50 free The Ukulele trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This ukulele trivia quiz covers the small four-stringed instrument from its arrival in Honolulu on a Portuguese immigrant ship in 1879 to its YouTube-fuelled revival. The easy questions are ones any player can answer: how many strings, the GCEA tuning and the jingle used to remember it, the four standard sizes, the Hawaiian wood makers prize, and what the word ukulele roughly means. From there it goes into the history: the three Madeiran cabinet makers credited with building the first ones, the king who put them in royal performances, the 1915 San Francisco exposition that made the uke a mainland craze, and the plastics maker who turned out nine million of them. The second half is people and moments. Cliff 'Ukulele Ike' Edwards, who went on to voice Jiminy Cricket; George Formby and his banjolele; Marilyn Monroe strumming in Some Like It Hot; Tiny Tim's falsetto and his televised wedding; Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's 3 a.m. one-take medley that topped a Billboard chart for 375 weeks; the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Proms; and Jake Shimabukuro's Beatles cover that became one of YouTube's first viral hits. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the ukulele and its makers and players, and each question links to the page that establishes it. Fifty questions, free, with an explanation after every answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the standard tuning of a ukulele?
GCEA
The G is tuned an octave higher than expected, a 'reentrant' tuning that gives the uke its close-harmony sound.
Q 02Which jingle helps players remember the standard ukulele tuning?
My dog has fleas
The four notes G4, C4, E4, A4 fall on the four syllables.
Q 03Which ukulele size is normally tuned DGBE, like the top four strings of a guitar?
Baritone
The baritone was created in the 1940s and resembles a small tenor guitar.
Q 04Which of the four common ukulele sizes was the original?
Soprano
In Hawaii it is often just called 'standard'; the concert size arrived a few decades later as a louder, larger version.
Q 05What does the word ukulele roughly translate to in Hawaiian?
Jumping flea
The name may describe the player's darting fingers, or the nickname of a small, fidgety English officer at court.
Q 06Which Englishman's nickname is legend's explanation for the word ukulele?
Edward William Purvis
He was one of the king's officers, noted for his small size, fidgety manner and skill on the instrument.
Q 07The ukulele descends from small guitars brought to Hawaii by immigrants from where?
Portugal
Small guitar-like instruments came with settlers from Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde in the late 1800s.
Q 08Which Madeiran instrument, also called a braguinha, is the ukulele's closest ancestor?
Machete
It has four metal strings and a double-bulged body; its five-string cousin is the rajão.
Q 09What was the trade of Nunes, Espírito Santo and Dias, who built the first ukuleles?
Cabinet makers
Within two weeks of arriving in 1879 the Madeirans were giving nightly street concerts, the Hawaiian Gazette reported.
Q 10On which ship did the first ukulele makers arrive in Hawaii in August 1879?
SS Ravenscrag
The Hawaiian Gazette reported that the newly arrived Madeira Islanders were delighting people with nightly street concerts.
Q 11Which Hawaiian king championed the ukulele and used it at royal gatherings?
Kalākaua
The 'Merrie Monarch' was a patron of the arts and a key figure in establishing the instrument in Hawaiian culture.
Q 12Which Hawaiian wood is traditionally preferred for ukuleles?
Koa
It is a type of acacia endemic to Hawaii; cheaper ukes are made from plywood or laminates.
Q 13Which company invented the oval-bodied 'pineapple' ukulele?
Kamaka
Samuel Kamaka founded his Honolulu shop in 1916, and a friend painted a pineapple on the first one.
What were ukulele strings originally made of?
Q 21Cliff 'Ukulele Ike' Edwards later became famous as the voice of which Disney character?
Jiminy Cricket
He introduced 'When You Wish Upon a Star' in Pinocchio and had recorded 'Singin' in the Rain' back in 1929.
Q 22Which plastics maker turned out about nine million cheap ukuleles after World War II?
Mario Maccaferri
He also invented an automatic chording device for the uke called the Chord Master.
Q 23Which TV host cultivated the ukulele's post-war popularity, especially one larger size?
Arthur Godfrey
The instrument then went into hibernation from the 1960s, unable to compete with rock 'n' roll.
Catgut
Modern strings are nylon, fluorocarbon or synthetic gut, sometimes wound with metal.
Q 15A ukulele with six or eight strings arranged in four courses is often called what?
A taropatch
The six-string, four-course version is sometimes called a lili'u.
Q 16What is a banjolele?
A ukulele neck on a banjo body
George Formby often played one; the resonator body gives it a louder, brighter tone.
Q 17The Tahitian ukulele's strings are traditionally made from what?
Fishing line
It is carved from a single piece of wood, has no hollow soundbox and usually carries eight strings.
Q 18Which 1915 event popularised the ukulele on the US mainland?
The Panama-Pacific International Exposition
The Hawaiian Pavilion's Royal Hawaiian Quartet set off a Tin Pan Alley craze for Hawaiian songs.
Q 19In which decade did the ukulele become an icon, with uke chords printed in sheet music?
The 1920s
Mainland instrument makers rushed out ukulele lines to cash in; the guitar later took over the chord-chart role.
Q 20Which vaudevillian nicknamed 'The Wizard of the Strings' played uke in a 1923 sound film?
Roy Smeck
The short, Stringed Harmony, used the DeForest Phonofilm process; a 1985 documentary about him was Oscar-nominated.
Q 24Marilyn Monroe played a ukulele in which 1959 film?
Some Like It Hot
As Sugar Kane she strums along to 'Runnin' Wild' with the all-girl band.
Q 25Tiny Tim's 1968 ukulele hit was a cover of which song?
Tiptoe Through the Tulips
The song came from the 1929 musical Gold Diggers of Broadway; he sang it in his trademark falsetto.
Q 26What was Tiny Tim's real name?
Herbert Khaury
He was born in Manhattan in 1932 and was also a serious archivist of early popular music.
Q 27On which television programme did Tiny Tim marry 'Miss Vicki' in December 1969?
The Tonight Show
He was 37 and Victoria Budinger 17; he had earlier appeared on the first regular broadcast of Laugh-In in 1968.
Q 28George Formby, the ukulele-playing comedian, was born in which English town?
Wigan
He took his stage name from his father, George Formby Sr, and became the UK's highest-paid entertainer.
Q 29Which Beatle, a Formby fan, gave ukuleles to friends and taught Tom Petty to play?
George Harrison
Lennon and McCartney played the uke too, and the George Formby Society has held conventions since 1961.
Q 30Which Canadian educator put the ukulele into school music programmes in the 1960s?
J. Chalmers Doane
At its peak 50,000 people learned through his programme; James Hill revised it as 'Ukulele in the Classroom' in 2008.