I’m one of those people that can’t help but say “Shakira, Shakira” whenever her name is mentioned. Much like I would whenever somebody says Jason Derulo, you know what I’m talking about 🤣. The intro to Hips Don’t Lie is funky as so let’s learn to play it on the ukulele.
What Are We Learning To Play?
Below is a video of what you will be able to play by the end of this post.
Ukulele Tabs
I would call this an intermediate piece to learn on the ukulele as there’s a lot of finger movement, however, if you are a beginner, don’t be scared off just yet. We can slow it down and make it super laid back and just take our time with it. The key is to prepare our fingers beforehand so there’s no confusion between changing notes.
For the opening two notes, use your middle finger on the 3rd fret of the G and your pinky on the 4th of the A string. That’s going to leave your other two fingers free to hit the next two notes on the A string. You will notice that it’s nice and easy to get the next chord too. Use your first finger on the 2nd fret and your middle finger on the 3rd fret.
Next, we have a nippy little hammer-on. Again, we can make it easier on ourselves by barring the 6th fret with our first finger, then using the ring finger to hit the 8th fret with a hammer-on. By barring the 6th fret we conveniently placed to move it up two frets and barre the 8th fret for the next chord. Pluck the next two notes.
Use your first finger on the 4th fret and middle finger on the 5th. This is going to make the next hammer-on (using your ring finger) much easier.
Lastly, everything else will be played by barring the top three strings. Place your first finger on the 3rd fret and across the G, C and E string. Then use your pinky and middle fingers to hit the notes, slide up two frets and do exactly the same motion. Then end by barring the 6th fret.
A |-4--3-1------------|--------------------|----------------|--------|
E |--------2------6---|-8-------4------4---|-6--4----8--6---|-6------|
C |--------3--6h8---6-|-8--10-8-5--5h6---5-|------6-------8-|--------|
G |-3-----------------|--------------------|-3-------5------|-6------|