Following on from ABBA, my other favourite Eurovision song is Luxembourg’s 1965 winner: France Gall’s Poupée de cire, Poupée de son (written by Serge Gainsbourg).

The only tricky part in this arrangement is the intro. Here I’m picking the A-string with my middle finger and everything else with my thumb.

From there on it’s all pretty simple. Everything is plucked with the thumb apart from a few bits of strumming (indicated by the arrows on the tab).

Links

Buy it on iTunes

I can’t believe I’m still getting away with this!

I started the site on 12th May 2007 without particularly high expectations. I certainly didn’t expect to still be here eight years later with the site close to 100 million page views. That’s a mind-blowing amount to me. I count myself incredibly lucky and privileged to still be able to do work I love.

This is the self-indulgent ramble post I sometimes allow myself on my blog-birthday – covering my general thoughts on the site and the ukulele world in general. If you want something more useful read the Review of the Year post.

Thank You!

I’m really blessed to be part of a world that is as encouraging and enthusiastic as the ukulele community. The success of the site is entirely down to all of you for your support over the years. I’m pathetically grateful to everyone for:

Reading: It’s such a thrill for me that people find the site useful. I know playing the ukulele helps me relax and – when I really practice a piece – accomplished. And I hope this site helps you feel the same way.

Feedback: commenting, emailing, tweeting and reviewing: I judge the success of a post almost entirely by how much of reaction it gets in comments, emails and on Twitter. That feedback is so important to me.

Ukulele for Dummies has about 500 reviews on Amazon (mostly on the UK store and US store). The reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. They’re the most important thing for a book to be successful on Amazon so I’m exceptionally thankful to everyone who took the time to leave one.

Spreading the word: Telling people about the site is absolutely the best way to support it. I put the growth of the site entirely down to people recommending it to other ukers.

Buying: It’s my nightmare that one day I might have to get a proper job. So I can’t thank enough those people who spend hard earned money on my ebooks. I’m not one of those people energetic and productive enough to do a day job and run a side project. There’s no way the site could exist without your financial support.

Getting involved: There are so many clubs and groups and festivals I can hardly keep up. Add to that the number of people writing blogs, tabbing and doing YouTube tutorials. It’s staggering and it all makes playing the ukulele a better experience.

Playing: It’s a huge inspiration to watch people playing on YouTube and listening to the records. Just watching random YouTube videos gets my brain firing. If you do something cool I’m very likely to steal it.

Why I Do It

I’m very slow on the uptake. So it hasn’t been until the last year or two I’ve actually figured out why I care about this site.

Most people assume I’m a ukulele advocate and think everyone should play it. I can see where they might get that impression but it’s not the case. I’m not one of those, “If everyone played the ukulele there’d be no wars,” types. Ukuleles are great but the success of the ukulele isn’t something that gets me out of bed in the morning (metaphorically, I’m writing this in bed – I’m not an idiot).

What really gets me excited is helping people to feel accomplished and proud of themselves. Like this. (If you’re similarly excited to play Toxic the tab is here.) Or playing to entertain their friends. It’s such a buzz to be able to do that for people.

I do think the ukulele is a particularly good way of doing that. It’s a much more to people who just want to make music for their own enjoyment.

The Only Real Problem I’ve Ever Had

Most of the problems I have with the blog (the website going down for reasons that are way beyond my understanding, arseholes being arseholes, some stuff I work being a flop, YouTube messing around with stuff) are fixable or at least bearable. The only big problem comes when governments screw things up. There’s no getting around those.

In January EU laws on VAT on digital products changed (VAT = sales tax). Before I was under the UK system which has a threshold comfortably above anything I’ve earned. From the beginning of the year everyone selling digital products in EU has to account for sales in every country they sell even one copy in. There’s no longer minimum level. You’re lumped with the administrative burden of it no matter how small you are.

It’s set me back a great deal this year. I spent January without the ebooks on sale while I search around for a solution before Gumroad came up with their solution (then the time and cost switching to that system). And I’ve moved a big project I was working on to the back burner because I still haven’t got a good solution to it.

I will admit to some schadenfreude in seeing Vince Cable getting turfed out after his pathetic response to the situation.

EU VAT Action has been doing some great work towards convincing politicians to make the laws more workable. So there’s some hope.

Thanks Again!

Thanks again to everyone for their support over the last seven years. I look forward to the next eight years when I expect I’ll have renamed the blog Futulele Hunt.

Uke Hunt is eight years old. Apparently eight year olds should be able to form, “complex sentences with few grammatical errors”. I wouldn’t hold your breath for that. Here’s a selection of the stuff I managed to cobble together from half-formed sentences full of grammatical errors in the last year:

May 2014

– I released new editions of Ukulele Strums, Slide Ukulele and National Anthems.

