Uke Hunt Retrospective
June 17, 2009
I do sometimes have it brought home to me that not everyone hangs on every single word I say. Hard to believe, I know. So here are a few things that are popular, good or over-looked that might have slipped by you.
The Most Popular Tabs and Chords
Well, it’s all fairly obvious stuff. Exactly what you’d expect.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Beirut
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Wait! What? Yes, Daft Punk is the fourth most visited tab/chord post on the blog. No, I don’t know why.
My Favourite Tabs and Chords
James Bond Theme – I think it’s the best arrangement I’ve done. Other people tend to think it’s…
Baby Elephant Walk – I like this one but it needs some work.
Sophie Madeleine – Take Your Love With Me – Just a brilliant chord progression.
Davy Graham – Angi
Naked As We Came – yeah, it was only yesterday. But I like it.
I Should Have Just Stayed in Bed
I toiled for hours. Deep into the night I sat playing. Sweat dripping from my brow. Blood dripping from my fingers.
Bollocks to you James Earl Jones. Sometimes you build it and no-one comes.
Carl Ray Villaverde’s version of Tears in Heaven
Chopin’s Funeral March
Mara Carlyle’s Baby Bloodheart
The How to Play Ukulele eBooks
I’m reliably informed by proper internet marketing people that I should sell my ukulele ebooks a lot harder than I do. Because most people visiting Uke Hunt would have no idea they existed – I’m sure quite a few regulars might not know – and those that do know they exist might not know that I’m the one who wrote them.
I don’t want to go all hard sell on them, but I will make them a bit more obvious. Because I think they’re really good and I’m proud of them.
The Interviews
Most viewed:
Rod Thomas – this one has been viewed over 10,000 times. I couldn’t be happier to give him any exposure I can – he’s the nicest guy in the world. And I have a man-crush on him.
Kate Micucci – is also very sweet. But I don’t fancy her as much as I do Rod.
My faves:
Gus from GUGUG
Dean ‘Minor Constellations’ Engle and Madeline Ava – Both insanely talented young lyricists. Dean has released a new album which you can download free on Rack & Ruin Records (click the album cover). Madeline’s stuff has disappeared from the interwebs along with CLLCT (*sobs*). After reading about her on here, Dean asked Madeline to marry him. I’m still hoping it’s going to happen – it’d make me the happiest blog-pimp in the world.
Useful Stuff
Slash chords – People are always asking, “how do you play B/C on a ukulele?” or some such. I think part of the problem is that people don’t know what to Google when they have that problem. So if you don’t know what a slash chord is, read the post now.
Blues scale and Pentatonic scale – essential if you ever want to do any improvising and solo shenanigans.
10 Reasons You Need to Buy a New Ukuele – psychologists say that people buy based on emotion then search for logical reasons to justify it. That’s certainly true of a lot of uke purchases.
Some Things Just Don’t Catch On
Me (in August 2007): Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t I do a post with photos of me making stupid faces? And I’ll have a little test-what-you’ve-learnt bit at the end. Wow, everyone’s going to be really engaged with this post. I should do this all the time.
The Internet: Zero comments.
Friday Links
May 29, 2009
Keep up ukulele players’ well deserved reputation for kindness and generosity and sponser me for my part in the London Uke Fest’s record attempt. A big thanks to Jeff, Josh, Art and Chris(who was incredibly generous) for opening the pot.
My Fingerpicking Ukulele mini-course is looking a bit tired and will be taken down next Friday. So if you’re interested, get in fast. It might be resurrected at some point in the future – possibly as part of an ebook.
Fantastic Moustaches of the World ukulele: Front, Back.
Play along live with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Albert Hall as part of the Proms. If you can’t wait until then to catch them, you can hear Hester on Radio 4’s The Afternoon Play on Monday and Peter on the album A Psychedelic Guide To Monsterism Island (The POP! Stereo has a track from it available for download).
A story about the rise of the ukulele in Singapore thanks to the efforts of Ukulele Movement.
Another Martin cropped up on Antiques Roadshow. Much more interesting than the last. It’s a one-off spruce top. If you can buy it for the appraised $4,000 bite his arm off – he is underestimating Martin collector’s craziness. (via Ukulelia)
Boy Meets World ukulele: Part 1, Part 2.
MP3s: Craig Robertson covers Ukulelezo. Fong Songs has two MP3s from Ukulele Force including James Hill’s version of Cantina Band. Out the Other has a couple of JuNu tracks.
Exceptionally easy ukulele quiz. I got 100%, bitches. Although it’s not entirely to be trusted: “That’s right. The next largest is the concert, the baritone and then the tenor.”
The Beatles Fest is going after the same mass-ukulele record as the London Uke Fest. They tried the same thing last year and managed 28.
Vertigo Smyth chords on Uker Tabs.
Bette Midler gives the Obama girls a ukulele.
Supermodel Pania Rose plays naked ukulele. Not particularly well, but it would have been remiss of me not to mention it. And she lists her favourite band as Beirut. Keep her away from me. She’d fall in love and it would be one big hassle.
And a whole bunch of naked ukulele models here.
Death Cab for Cutie – Talking Bird (Demo) (Chords)
April 7, 2009
Death Cab for Cutie – Talking Bird (Ukulele Version)(Chords)
Death Cab for Cutie’s new odds-and-ends EP, The Open Door, includes the original ukulele filled version of Talking Bird (you can listen to it on Stereogum). It is, naturally, far superior to the full band version (for which Zakulele has already written up the chords).
Stereogum were, unusually for them, very musically astute to mention Beirut in that post. The song contains a lot of Beirut like touches: it’s in waltz time, the C chord is played up the neck, there are Fadd9 chords all over the place.
