PlaysoloistStringsUkuleleSongsFrankie and Johnny

ukulele song · Strings

Frankie and Johnny Ukulele Tab

Composer
Traditional
Year
Key
C
Time
4/4
Tempo
100 BPM
Difficulty
Easy · ★★
First note
C4

Frankie and Johnny on ukulele

The full melody, rendered as four-string ukulele tab in re-entrant High-G (gCEA) you can read on screen or print for the stand — free, and never truncated.

Tuning: g C E A (re-entrant High G) · Strum: D - DU -DU

AECgC00000CC7000F0000F2C22110AECgG7000CG7020C0

Arranged for the standard re-entrant High-G (gCEA) ukulele. On Low G, Baritone or D tuning the app re-fingers the same melody live. Left-handed? The app can mirror the whole tab.

Trad. American, 19th c. — public domain.

How to practise this on ukulele

Frankie and Johnny is in C and opens on C4. This tab is arranged for the standard re-entrant High-G ukulele: the fourth string (the top of the written tab, marked g) is tuned above the two strings under it, which is why a melody can dip onto the open g and come out sounding high — that's the instrument's signature, not a misprint. If you play Low G, the app re-fingers the same melody for your tuning live.

Pick the melody with alternating thumb and index, or the index alone on slower pieces, and keep your fretting fingers curled so open strings ring clear. Set the metronome under around 100 BPM, watch the tab rather than your hands, and loop the bar your take review grades worst until it comes back clean twice in a row. By the numbers, this setting runs 25 notes across 8 bars, from C4 up to A4 in 4/4 time.

Also playable on

The same melody is graded across 7 Playsoloist instruments. See every version, with difficulty and provenance, on the Frankie and Johnny cross-instrument hub.

Keep exploring

Free on the App Store

Play Frankie and Johnny — and hear every note graded.

Soloist Ukulele reads this four-string ukulele tab in re-entrant High-G (gCEA) under the notation and grades your take on-device, note by note — free on iPhone, no ads, no account.

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