The xx – Intro (Harp Ukulele Tab)
The xx were the highlight of my sofa-Glastonbury this year. It might have been Arctic Monkeys if it weren’t for that weird gameshow host thing and the cheesy, Oasis-style string arrangements. For a better example of arranging for pop bands have a listen to Alex Baranowski’s work with The xx.
Anyway, their performance inspired me to have a go at this instrumental piece. I first tried it on standard uke but it didn’t work out. I moved on to low-G with was better. Then I went insane and decided to drag my aNueNue harp ukulele out of deep storage.
Harp Ukulele
The harp strings on the uke are supposed to be tuned C, D, E, F. But I retuned the bottom two to A. One to pluck and the other to give a bit of sympathetic resonance. The sympathetic resonance turned out quite well. You can particularly hear the reverb-like effect at the beginning.
Important: The letters above the tab represent the bass note being played in that bar they’re not the chords.
Low-G
The strings tabbed are just tuned like a normal low-G. And it’s tabbed in the same key as the original. So if you’re playing a low-G you can just play this tab along with the record or a bass-playing friend.
Standard Tuning Version
To play it with a high-g ukulele you’ll need to move the whole thing up an octave. Here’s a tab for that. This time with the chord names above the tab.
The xx – Intro (gCEA Tab)
Links
But the MP3
Thexx.info
Crystalised Intro Tab
Here Comes the Sun on Harp Ukulele
You’re my hero.