Apr/10/14
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Mr Moustafa from Grand Budapest Hotel (Tab)

Alexandre Desplat – Mr Moustafa (Tab)

I got a request from Justin saying that Alexandre Desplat’s music from the new Wes Anderson movie Grand Budapest Hotel would be perfect for ukeing. And he was absolutely right. As soon as I heard this tune I knew it would suit a campanella-style ukulele arrangement.

And it turned out to be even easier than I expected. Without even changing the key the whole first section of the verses mostly could be played on the open strings.

Trickiest Bit

As with most campanella arrangements the trickiest bit is memorising the string plucking order. If there’s a quicker way to learn it than playing through slowly over and over again I don’t know what it is.

Flicking the Bean

In the bridge section I’m trying to recreate the mandolin tremolo strumming. Tremolo strumming is a bit more tricky on the uke though. So I used a technique I refer to as “flicking the bean”.

It involves turning your strumming hand palm upwards and wiggling your middle fingers across the strings like this:

Links

Buy it on iTunes
GrandBudapestHotel.com
More movie theme tabs

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15 Comments

  1. Mark England April 11th, 2014 8:43 am

    Lol!! F.T.B…

  2. Woodshed April 11th, 2014 9:57 am

    Mark: I couldn’t resist!

  3. kian April 12th, 2014 1:32 am

    the “flicking the bean” is really cool, how long did it take to think of that one?

  4. Woodshed April 12th, 2014 10:48 am

    kian: I can’t remember. I’ve been playing around with it for a long time. I think I just did it without thinking much about it.

  5. pv123 April 12th, 2014 6:59 pm

    Lovely. Thanks. Straight onto my practice list.
    Recently realised that campanella style playing transforms the uke into another dimension (that I like a lot). Lucky enough to attend a James Hill recently workshop where he played Hone a ka wei and I was hooked. (Here’s A J Leonard’s rather good version: http://vimeo.com/28747955).

  6. Woodshed April 13th, 2014 5:50 pm

    pv123: Thanks for the link. That’s excellent.

  7. Charlie Oh April 17th, 2014 8:24 pm

    I just saw that you had put this tab up the night before I went to see the film with my friend while I was in Munich last week, and we both got really excited. Trying to learn was one of the first things I did when I got back! I’ll have to try and get the hang of… flicking the bean, though.

  8. Woodshed April 18th, 2014 9:44 am

    Charlie Oh: It’s a tricky technique. But rewarding.

  9. kwokkie April 20th, 2014 3:42 pm

    Ooh, the bean flicking is fun to practice. Thanks for sharing!
    (Hey! It’s not in the ukulele for dummies book :-p)

  10. Woodshed April 21st, 2014 7:07 am

    kwokkie: No, it’s not a standard technique. And the publisher definitely wouldn’t have let me call it ‘flicking the bean’!

  11. Andy Cook May 1st, 2014 12:58 pm

    I tried that a few times . . . . . but then my uke went all limp ?

  12. Mel May 26th, 2014 4:20 pm

    Thank you for the awesome share! Am loving this now! :)

  13. Woodshed May 27th, 2014 8:27 am

    Mel: Thanks!

  14. Justin June 26th, 2014 10:43 pm

    Thanks for taking the request! My friends love this movie and I can’t wait to surprise them with this tune next time we hangout.

  15. Woodshed June 27th, 2014 8:15 am

    Justin: Thanks! I hope they’re suitably impressed.

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