Here’s a tab of Blur's The Universal. Real horrorshow.
Intro: Thumb and two finger picking for the intro. PARKLIFE
Verse: Switching to one finger per string picking in the verse (with a few strummed chord stabs thrown in). PARKLIFE
Chorus: And full on strumming for the chorus. The action moves high up the neck in this section and it gets fiddly. PARKLIFE
Solo: Still high up but not as frantic. I found the phrasing here a little difficult to get the hang of. PARKLIFE
If I’m going to tab an Aphex Twin song, there’s only one choice: Avril 14th. Which was interpolated by Kanye West on Blame Game.
A Section: By far the hardest part of the song is the artificial harmonics that start in bar 5. In these bits, I’m picking the C-string with my thumb and playing artificial harmonics on the other strings.
Take a look at 4stringboy if you want to see artificial harmonics done right. If you’re as bad at them as me, you can just skip the harmonics part and play the standard and it’ll sound fine.
B Section: AKA the section that goes on twice as long as it should. Just a jump up to the 7th fret to deal with here.
C Section: The easiest section of the song. A bit of campanella picking while holding down a single chord shape.
D Section: This is the oddest section of the piece. It’s simplified from the original. But it bounces all over the fretboard.
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Tracklist
Ukulele Death Squad – Hands Tied
The Bookshop Band – Eve In Your Garden
Peter Moss & George Elmes – Bye Bye Blues
Tiana Jennings – Palehua
Peyton Kanehiwa – Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai
kmodo – stuff we did
Gerald Ross – I Only Have Eyes For You
Natasha Ghosh – Espresso
Jenifer Cabrera – Gente humilde
Here’s a quick tab for the theme to the revival of the X-Men animated series. Which just so happens to be identical to the original, retaining cheesy metal widdle-fest that was the style at the time.
First thing to do is tune your g-string down to F. This is needed to play the sweep across the strings in bars 8 and 9
The tune starts out easy with some palm muted notes on the C-string picked with the thumb. From then on, there are plenty of challenges. There’s some fast picking and notes all the way up the fretboard. That’s followed by a whole bunch of triplets in bars 13 to 15.
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Thanks to Lin for suggesting Macy Gray’s I Try for a tabbing. She’s remembered as a one hit wonder, but Macy Gray had a few great songs.
Verse: The first verse is nice and simple, with everything in the first position. Just a few sus chords among us. And the open g-string gets a lot of use in the melody.
The second verse is more tricky, with a couple of trips up the neck.
Pre-Chorus: Just a big jump up to the seventh fret to deal with the first time around. Again, the second time around, things get tricky and you’re playing way up the neck.
Chorus: I love the campanella run in bar 16. It’s a little fiddly to play, but I think it’s worth the effort.
Outro: This section might not be worth the effort! The key change in this song is so iconic I couldn’t leave it out. But it makes the song much more difficult to play. I wouldn’t blame if you just played the chorus in the original key here instead.
A massive thanks again to the massive generosity of 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:
And extra thanks to May’s Tenor level backers:
– Arthur Foley
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ely Fletcher
– Ivo
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Leia-lee Doran
– Margit Stadlmann
– Mary
– Moses Kamai
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Ryan Grubbs
– Tina Knight
If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including May’s: Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.
Taylor Swift seems to be ubiquitous these days. And there’s no getting away from her here, I’m afraid. Here’s my take on a track from her album Folklore (giving you plenty of time to practice before it becomes relevant): August
Verse: These are nice and simple. Standard chords in the first position.
Chorus: There aren’t many songs that get more gentle in the chorus. But it’s very effective here. This section is slightly more difficult. It moves up the neck for a bit of campanella action and there’s some swift picking required.
The second chorus starts with an A minor chord rather than a C. If you prefer, you can just stick with C since that’s what she did on the Long Pond version.
Bridge: The song changes character here and it gets much trickier to play. The melody is less structured than in the verse and chorus, with a bunch of words crammed in.
Outro: I tried to mimic the way the song drops out for the first bar of this section the second time it crops up. Then blasting in with full on strumming.
I was very sad to hear of the death of Steve Albini recently. I’ve covered a bunch of songs he worked on in the past including Where Is My Mind?, All Apologies and Heart Shaped Box.
For this tribute, I went with Jawbreaker’s response to sell-out accusations: Boxcar.
The arrangement is just blasting out chords with a few picked notes here and there. The only thing that makes it tricky is the speed. I found the G-Am change in the chorus particularly tricky to get the hang of.
Playlist
Cyrille Aimée & Handmade Moments – Another War
Taimane – Gotta Get It
Ukulollo – Monopolele Pizzica
M.J. & Saskia – First Light
Dingus Khan – Japanese Fighting Bugs
Eugene Kurenko – Paso doble for Elise and ukulele
PROMISE. – How It Feels To Be Loved
4stringboy – Star Wars Duel of Fates
UkuleleJarmo & Mig Martins – Um tom pra Jobim
Here’s a tab for probably the biggest hit of the indie folk era: Home.
Intro: Straight in with the trickiest part of the song. If you wanted to make this easier, you could just chug out the chords rather than tackling the fingerpicking.
Verse: I’ve tried to keep the feeling of a duet in this section. For the female part, I use bends and play close to the bridge to give it a raspier sound. Then play away from the bridge to get a fuller tone for the male part. You can judge for yourself whether it works. I’m not sure.
If you don’t want to play the bends, you can replace them with the open A-string.
Chorus: Nice and easy. Just picking a simple melody and strumming the chords.
Solo: Nothing difficult here either in terms of fretting. But there are a bunch of bars of 2/4 which make the timing tricky to keep track of.
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