Snapping Strings when putting on a new set of Ukulele strings.

November 20, 2020 Christopher Carr

Snapping Brand New Ukulele Strings whilst tuning up?

Q. Unfortunately, the A string snapped while being brought up to pitch. Strangely it snapped at the 4th fret.

A. Hello John Sorry, you are having problems.

I will send another A string for you. Ukulele strings are Not available single Units (Yep different to the guitar world, there is a gap in the market) only Low G is sold as a single string.

Is the Set for the Right Scale length of Ukulele.
The first thing, just checking it is a Tenor Scale Instrument, not a baritone scale or Super Tenor Scale. Tenor Reds on these larger scales just don't like it.

Watch the Pitch closely not just the Note on the tuner.
The open A string is 44O hertz. Coming from guitar world myself it's easy to go past the correct octave and try and hit the next note higher octave.

Middle C on the piano is the C String on Ukulele if that helps get your ear in the right octave.

Use a tuner that shows the actual pitch if you don't have such you can get a free app to do this, I recommend Pano Tune from the apple app store, but android/google would have something similar in their app stores.

Order of tuning the strings from slack.
First I fit all the strings and tie them off and have the tails under each other classical style. But they are slack and not raised to pitch yet.

Second Then I tune in this order, I do C string, then E, then G, then A.

I like getting pressure on the bridge from the centre strings first so as to reduce the sideways torsional stress on those glued on Ukulele bridges.