Brandi Carlile – You and Me on the Rock (Tab)

Here’s my take on Brandi Carlile’s Joni Mitchell influenced and very catchy You and Me on the Rock.

Intro: The Mitchell influence kicks in right away with a Big Yellow Taxi-esque strumming riff.

Verse: And continues with a wordy verse. It’s tricky to hit every note in the melody. So I’ve taken a few liberties. Don’t stress to much about hitting every note and string exactly.

Chorus: Things calm down a bit in the chorus. And I move from strumming only to include more picking. Even with the picking I’m doing a bit of “flick up” motion so I stroke the next string along. Making the note softer but still supporting the main melody.

The chorus ends with a bar of 2/4 but it flows naturally.

Bridge: There’s a short bluesy lick leading into the bridge introducing the more minor feel with the addition of Eb (the first chord outside the bog-standard I-IV-V in the rest of the song).

Outro: The outro is cut down from the original so it’s just the second half of the chorus.

Links

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Eminem – The Real Slim Shady

Franz Ferdinand – Michael

Janelle Monae – Champagne Shit

The Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive

Average White Band – Pick Up the Pieces

BLACKPINK – The Girls

Willie Nelson – Stardust (Tabs)

A tab of Willie Nelson’s version of Stardust (written by Hoagy Carmichael) for everyone who likes a bit of Willie. In thanks for his contributions to ukeing as father of Amy Nelson of Folk Uke and grandfather of Raelyn Nelson.

There are loads of less common chords in the song. And a fair amount of hopping around the fretboard. But the tempo is very slow and there’s plenty of room for changing the phrasing of the melody. So this one is fairly straightforward to play.

Links

Buy the Willie Nelson version
More jazz tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
SeattleUke – How High The Moon
Norwegian Uke – Hone A Ka Wai
Dot Allison and Zoë Bestel – Bleached By The Sun
BoyWithUke – Trauma
Adrian Demain – By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Benny Chong and Byron Yasui – Just The Way You Are
Reneé Dominique – everybody loves somebody
Tommy Emmanuel ft. Feng E – While My Guitar Gently Weeps

The Band – The Weight (Tab)

A version of The Weight in tribute to Robbie Robertson. Robertson appeared on the Playing for Change version alongside some uke from Taimane.

Intro: Usually, you’re free to play around with the intro. Not in this case. Robertson’s intro is iconic and doing anything other than playing it as close to the original as possible is sacrilege.

Verses: The melody in the verses is a little fiddly, but it’s the third verse that’s most challenging. There’s an extra campanella bit in bar 37 (“Waitin’ on Judgement Day”) and a trickier ending to the verse.

Chorus: I haven’t tried to cram in all the vocal lines in the chorus in order to keep things clear. Most obviously, the arrangement doesn’t include the overlapping “you put the load…” lines (bar 46).

Links

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More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Placebo – Pure Morning (Tab)

Placebo’s Pure Morning is hilariously unsuited the ukulele. But it’s always fun to have a go at those. You can decide for yourself whether it actually works because I’m not sure.

There’s no chord progression at all in the song. It’s just an E drone the whole way through (Eb in the original). To emphasise that, I’m playing an E on both the open E-string and on the C-string 4th fret whenever I get the chance.

As the song builds, the arrangement moves up the neck and uses some octaves. If you don’t have a 14th fret, you can always just mute the A-string. Or playing it open will work.

Links

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More 90s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Fred Kamaka Sr has has died at the age of 98. Fred and his brother, Sam Kamaka Jr, took over running Kamaka Ukuleles from their father in the 1950s and have made Kamaka one of the most respected names in the ukulele world. He and his brother became he most recent inductees in the Ukulele Hall of Fame in 2012.

Sean Yacavone of Ukulele Friend talks about recording his historic ukuleles for the Hawai’i State Archives

Hamza Yousaf (First Minister of Scotland) joins the often regrettable list of politicians to pick up the 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
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Leia-lee Doran
– Lisa Johnson
– Loreena Humbert
– Mary
– Michael Lufkin
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nevylle Carroll
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Thorsten Neff
– Tina Knight
– Virtual Performing Arts Academy

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

Rod Stewart – Maggie May (Tab)

A tab of Rod Stewart’s 70s smash Maggie May.

Intro 1: The album version of the track starts with Martin Quittenton’s (completely out of place) little contrapuntal piece in 3/4 time. I almost skipped it but it’s a fun tune that’s worth learning by itself.

Intro 2: The second intro is much more in keeping with the song’s melancholy mood.

Verses: The verses are fairly straightforward. It’s mostly strummed with a few notes picked out here and there.

Solo: Loosely based on the original with lots of sliding around the fretboard. As always, throw some ideas of your own in here.

Links

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More 70s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Nirvana – All Apologies (Tab)

Sinead O’Connor’s cover prompted me to knock up a quick version of Nirvana’s All Apologies.

Intro: It’s a fun riff to noodle away on. I recommend learning this bit even if you don’t learn the whole song. (Put a capo on the first fret to play along with the original.)

Verse: The intro and verse are all fingerpicked with thumb on the C-string, index on the E and middle on the A. The verses are very repetitive, so I cut the second verse down to half. You might want to do the same with the first verse too.

Chorus: Like every Nirvana song, there’s a quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic going on. So switch to strumming and bash out the chorus.

Outro: The riff again. This time played with a bit more abandon and hitting the open C-string any time you feel like. Then a dead simple ending.

Links

Buy the original
More 90s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
RIO x Sho Humphries – Improvisation Jam!
Norwegian Uke and Andrea Søgnen – Trekrøssdans
Cammy Enaharo – My Brother
Uklectic Fred – Cripple Creek / Up The Creek
Kiliona Young & Kainani Kahaunaele – Ka Ua Nui
Herman Vandecauter – Dos Gardenias para ti (on machete)
Ukulele Death Squad – Down
Steven Warren – Under the Bridge
Aline Kelly – Lamento Sertanejo