Ukulele 101: How To Read Ukulele Tab Part 7
February 27, 2008
Advanced Repeats
There are a vast array of Latin scribblings and scrawlings, and Heroes style symbols that can be used to indicate repeats. Here are the most common.
Whereas the other form of repeats is fairly intuitive, this type is pretty indecipherable (unless you happen to be fluent in Latin).
The first time round, you can breeze past the symbols until you reach D.S. al Coda (short for da signo al coda). It means you have to go back to the strange looking squiggle (at the beginning of bar two) then you play through until you reach Da Coda. At this point you go to the little target symbol.
In this example you’ll play bars:
1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 6.
It is possible to get all sorts of double signos and double codas, but you’ll probably never see these in ukulele tab. The only variation you might find is D.C. al Coda rather than D.S. al Coda. This means you go back to the start rather than going back to the sign.
Don’t worry if you didn’t get all of that. I still have to double check when I come up against this sort of repeat.
Accents
You accent notes by giving them an extra little oomph. This might be strumming harder to accentuate a beat or picking a note harder to emphasise the melody.
Accents are shown in tab with an arrow above the note or chord.
This snippet shows an exaggerated example:
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Dead Notes
Dead notes are clicks produced by strumming the uke while damping all the strings with your fretting hand. Lay your fingers gently across the strings. You should touch the strings just enough to stop them ringing but not enough to fret the note.
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Trills
Trills are produced by repeatedly hammering-on and pulling-off the same two notes. They are shown by the letters tr followed by a wavy line.
In this example, the A string is played at the fourth fret then you hammer-on and pull off at the fifth fret repeatedly.
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This series was derived from my ebook Ukulele 101: 101 Things Every Ukulele Player Needs to Know.
You are going much, much faster than I am or can, but I save (and treasure) your lessons. My son and I try to practice 3 – 4 times a week. I have never played an instrument before.
Thanks for the help.
I thought it was Italian. It’s useless Italian, unless you want to run around Rome screaming “SPEED UP! SLOW DOWN! UH… GLISSANDI!”
Michael: I’ve just extended the ukulelehunt.com domain for a couple of years. So all the stuff will be here for a good while yet.
Jimmy: You’re probably right. I did learn some Italian once upon a time. Waste of time really. Vorrei prenotare tre posti per dopo domain.
Bears are pretty large all by themselves. I don’t think they need accentuating. ;-)
Ha, ha. Yeah, you got me.
[ya cheeky bastard :P ]
I almost didn’t point out the little typo because, let’s face it, the mental picture’s a treat and now that it’s corrected I spoiled it for everyone. :(
This is a little bit hard this stuff right? I can barely do a hammer-on. My trills hardly trill – maybe for half a second. I can’t imagine how the one in the example lasts so long.
Maybe my uke is too crap? (asked hopefully) It’s a cheapy.
Yeah, this stuff is tricky. Your uke and your strings will affect how difficult it is and how clearly it sounds.
With the trills, rather than lifting your finger straight off, you get a clearer sound if you pull downwards. So you’re almost plucking the string with your fretting finger each time. Hope that helps.
I have come across a tab notation that I am unfamiliar with. It is a vertical wiggly line on the left side of a chord. It also has an arrow head either at the top or bottom. You can see it on page 6 of wwelti’s classical tabs.
http://ukulelehunt.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/solobuch.pdf
What does it mean?
Jeff: It’s a slightly different way of indicating strum direction. It’s just the same as the straight arrow in my tabs.