1. What is the 1-4-5 Chord Theory

- for the key of G

After you've played the ukulele for a while you start to realize that you can play along with most songs by using just a small number of chords. This is because songs are written in specific "keys" that use a narrow range of notes.

It turns out that a limited number of chords can be used to accompany most popular songs. And these chords fall into groups of 4 chords. These groups consist of the "1 Chord", the "4 Chord", the "5 Chord", and the minor version of the "6 Chord".

What does this mean?

The numbers "1", "4", "5" and "6" refer to the root notes of the chords. And these notes are taken from the major scale of the key you're playing in. So, for example, if you are playing in the key of "G", this key is based on the G Major Scale. The "1" note of the G Major scale is "G". The "4" note is "C", the "5" note is "D", and the "6" note is "E".

So for a song in the key of "G", the chords you need most of the time are G - C - D and Eminor - the 1-4-5-6m chords. For a song in G these chords are G - C - D - Em. The chart below tells you the chord sets required for the most common keys (C - G - D - E - A).

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