Should you practice ukulele exercises if you’re a beginner?

Yes!

Ukulele exercises are designed to warm up your fingers, increase the coordination between your fingers and mind, and build strength in weak fingers.

Don’t worry. These exercises are perfect for any skill level ukulele player. Include them into your practice routine for just five minutes of practice for best results.

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In this video, I teach you 3 exercises to improve your fretting hand dexterity on ukulele. These exercises will increase your finger independence, improve eye hand coordination, and more importantly, strengthen the connection your mind has with your fingers and the notes of the fretboard.

Each exercise uses the D major scale pattern, so you’ll want to make sure you review that D major scale lesson from a couple weeks ago.

Exercise #1: Ascending Arpeggio

For this exercise, you ascend four notes at a time for each scale degree until you reach the end of the scale.

These four-note groupings are called arpeggios.

Pluck each note with your thumb.

Practice the exercise slow and then add speed.

Exercise #2: Descending Arpeggio

Flip the previous exercise on its head and descend through the D major scale in a four-note arpeggio pattern.

Note: Towards the end of the exercise I break the scale pattern position and slide my index finger to fret the 1st fret of the C-string – the C# note.

Exercise #3: Combined Arpeggio

Take the previous two exercises but play them back-to-back.

This exercise will really challenge your mind to make the mental switch between the ascending and descending pattern!