In tabs: The Blues Run the Game
In chords: Britpop with Damon Albarn and Pulp

June 2014

– Blues Ukulele and Ukulele 2014 Spotify playlists.

In tabs: Acoustic intros including Nick Drake, Elvis and Bon Iver
In chords: WIUO’s I Love You Raylene

July 2014

– Intricate strums.

In tabs: Led Zep’s Rain Song and Lana Del Ray’s Shades of Cool.
In chords: Mungo Jerry’s appallingly lyriced In the Summertime and the Nun Song from Orange is the New Black

August 2014

– Tabs and chords in a minor key.

In tabs: Pharrell’s Happy
In chords: Blind Melon’s No Rain and, to celebrate their IFC series, Garfunkel and Oates’s Fade Away.

September 2014

– Kimo Hussey’s masterclasses.

In tabs: Swamp Whistler from Rayman Legends and the classical Canzone Danza.
In chords: The ukulele classic I’ll See You in My Dreams and The Smiths’ Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

October 2014

– No hassle chord changes.
– UOGB and TUKUO battle it out in court.

In tabs: Medley of Arctic Monkeys riffs and punk pop riffs including Green Day, Blink 182 and Paramore.
In chords: Cole Porter’s You’d be so Nice to Come Home to

November 2014

– I released the second edition of Blues Ukulele.
– I released the third and final part of the Christmas tabs series.

In tabs: Claudia’s Theme from The Unforgiven
In chords: WIOU’s version of Lorde’s Team

December 2014

– 2014 ukulele quiz.

In tabs: Frasier theme and Serial theme
In chords: Monty Python’s Sit on My Face and Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know

January 2015

Holidays!

February 2015

– 2015 ukulele festivals

In tabs: Uptown Funk and Hanging Tree from The Hunger Games
In chords: It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie

March 2015

– Songs with chords you know.
– International Women’s Day UkeToob Special

In tabs: Strokes medley and Better Call Saul theme
In chords: James Bay’s Hold Back the River and Meghan Trainor’s Baby Doll

April 2015

– Top five old school chord intros.
– Jonathan Lewis launched his excellent ebook of campanella arrangements of Irish tunes and wrote his introduction to campanella for Uke Hunt.

In tabs: Massive Attack’s Teardrop and Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel
In chords: Jonathan Coulton’s First of May and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt theme

It’s Eurovision next week, so I’m doing my two favourite Eurovision songs this week. I’ll level with you, there are only two Eurovision winners I’d say were great. And the first one is blindingly obvious: Sweden’s 1974 winner by ABBA.

Suggested Strumming

The main thing: swing your strumming (so the down strum lasts longer than the up strum) – the easiest way is just to get the groove of the song.

Main strum: d – d u d u d u

Intro: d u d u d u d u

Verse: I love the big emphasis on that first D chord. For that play this with the capitals being empahsised:

d – D U – u d u

On the short chords in the first two lines do d – d u for each. Using the main strum for everything else the first three lines sound like this:

Verse Strum

On the last line just do one down strum for all the short chords.

Chorus: The main strum on everything except the A at the end of line 2. This is a classic glam rock move. Play the D on the first down strum, then for the rest of the bar play A with udududu.

Bridge and Outro: use the main strum.

Twiddly Bits

I like to play the guitar riff in the chorus like this:

And here’s a version of the lick at the end:

Here’s how those two sound along with the strumming:

Chorus

Links

Buy it on iTunes
More ABBA tabs

Full Playlist

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Learning

– I’m loving Jonathan Lewis’s Irish Tunes for Campanella Ukulele. Here’s the campanella primer he wrote in case you missed it.
– Garfunkel & Oates have released two books of sheet music for their songs.
– Uke Nut’s tab for Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto Adagio.

Videos

– SydneyUke is going great guns in the current series of Asia’s Got Talent with a very popular performance in the semi final.
– Warren Buffett would like to buy the world a Coke. The world would like to buy Warren a tuner.
– The incredible Soeurs Gogochurebi panduri players from Tbilisi.

Ukes

– Custom painted ukuleles including some very fetching Van Gogh ukuleles.
– Retailers asked just how popular are ukuleles?
– Dad keeps telling me it’s a toy.

Pictures

– Stepping Out: Washington 1922. (Thanks to Jim.)
– World’s tiniest man takes up ukulele.
– Helen Rook.

Election Section

– I Predict A (Political) Riot

Here’s another great tab by David Beckingham. This time of a tune by, ragtime blues innovator, Blind Blake.

