Tracklist
Karina Bezdudnaya – My Lady Hundson’s Puffe
PROMISE. – Me, Myself & I
Charissa Hoffman – if i could fly
daphne eckman – acupuncture
Tomotaka Matsui – Lazybones
M.J. – Lost World
Pixie and the Partygrass Boys – These Chickens Eat Fascists Thanks to HermanVDC
Zoë Bestel – Hold On
Duo Travessia – A paz
Christine and the Queens – Tilted (Tabs)
This is a rare occasion where I didn’t get tilted trying to record the video. It’s a straightforward and fun song to play on uke. There are many moves up and down the neck but you have plenty of time for them.
The only challenge I had was playing the open C note on the offbeats in the verse (e.g. bar 13). I’m so used to plodding out the thumb-picked notes on the beats it took a bit of practice to rewire my brain.
Links
Tom Odell – Another Love (Tab)
Tom Odell’s Another Love managed to amass 900 million views on YouTube without me ever having heard it. Luckily, my Patreons are more on the ball than I am and requested it. And it’s a catchy song that fits nicely on ukulele in the original key.
Technique-wise, it’s a song of two halves. For the first half, it’s all fingerpicking. The intensity picks up in the first midtro with the strums coming in during bar 42. Don’t worry about hitting every note exactly as it’s tabbed in the strumming section. It’s more important to keep up the intensity and the feel.
Links
– Ukulele hip hop collaborator, Einer Bankz interviewed.
– Learning the uke in prison.
On Video
– Chaz Chase eats a ukulele. (Via Ukulelia)
– Kevin Bacon serenades his alpacas.
– I only just found out Finneas’s character on Glee was a ukulele player with the same name as me.
Window Shopping
– Flame ukulele by RIGuitars. Inspired by the guitar Steve Vai played in this video.
– A new leader in the “uke I’d least like to play” race: the KiwiCo self-build uke. You can see Adam Savage building and being very polite about one here. (Thanks to Phredd)
– Lego’s tropical 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:
And extra thanks to February’s Tenor backers:
– Arthur Foley
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Leia-lee Doran
– Margit Stadlmann
– Mary
– Moses Kamai
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Tina Knight
If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including February’s: Britney Spears’ Toxic.
Eddie Vedder – Rise (Tab)
Possibly because of Eddie Vedder’s affection for the uke, the mandolin song from the Into the Wild soundtrack, Rise fits nicely on the uke without changing the key.
After a fingerpicking intro, the song is almost all strums. With just a few notes picked out. The verses and choruses are straightforward. It’s just the solo and that outro that have a few stretches and jumps up and down the neck.
I’ve kept the solo and the outro fairly faithful to the original, but there’s plenty of space in those to throw in your own ideas.
Links
Arctic Monkeys – Fluorescent Adolescent (Tab)
After tabbing Do I Wanna Know? in January, I hope it’s not too soon to cover another Monkeys track: Fluorescent Adolescent
The biggest challenge here (after spelling the title) is the very rapid delivery of the verse melody. These bits are played with a long succession of hammer-ons and pull-offs. Make sure you pull-off downwards rather than straight off the string. That’ll give it an extra pluck to keep the notes sounding.
Other than that, it’s a fun song to blast through.
Links
The Beatles – Now and Then (Tab)
The Beatles aren’t going to let a little thing like half the band being dead stop them making hits. And their latest is the earworm Now and Then.
Intro: Some simple strumming to start with.
Verse: There’s a lot of barreing going on in the verses. Which makes it a bit of stamina test for the fretting hand. But nothing difficult to play.
Chorus: The “Now and then” bit is played on the g-string. So make sure you emphasise it enough for it to register as the melody.
Watch out the second time around as the solo cuts the chorus short.
Solo: For once, the solo is very easy. A few notes sliding around but mostly strumming chords.
Outro: A change in time signature and descending chords against a pivot (A-string, 5th fret). My favourite part of the song.
Links
Buy the original
More Beatles tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon
The Cure – Lullaby (Tab)
Get ready to be freaked out of your gourd by The Cure’s spooky Lullaby
Intro: The original intro is unusually long, lasting more than a minute. I’ve chopped it down a little for this arrangement.
The intro (like the whole song apart from the bridge) is just Dm-Bbmaj7. The first 8 bars have the guitar line on top of that. And the next four focus on the bass line.
The final 8 bars focus on the string line. With long notes on the Dm and pizzicato notes on the Bbmaj7. To imitate the pizzicato, I’m muting the strings by gently resting the side of my picking hand on the strings near the bridge.
The transition into bar 17 is made easier by muting the g-string with your thumb instead of playing the whole chord. But you can always add in the g-string, 2nd fret if you’re fast enough.
Verse: The wispy and whispery vocals make the melody a little hard to discern. I’ve tried my best but I’ve taken a few liberties with it. Nothing too tricky to deal with here. Just a trip up to the fifth fret at the end.
Bridge: They go all jazz with it and add a third chord. Still straightforward, though. Just a couple of quick pull-offs to deal with.
Outro: This is where things get tricky. There’s a flurry of notes in bars 46 and 50. I’ve gone campanella with it and involved the g-string in the melody to spread out the notes a little.
Links
Tracklist
Amelia Coburn – When The Tide Rolls In
Jon’s Ukulele – Grimstock – Playford
Uke With Smitty – Bury Me Beneath the Willow
Dani Joy – Time in a Bottle
Origami Angel – The Brightest Days
Justin Timberlake & The Roots – Medley
Feng E – Idol
Herman Vandecauter – 2 Nocturnes Zani de Ferranti
Bobby Alu & Foloi Iulia – Tofa My Feleni
Green Day – Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Tab)
A tab of Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
Intro: The verse of Boulevard uses the same chords as the verse of Wonderwall so I went extra Wonderwally for the intro.
Verses: Nothing too tricky here. Just fingerpicking around first position chords.
Chorus: Switching to strums and moving up and down the neck much more.
Solo: This is where it gets challenging. It’s a series of chord stabs with octaves between them. The upside is that it’s very repetitive, so there’s not a lot of it to tackle.
Outro: A completely new chord sequence here using chromatic moves. It’s just bashed out with strums.