As you can see, on the fourth and fifth note of the song I have to quickly go from a C to a B. I cannot do this without making it sound as if I’ve rudely cut off the C.
I can kind of make it work by doing a “pull off” maneuver, but this is extremely difficult, maybe because of how far up (down?) the fretboard I am? If this is the best solution then I guess I’m stuck with strengthening my fingers until I can do it reliably.
I have similar problems any time I have to pluck the same string repeatedly, even if it’s the same note. Any kind of contact with the already vibrating string seems to result in unhappy sounds.
I’m not a ukulele player, but that slur in the music notation usually does indicate that you should play it as a pull-off. (Or possibly as a slide from the top note to the other. In general notation, a slur means to smoothly connect two notes.)
I’m not sure what position your fingers are in but I simply hold my index and middle fingers on the 2nd fret 1st and 3rd strings and my ring finger on the 3rd fret 2nd string like I’m fretting a G chord and pull off 3 to 2 with my pinkie and it seems to work. When I do the pull-off I pluck the string with my pinkie pulling it in towards my palm. The only finger that’s moving in the first 6 or so bars is my pinkie either fretting or pulling off.
So the way I was initially doing the pull off was by fretting a G chord, like you said, but moving my ring finger down to the 1st string for the pull off. This was working OK, but then I watched the accompanying video on the website and saw that he was using his pinky as you described.
This is definitely a better method in terms of efficiency, but my pinky is in no way strong enough yet to do the pull off consistently. I’ll just have to work at it.