I’ve written the chords up in a slightly simplified way (just make sure you pay attention to the C chord – the A string is played at the 7th fret rather than the 3rd). The do occasionally add in passing chords. This sort of thing:
Dent May and His Magnificent Ukulele – Meet Me in the Garden (Chords)
February 19, 2009
Dent May and His Magnificent Ukulele – Meet Me in the Garden (Chords)
Looks like I’m going to be doing a Beirut on the Dent May album, The Good Feeling Music of….
The album version of Meet Me in the Garden has the uke turned down and guitar and Gainsbourg-ness turned up compared to the demo version but with the 6th and major 7 chords it still keeps a very island theme.
Suggested Strumming Pattern
For the Eb6 and B7M chords:
d – x u d – x u x u x u d u d u
The x’s are chnks (bring the underside of your strumming hand down on the strings to mute them).
For ‘Out by the pond…’:
d – x – u d u
for Eb6 and F6 and just d u d u … for the G.
Beirut – The Akara (Tab & Chords)
February 3, 2009
Surely it’s no coincidence that the standout track on the new Beirut EP, March of the Zapotec is the most uke-heavy. The EP isn’t out yet, but The Akara has been spreading on the MP3 blogs.
The uke only part of the track goes like this:
The rest of the song uses these same chords:
Friday Links: Kate Miccuci on Scrubs
January 30, 2009
Kate Micucci is playing her ukulele on Scrubs – which is my new favourite ukulele news ever. She discusses her role as Ted’s ukulele sweetheart, Stephanie, here. Until you get a chance to watch it, you’ll have to content yourself Kate and Ted duetting on Screw You a PG version of Fuck You.
Tiki King has a some photos from NAMM including some new Fluke designs, some Les Paul-y type electric ukes from Stagg (with a strange choice of knob placement) and Ohana getting into the ‘oddly placed soundhole’ game.
The new Beirut double EP March of the Zapotech doesn’t have a great deal of ukulele on it (Quiet Color have an MP3 of the uke-heaviest track The Akala). Perhaps because Zach’s had his ukulele stolen.
New York Ukulele Festival is back on again under new management.
The Hull Ukulele Group starts up on 9th February. If you live in the area, sign up for their Facebook group.
More King Blues chords from sam_not_static on Uker Tabs.
Milk Milk Lemonade has an MP3 from The Half Sisters.
Is it ‘ukulele’? Is it ‘ukelele’? There’s only one way to sort this out. FIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!
Do you think playing the ukulele is gay? If anyone asks, tell them your ukulele belongs to your secret girlfriend.
Florence & the Machine – Kiss With A Fist (Chords)
January 29, 2009
Florence and the Machine – Kiss With A Fist (Chords)
A very strange year for me was 2008. It was the first time in history my Crush of the Year wasn’t a musician or Janeane Garofalo (24?) but Countdown champion, writer and bus-atheist Ariane Sherine.
But she hasn’t written any shouty, punk-pop songs so today’s post is about Florence & the Machine who distinguished herself by using ukes, covering Beirut and kicking ass.
Kiss With A Fist is a simple three chord slash-a-long. If you wanted to avoid the E chord, you could move everything up a fret so the chords are Bb, Eb and F.
GUGUG Week: Are Friends Electric?
November 25, 2008
GUGUG/Gary Numan – Are Friends Electric? (Chords)(PDF)
I think I’ll have to do a Beirut on GUGUG at some point and write up all the songs they’ve done. All their songs are fun and easy to play and would work great as ukulele club songs.
I worked out the GUGUG version of Are Friends Electric? from their Are Friends Acoustic? version. But the uke parts for the two are pretty much identical.
Strumming Pattern
For the verses: you can go down, down, down on the C chord (with the last down being very short) and up, up, up, down, up, down on the Gm.
Without the chords and played slowly, it sounds like this:
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With the chords, like this:
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For the ‘uh-uh’ section: the easiest thing to do is two down strums like Fin does.
For the spoken word section: down, down, down, up, down, up should see you through.
Beirut – Hallelujah
July 22, 2008
Zach Condon quite often finishes off Beirut gigs with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Although his version is closer to Jeff Buckley’s (one of the best cover versions ever recorded).
The chords are fairly simple. One thing he does a few times in the song (and loads of times in his own songs) is play the F chord with the G string open, then hammer on at the second fret. He does a similar thing with the G chord. This time the A string is left open then hammered on.
I’ve included two versions of Am in the song (one with the A string open and one with it at the third fret). He always uses the third fret version on the C – Am change that you hear at the beginning. He throws in the easier version on a few occasions towards the end.
Kudos to Leonard Cohen for making my job easier by describing the chords in the lyrics. Why can’t all songwriters be so helpful?
Zach Condon of Beirut’s Ukuleles
June 18, 2008
The second in the ‘What ukulele do they play?’ series. The good news: if you want to play the same ukuleles as Zach Condon, you won’t have to spend anywhere near as much as if you wanted Jake Shimabukuro’s ukulele. They’re actually fairly bog-standard ukuleles, not that expensive and would be a good choice for beginners.
He seems to have two main stage ukuleles:
Irrefutable evidence. Looks to me like a BU7TV.
Irrefutable evidence. Looks to me like an LU-21T.
Other ukuleles he’s been spotted with:
Fluke: On the set of the video for Elephant Gun he Postcards from Italy on the Fluke that’s featured in the video.
Samick: In this photoshoot. It’s the only time I’ve seen him with a Samick, so I don’t think it’s a regular player of his. It looks like a UK70.
