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can’t hold the neck as firmly and you have to support the uke more strongly with your strumming arm.
    The smaller your ukulele is, the easier you’re going to find holding it. If you’re playing a tenor ukulele, you may want to use a strap (Chapter 1 describes the different sizes of ukulele). A strap offers some definite advantages: it frees up both your strumming and fretting hands to concentrate on playing, which means that you can play technical passages more easily.
    Sitting down
    If you’re comfortable playing while standing up (as I describe in the preceding section), you can use the same technique when sitting down.
    But sitting down also gives you the opportunity for some more stability by balancing your uke on your upper thigh. This position makes the juggling act much easier and requires much less contact with the ukulele (see Figure 3-3).
    You still want to maintain the other three points of contact and you certainly still want to angle the uke away from your body as mentioned in the earlier section ‘Positioning yourself to play’. But resting it on your thigh means that each of these three points can support the ukulele more lightly.
    Figure 3-3: Sitting down position.

    Holding your uke left-handed
    If you’re left-handed, you don’t need a special left-handed ukulele. You can just turn around a standard ukulele and flip the strings so that they’re in the opposite order. You should end up with the g-string being nearest to you and the A-string being nearest to the floor so the strings are in the order I describe in Chapter 2.
    Ukulele strings are so close to each other in terms of their width that you don’t need to make any adjustments to your ukulele. Some people recommend that left-handers just play the ukulele exactly the same as right-handers (strumming with their right hand), reasoning that both hands are required to play the ukulele anyway. But I’ve never heard this argument from a left-handed person.
    Developing Your Strumming
    You use your dominant arm (that is, the right arm if you’re right-handed) to strum. The fretting hand may get all the glory and do all the fancy work, but the strumming hand is most important: you can finger a few fluffed notes or wrong chords without anyone really spotting them, but everyone is sure to notice when your strumming speeds up and slows down.
    An interesting and varied strumming pattern can lift an entire song. Strumming is such a fundamental part of a song that strumming patterns vary between genres much more than chord patterns do. Put down your ukulele for a second – I know you’re going to miss it, but I promise you’ll have it back in your hands soon.
    Now put your strumming hand (right hand for right-handers, left hand for left-handers) in front of the middle of your body where your stomach meets your chest. Make your hand into a light fist so your fingertips are touching your palm but not pressing into it.
    Now use your index finger to point at your left nipple (right nipple for left-handers) and rest your thumb between the first and second knuckle of your index finger. That’s your starting strum position (see Figure 3-4).
    Figure 3-4: Strumming hand position.

    Resting your thumb on the finger is important: it gives your finger an extra bit of stability so it makes a cleaner sound when you strum.
    Strumming in the right spot
    You can pick up your uke again now. Make the shape with your hand that you discover in the preceding section and position the ukulele so that your index finger is just above the g-string, where the neck of your uke meets the body.
    This location is known as the sweet spot . Each ukulele has its own sweet spot where the strumming sounds best. For soprano ukes, this spot is around where the neck meets the body. For larger ukes, the sweet spot is between the soundhole and the end of the body. Experiment with your uke and see what feels and sounds right to you.
    Strumming in