a very valuable skill. Here are some tips for DIY songs.
How to Read Ukulele Tabs – Ukulele tabs aren’t hard to figure out, but you need to know what you’re looking at to make sense of them.
Blank Tab Sheets
Create your own ukulele tabs! Quickly notate the notes to a song, picking part, chord sequence, arpeggio, scale, etc…
Ukulele Blues Tab Pdf Free
Use the standard notation version for relating notes on the fretboard to their pitches as they appear on the staff. Great for notating fingers on tab and note duration on the staff.
Ukulele Go
Ukulele Blues Tab Pdf FreeAboutLinksContactHomeBeginnersLessonsTabEbooksCoursesPodcastMerchReviewsAboutContact
Difficulty: Beginner/Intermediate
Price: $17
The blues is at the heart of a lot of modern music. You can hear the influence of the blues in rock, pop, jazz and more. How To Play Blues Ukulele covers everything from the absolute basics like simple 12 bar blues patterns to more complex playing techniques, progressions, riffs and more.
This 128 page PDF guide has 123 examples for you to learn (all with supporting YouTube videos) and 4 mp3 backing tracks for you to solo along with.
Buy How To Play Blues Ukulele
What Will I Learn?
After working your way through this book you’ll be comfortable playing the 12 bar blues in any key. You’ll learn blues intros and turnarounds that will really start to make you sound like a pro.
Later on in the book you’ll get to grips with the minor pentatonic and blues scales and learn tips to help you improvise so you can put the scales to use over the included backing tracks.
Here I am playing a little bit of blues ukulele…
Finished my 30 days of blues experiment. I felt like it worked well and I learned quite a few things. Here I'm playing a more elaborate 12 bar blues than the version I played on day 1 (see my feed for day 1). . . . . . . . . #ukulele #ukuleles #ukulelelove #ukelove #ukelele #fourstrings #ukuleletime #ukuleleplayer #ukulelelover #strings #acoustic #acousticmusic #ukulelecover #instacover #instamusic #lovemusic #instasong #unplugged #fingerstyle #fingerpicking #musician #music #ukelifeA post shared by Ukulele Go (@ukulelego) on
What’s Included
• 128 page PDF ebook
• 123 Youtube videos to help you to learn • 9 mp3 backing tracks to solo over (or maybe you just like listening to backing tracks)
Buy How To Play Blues Ukulele
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