For the next couple of weeks or so, I’ll be putting up the next batch in the ever popular series of Guitar Riffs for Ukulele. For those not familiar with it, the idea of these isn’t to play the full song, but throw the riffs in to give yourself or your audience a bit of […]

Harmonics are a big part of Hawaiian lap steel playing where they’re referred to as ‘chimes’ because of their bright ping sound (hence tunes such as Maui Chimes). Unfortunately, because of the short scale length, they’re much harder to produce on the ukulele. Natural Harmonics You produce a harmonic by touching the string only very […]

hellogoodbye – The Thoughts That Give Me The Creeps (Chords) I was very excited when this video cropped up on the YouTube feed on Sunday. hellogoodbye are currently slaving away in the studio and have put up a ukulele demo of a song tentatively titled ‘The Thoughts That Give Me The Creeps’. And rather lovely […]

Voodoo Marmalade – Kiss (MP3) Voodoo Marmalade – Faith/Ring of Fire (MP3) Voodoo Marmalade – Ya Rayah/Mariachi Voodoo Marmalade – Boi de Haxixe/Tahi (MP3) via hi5 It’s a familiar formula: Step 1: Get a bunch of ukulele players. Step 2: Play some cover songs. Step 3: Have a good time. Voodoo Marmalade – who declare […]

Happy Days Theme (Chords) I thought this one would be completely straightforward, but it presented a few problems. I’m still not really sure about the ending. In the chord sheet this one, you’ll notice a few letters in brackets. They’re not chords but single notes. So where it says “(A Ab)” you play just those […]

All the uke gals are obsessed with Sarah Palin this week: The UkuLady, Jen Kwok, Poopy Lungstuffing. And there’s plenty of non-political uke action from the likes of Tripping Lily, Peter Madcat Ruth and Howlin Hobbit.

Since I spend a fair proportion of my time writing about the ukulele, so it’s only natural that I’m fascinated by my uke teaching forebears and their ukulele books. One such person is NB Bailey and two of his books are currently available on eBay: A Practical Method for Self Instruction for the Ukulele and […]

As if I didn’t blather on about the ukulele enough, I’ve gone and set up another ukulele site: Ukulele Online. The original idea came from all the Yahoo! Answers questions I was answering. I decided I was going to answer every single ukulele question that’s ever been asked online. Then I calmed down a little. […]

Bright Eyes – First Day of My Life (Chords) I don’t want to be mean, but you’re all playing First Day of My Life in a daft key. But whichever key you play it in, it’s a great song. From all the darting eyes, I’m guessing that people are just reading the guitar chords and […]

I felt like a Burmese monk that hadn’t been through Poy Sang Long, I really did. It’s a rite of passage for any UK uke player to own a Mahalo ukulele and I never did. Back in my day, there was no useful website to tell you which ukulele to buy, so I ended up […]