Nickel Creek – Anthony (Tab and Chords)

Nickel Creek – Anthony (Chords)

Sara Watkins has a few ukulele songs knocking around but this one – from Nickel Creek’s Why Should the Fire Die? – is the standout. The tuning she uses in this one is rather unusual. It’s like a low-G ukulele tuned down two frets (to F Bb D G). I worked out the tune using a baritone ukulele with a capo at the third fret.

I included the shapes for standard tuning in the chord chart. Here are the chords for her weird-ass tuning.

Twiddly Bits

Here’s the little riff she plays through most of the song:

If you’re using standard tuning, you can get away with playing it like this:

Suggested by Ashley and Frank

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7 Comments

  1. Joshua Timmins February 25th, 2010 6:52 pm

    Good Show. Nickel Creek was one of if not the best progressive blugrass bands out there.

  2. Pollo Loco February 28th, 2010 10:27 pm

    Ah, one of the only bands keeping country from turning to total BS.

  3. Woodshed March 2nd, 2010 10:26 pm

    Joshua: Thanks.

    Pollo: There’s certainly a lot of crap gets labelled country.

  4. Simon January 6th, 2012 11:02 pm

    This is the same tuning Sara uses for all her Nickel Creek and solo material when she plays ukulele. It’s effectively tuning the uke to A# (just fret the bottom string, third fret and you have an open A# with this tuning). As this article states, the G string is also the low-octave variety (often done using a nylon D string from a guitar) and allows her to add bass to her songs. See her covering Tom Waits’ ‘Pony’ to hear this tuning and string setup at its best!

  5. Woodshed January 7th, 2012 12:33 pm

    Simon: Thanks for the info.

  6. Griffen April 17th, 2012 1:48 am

    I swore it said nickleback when i first read it… thank god it didn’t

  7. Woodshed April 17th, 2012 11:41 am

    Griffen: Rest assured, there shall be no Nickleback on blog!

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