Best beginner ukuleles: what's worth it from $60 to $120

The ukulele is the lowest-friction way into stringed instruments and the easiest category in which to buy something that does not work. Nylon strings under low tension mean it barely hurts to play, four strings mean chords are simple, and a small body means a seven-year-old can hold it. All genuinely true.

What is also true is that a $25 ukulele and a $70 ukulele look identical in a photograph, and the difference between them is a piece of plastic about the size of a fingernail. Every pick below states its Starter Path band, and we have not played any of them — our method is on how we pick.

The nut and saddle, which decide everything

The nut is the small slotted piece where the strings leave the fingerboard at the headstock end. The saddle is its counterpart at the body end. Together they set the string height and, crucially, the vibrating length.

If either is molded from soft plastic, two things go wrong. First, the string binds in the slot when you tune, so the tuning happens in jumps rather than smoothly and the instrument will not sit precisely in tune. Second, and worse, the saddle position is usually not compensated correctly, so the instrument plays sharper and sharper as you move up the neck. A chord at the first fret sounds fine. The same chord at the seventh sounds wrong, and no amount of tuning fixes it, because the problem is the geometry.

A beginner cannot diagnose this. What they experience is that some chords sound bad and they do not know why, and the natural conclusion is that they are playing them wrong.

Both wooden picks here specify GraphTech NuBone or an equivalent bone substitute, which is dense, slippery and can be cut precisely. It is the single specification worth checking before anything else.

Strings, and the free upgrade you should look for

Ukulele strings vary far more than guitar strings do, and cheap ones sound genuinely dull — thuddy, with no sustain and a muted top end.

Aquila Nylgut and Super Nylgut are the most common upgrade, and a set costs around $10 to $12. Both the Kala and the Cordoba here ship with Aquila strings from the factory, which means the first thing you would otherwise do to the instrument has already been done. When comparing two ukuleles at similar prices, factory Aquilas are effectively a $12 discount plus a job you do not have to learn to do.

What to skip

The under-$30 ukulele in a bright color with a bag, a strap, a tuner, a capo and spare strings. The accessories are worth perhaps $20 retail, which tells you what is left for the instrument. These have molded plastic nuts, friction tuners that slip, and intonation that is wrong from the factory and cannot be corrected.

They are frequently bought as a gift, played twice, and quietly abandoned — not because the recipient did not want to play, but because the instrument would not stay in tune. This is the specific failure the “below the floor” band exists to name.

Also skip friction tuners if you can see them in the photos. These are the simple pegs that hold by friction alone rather than geared tuners with a worm drive. They exist on traditional instruments and on cheap ones for opposite reasons, and on a cheap one they slip. A beginner tuning a slipping peg is a beginner having a bad time.

Size, briefly

Four sizes exist and two of them matter for a beginner. Soprano is the classic and the smallest. Concert is a bit bigger with more room between frets. Tenor is bigger again and less common as a first instrument; baritone is tuned differently and is effectively a different instrument.

The short version: adults are generally happier on concert, children on soprano, and the tone difference between them is smaller than the ergonomic difference. Full detail in soprano vs concert vs tenor.