Ukulele Tab: Learn Mary Had A Little Lamb With Ukulele Tab

Have you ever played a melody on your ukulele? Well, if not let this be the first time! I will show you how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on two strings on your ukulele. We will use easy ukulele tab so you don't need to know sheet music.

Mary Had A Little Lamb is a popular nursery rhyme. Here is the first verse:

Mary had a little lamb little lamb, little lamb Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow

Thomas Edison used this poem in testing his invention of the phonograph in 1877. It became the first audio recording to be successfully made and played back.

Let's start playing the first notes! The melodi you now will play will correspond to the text line:

Mary had a little lamb

0/1 3/2 1/2 3/2 0/1 0/1 0/1

This is my special form of ukulele tab for articles to be sure that they are readable on article sites.

0/1 means that you play the first string with your right hand thumb without pressing down any left hand finger. It is called to play on an open string.

3/2 subsequently means that you press down the third fret on the second string. Now when you understand how to read my ukulele tab notation we will proceed with the next line of lyrics:

little lamb, little lamb

3/2 3/2 3/2 0/1 3/0 3/0

This type of ukulele tab doesn't indicate the length of the notes. I guess you hear that the third and sixth note ought to be a little longer than the rest.

Here is the third line of lyrics and the corresponding ukulele tab:

Mary had a little lamb

0/1 3/2 1/2 3/2 0/1 0/1 0/1

Identical with the first line as you can see.

I haven't told you anything about which left hand finger to press down on the frets.

You can of course use your first finger for all the notes. A more professional approach is to play the notes on the first fret with your first finger and the notes on your third fret with your little finger.

It is a little bit tricky at first but as your fingers get used to it it will actually be easier to find the right notes. You don't even have to look at your fingers.

Let's complete the song with the last line:

it's fleece was white as snow

0/1 3/2 3/2 0/1 3/2 0/1

I would suggest that you learn the melody by heart. The ukulele tab is a little help in the beginning but it's fun to be able to have a repertoire with songs you can play whenever you want.

If your ukulele is tuned with the first string to A the song will be in the key of F. The chords you will need is F and C7. They are easy on ukulele but a little bit harder on guitar.

The F and C chord written with my type of easy ukulele tab will look like this:

F: 0/1 1/2 0/3 2/4

C7: 1/1 0/2 0/3 0/4

I hope you will find out by yourself where the chords will fit in the melody.

You can use this ukulele tab on a guitar too as the first three strings on a guitar are tuned in the same way but not in the same key as on an ukulele.