Can you play the melody to Love Me Tender on your ukulele? With the help of ukulele tab you can learn to play it in no time. Let’s start!
Love Me Tender is a song sung by Elvis Presley, to the tune of Aura Lee, a Civil War song by George R. Poulton. Elvis originally performed it in the movie Love Me Tender.
I will use my own form of ukulele tab to be sure that the tabs are readable on article sites.
You can find the more common ukulele tab staff on my site with ukulele tab, guitar tablature and free sheet music.
The string with the highest pitch on the ukulele is usually an A and is called the first string. This will be the bottom string when you hold your ukulele in playing position.
The first number indicates the fret. The second number tells you which string to play. Here is the first part of Love Me Tender with ukulele tab:
03 12 02 12 32 23 32 12 02 23 02 12
03 indicates that you play the third string without pressing down a left hand finger. We call this to play on an open string.
12 means that you press down a left hand finger on the first fret on the second string.
Play the notes with your right hand thumb or in some other way you like.
The length of the notes is not indicated with this type of ukulele tab notation. I guess you will find out this by yourself.
Let’s play the next part of the song:
03 12 02 12 32 23 32 12 02 23 02 12
A repetition of the first melody as you can see.
What left hand finger should you use when you play? I suggest that you play the notes on the first fret with your first finger, the notes on the second fret with your long finger and the notes on your third fret with your ring finger.
It can be a little bit difficult to play like this at first but don’t give up!
When your left hand fingers get used to this way of playing it will actually become easier for you to find the right notes.
When you get used to this way of playing you don’t even have to look at your fingers when you play.
The next part of the melody with ukulele tab looks like this:
01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 32 12 32 01
I guess that you hear that the seventh note should be a little bit longer than the rest.
01 01 11 01 32 23 32 12 02 23 02 12
In this last ukulele tab the seventh note should also be a little bit longer.
Now the melody is complete!
I guess this means that you can play Love Me Tender on your ukulele. Congratulations!
This melody can be played on guitar too with the use of the above ukulele tab notation! The first three strings on a guitar are tuned the same way but not in the same pitch.
I suggest that you take one melody line at a time and learn it by heart so you can play it anywhere and anytime!
Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and ukulele tab at capotastomusicdotcom