Call Me Maybe Ukulele

Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen – Ukulele Lesson

Ok this song is a few years old now, but whilst my finger recovers from my accidental attempt to amputate it I thought it might be worth throwing on here for any beginners out there…

It’s a great song for beginners to learn and also a pretty good one to as a starting point to sing over because the chords are in the same order throughout the whole song. Oh and before I continue, you should definitely check out this Chat Roulette version of the video by Steve Kardynal (if you’re not one of the 19 million people that hasn’t already seen it, even if you have, watch it again)…

The Chords

So you’ve got G, Em, C and D. In that order throughout the whole song. 

call me maybe ukulele chords

The song just repeats a bar of each throughout so you’re going to need to mix your strumming patterns up to keep it interesting…

The Rhythm

With the chords not really changing much I’d recommend mixing the strumming pattern up a little and throwing a few different patterns into the song. So maybe look at using a pattern for the verses, one for the chorus and one for the intro. You’re free to do what you want with these really but here’s what I’d go with if you’re just starting out.

Intro/First Verse

A simple pumping 8’s pattern will lead you nicely into this song. 8 down strums per bar. So you’re playing on each beat and between each beat, all evenly spaced.

pumping8s strum pattern

Personally I run this into the first verse as well as the intro before changing the pattern at the second verse.

Verses

The good old down, down, up, up, down, up will work pretty nicely on the verses but feel free to vary this as much or as little as you want. If you’re counting this out loud, then you would count it 1, 2 and, and, 4 and.

DDUUDU Strum Pattern

Pre-Chorus/Chorus

If you’re a pretty good singer then you may just get away with playing a single down strum at the start of each bar for the pre-chorus, rolling into the above pattern for the actual chorus.

That’s it!

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