Herman Vandecauter has an extensive examination of the Madeiran machete (the forerunner to the ukulele).

Nick Offerman has a new batch of ukuleles almost done (but you won’t be able to buy one unless you’re his buddy).

The unfortunate history of politicians and instruments in the uke family continues with Ed Milliband’s guitarlele.

Window Shopping

– Ortega HYDRA ZS double neck uke.
– RIGuitars‘ latest custom is a Pegasus Uke.
– Paul Gilbert demonstrates the electric RG Ibanez ukulele. I think it’s fair to say he’s better with an electric drill than he is with a ukulele.

Patreon

A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:

– Arthur Foley
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dan
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jeff Otto
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Kie77
– Lisa Johnson
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nevylle Carroll
– Nick Parsons
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Thorsten Neff
– Tina Knight

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including March’s:

Depeche Mode – Just Can’t Get Enough

De La Soul – Me Myself and I

Andrew WK – Party Hard

Laurie Anderson – From the Air

Tove Styrke – Same My Name

Burt Bacharach – I’ll Never Fall in Love Again (Tab)

Burt Bacharach is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. So I had to do a little tribute to him with I’ll Never Fall in Love Again. For this arrangement, I worked from the Elvis Costello version that cropped up in The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Even in an apparently simple pop tune like this, Bacharach snuck in interesting little moves. So in bar 15 there’s a B7 chord with the melody hitting Ab. Which is the minor third of F creating tension in the key is F major. And there’s a bar of 2/4 cutting the melody short in bar 17.

Links

Buy the MP3
More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Kung Fu Master (Tab)

A recent nostalgia trip compelled me to knock up a version of Masato Ishizaki’s music from the 80s arcade game Kung-Fu Master.

The tune is very quick. Even slowed down, it’s still a challenge. In order to cut the finger movement to a minimum, it’s arranged campanella style so the work is done with the picking hand and fretting hand doesn’t have to move much.

Links

More Game Theme tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Ruthie Craft – Nineteen
4stringboy – Interstellar (Main Theme)
Feng E – Johnny B Goode
RIO – Moon River
Arko Mukhaerjee feat. Arinjoy Sarkar – Manouche Wisdom
Max & Veronica – Sweet Georgia Brown
Alex Fam – Catastrophe
Steven Warren – Paint it Black
Melanie Mergen – Breathe

Afroman – Because I Got High (Tabs)

Afroman’s Because I Got High is a very simple song. Three chords and just a verse with a bit of variation in the intro and a bit of getting jiggy with it in the outro.

The only tricksy thing going on (other than a bunch of percussive chnks) is the campanella picking on “Coz I got high…” which first shows up in bars 6-7. I think having the notes ring into each recreates the slurred, stumbling feel of the original.

Links

Buy the original
More 2000s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

It’s St. Patrick’s Day on Friday. Just enough time to ditch your dullest friend, threaten to cut off your fingers and dedicate yourself to achieving musical immortality.

Chords

The Cranberries – Linger (Chords)
The Dubliners and The Pogues – The Irish Rover
Fontaines D.C. – Boys in the Better Land
Imelda May/Blondie – Dreaming
The Pogues – Fairytale of New York
The Pogues – Fiesta
The Pogues – If I Should Fall from Grace with God
The Pogues – Irish Rover
The Pogues – Sally MacLennane
The Pogues – Streams of Whiskey
The Pogues – Waxies’ Dargle
The Undertones – Teenage Kicks
Van Morrison – Keep It Simple

Tabs

The Cranberries – Linger
The Cranberries – Zombie
Damien Rice – 9 Crimes
Damien Rice – The Blower’s Daughter
Father Ted Theme
The Foggy Dew
Lisa Hannigan – Knots
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova – Falling Slowly
The Irish Washerwoman
John King – Larry O’Gaff
John King – Swallowtail (Tab)
Jonathan Lewis – Lonesome Fiddle Blues
The Parting Glass
The Pogues – Dirty Old Town
Sinead O’Connor/Prince – Nothing Compares 2 U
Thin Lizzy – Boys are Back in Town (Riff)
Turlough O’Carolan/Jonathan Lewis – Loftus Jones
U2 – One
U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday (Riff) (Tab)
U2 – With or Without You (Tabs)
Whiskey in the Jar/Kilgary Mountain

Irish Riffs and Solos

The Pogues – Dirty Old Town (Tab)

To celebratre St Patrick’s Day on Friday, I thought I’d cover a song written by an American about a place in England. But it has become thouroughly Irish-ised through versions by The Dubliners and the Pogues version. For this arrangement, I worked from The Pogues version.

Intro: A quick couple of bars then into the thumb-and-strum pattern which carries on through the song i.e. the thumb alternates between picking the g- and C-strings with a couple of strums in between.

Verse: The first verse is the most straightforward. The second and third have a couple of extra bits of filigree.

Solo: I like The Pogues version, this arrangement modulates to C for the solo. It’s heavily based on the melody with a few extra twiddles. I particularly like the campanella run in bar 48. As always, feel free to add your own ideas and adapt it to your own style.

Links

Buy The Pogues’ version
More Irish tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Hawaii News Now are impressed by Jake’s sons’ ukulele playing.

Choan Galvez has a new ebook out: For Four Fingers and a new one on the way Eight Rags a Week.

Billy Costello (the original voice of Popeye) and his ukulele.

A book teaching you to play ukulele is banned in Oregon prisons.

Ukulele Player Lands Dream Job Scoring Kickstarter Campaign Video:

“Here at Kickstarter headquarters, we maintain a stable of fresh four-string talent, sort of a ‘Wrecking Crew’ of ukulele players,” said Taylor. “We put the campaign videos onscreen in the recording studio and just let these cats cook. Last week one of our players slipped into a uke trance—we knocked out twenty videos in one afternoon. It was like watching Miles Davis in his prime if he were promoting a water bottle that connects to Wi-Fi.

Twenty One Pilots attempt to debut a new uke song.

Patreon

A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:

– Arthur Foley
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dan
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jeff Otto
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Kie77
– Lisa Johnson
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nevylle Carroll
– Nick Parsons
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Thorsten Neff
– Tina Knight

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including February’s: Elton John’s Tiny Dancer

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps (Tab)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist, Nick Zinner is one of my favourite guitar players. His playing is very minimal but he makes every note count. Never more so than on Maps. This arrangement is minimal too. With a few nods to the acoustic version which is a bit more fleshed out with the chords.

Links

Buy the original
More 2000s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon