Learn ukulele to playing 20 songs in two months
Ukulele is the friendliest stringed instrument that exists, and the path to "playing real songs" is genuinely measured in weeks. Two months of daily 15-minute practice — one free YouTube course and a $70 instrument — will give a beginner a 20-song campfire repertoire. Roughly 15 hours total. You will not be Jake Shimabukuro. You will be playing.
2 months · ~15 hours · play 20 songs with clean changes between G, C, D, Em and Am
1.A real concert ukulele, not a toy
Buy a Kala KA-15C concert (~$70) or a Cordoba 15CM (~$80). Soprano ukuleles look classic but are cramped for adult fingers; concert is the right body size for everyone over twelve. Avoid anything under $40 — the action is unplayable and the tuners slip every song. Add a clip-on tuner ($10) and a fabric gig bag if it didn't come with one. That is the entire shopping list.
$70–90 ukulele + $10 tuner
Kala KA-15C →2.Andy Guitar's free 10-day Ukulele Starter Course
Andy Crowley's free 10-day starter course on YouTube is the cleanest first-two-weeks curriculum that exists. Each video is under fifteen minutes, builds on the previous one, and ends with a real song. By day ten you will know C, F, Am, G, and a few strumming patterns, and you will have played five complete songs. Watch them in order, do not skip, and play along — do not just watch.
Free on YouTube
Andy Guitar — Ukulele Lesson 1 →3.Ukulele Underground — free lessons + Uke Minutes
Aldrine Guerrero's Ukulele Underground has been running since 2008 and the free content alone is more than you need for the first year. Move from Andy Guitar's basics into UU's "Learn to Play the Ukulele" free course for chord-melody work, picking patterns, and your first fingerstyle pieces. Their "Uke Minutes" series is the format you can squeeze into a coffee break. UU+ ($20/month) is good once you finish the free track and want structured intermediate work.
Free for the beginner curriculum; UU+ $20/month if you want more
Ukulele Underground — Beginner Course →If you want a book instead of YouTube
Replace step 2 and 3 with "Ukulele for Dummies" by Alistair Wood ($20). It covers the same ground in book form — chords, strumming patterns, picking, the basic theory — and includes online audio. The Dummies series gets unfair flak; Wood's book is genuinely well-written and respected on the Ukulele Underground forums. The right choice if you prefer to read at your own pace and dislike following along to a screen.
Why this path
The ukulele is the rare instrument where the bottleneck is not the instrument or the curriculum — it is whether you actually pick it up daily. Andy Guitar gives you the first two weeks for free, in fifteen-minute doses, with no choice paralysis. Ukulele Underground is the long-tail community that takes you from beginner to intermediate without selling anything mandatory. Pick a uke, do Andy's ten days, then drift through UU. You will be playing songs at parties before two months is up, which is the entire point of choosing a ukulele.