Here are a few notes on the tune from David:

The arrangement has Blake’s intro, but I didn’t play it in the clip – mainly ‘cos it’s hard to fit it in with the backing track.

I’m using thumb and two fingers more than usual in this one. Blind Blake’s “sportin’ thumb” is a notoriously difficult thing to replicate and I’ve really just given up on authenticity and gone for fun (and added my own little variation up the neck)

Here’s a link to his original recording.

Links

Buy the Blind Blake version
David Beckingham on YouTube
More David Beckingham tab

I’m a big fan of campanella style picking on the ukulele and of Jonathan Lewis’s playing. So it’s no surprise I love Jonathan’s new ebook Irish Tunes for Campanella Ukulele. It’s a great selection of arrangements.

I asked Jonathan if he’d like to do a guest post and he was kind enough to agree. So here’s a primer on campanella playing and tab for his arrangement of The Blarney Pilgrim.

Many of us who play ukulele first started on the guitar, and we fell in love with this instrument because of its cheerful image, its versatility and its portability – it weighs virtually nothing and takes up no space. But what really makes the ukulele so special? For me it has to be re-entrant tuning, which makes campanella picking possible.

So what exactly is campanella? It actually means “little bell” and that’s the effect we’re trying to get – when you hear church bells, one doesn’t stop ringing before the next one starts – they all ring at the same time. The same for a harp. A harp doesn’t have a neck where you can put your fingers to change the pitch of a string, so one string, one note. On the ukulele (charango and baroque guitar too), campanella picking means avoiding playing two notes on the same string whenever possible, taking advantage of the re-entrant tuning, where two strings are only one tone apart. Using open strings as much as you can and alternating between strings rather than playing successive notes on the same string really does make the uke sound like a little harp.

Listen to a few scales played in the campanella style.

Tab for the scales here.

Why campanella is best for traditional tunes

Fiddlers, whistlers and bagpipers have a whole bunch of tricks to make simple tunes sound more interesting. Ornamentation is always a bit hit and miss on fretted instruments but the harp-like sounds you get from campanella can make up for this. And you can always insert into your campanella picking the odd hammer-on, pull-off or slide to ornament your tunes.

Practice: The Blarney Pilgrim

Let’s look at the popular jig, the Blarney Pilgrim. Play the first four bars like this (non-campanella):

Then play the same melody like this (campanella):

Notice how you can always hear more than one string ringing at the same time? That’s the beauty of campanella. And it’s all thanks to re-entrant tuning. I completely get it that some people prefer to have a low G on their uke (lots of people own more than one uke so they can have both) – you can do a lot more in terms of accompanying your own melodies or if you’re singing.

Campanella gives the melody first place

And rightly so. That’s what music is all about. Even in classical music, the most popular pieces are the ones that people can whistle or hum. So what’s wrong with playing a single-line melody on your uke? Maybe you think that it sounds thin or weak, in that case get a friend to play along with you. I’m not talented enough to be a one-person-band but the upside to that is social: I can always get friends to play chords for me or I’ll play chords for them.

Learn the Blarney Pilgrim in Campanella style

Earlier I showed you one line from this traditional Irish tune, so now here is the full tune. You can download the tab here:

A few tips on playing campanella

1. Use keys where you’ll use open strings. As the open strings on a uke make a C6 chord (or Am7 if you prefer) it’s probably best to arrange in keys that use a minimal number of sharps or flats.
2. Look for shapes and use barres so you can keep those strings ringing.
3. You won’t always be able to find a suitable campanella fingering. Don’t get obsessed with campanella – sometimes it’s better to play two notes on the same string rather than a difficult or clumsy campanella fingering.
4. Think about where you can play the same notes in different places. For example, a triplet of As could be played like this:

Author Bio:
Jon has been a fanatical ukulele player since discovering campanella fingerpicking. As a guitarist he is fascinated by open tunings, mainly because he wished he could have been a harpist! Since learning campanella tunes and arpeggios from ukulelesecrets.org (Tim Keough) Jon spends too much of his free time arranging traditional tunes for campanella ukulele. You can get his collection of Irish tunes here.

Warning for those who don’t get the name of the blog and complain about the swearing: this song contains multiple uses of the fuck word.

Warning for everyone else: the album version of the song is tuned slightly flat. But you can play along with the live version in the video without retuning. I’ve simplified the chords a little to make them more ukeable so it should be easy to get them down by May 1st.

Suggested Strumming

This simple strum will fit most of the song.

d – d – d u d u

For the C chords in the intro and at the end of some of the lines in the verses I like to substitute this in:

d u d u – u d u

For short chords (such as the third line of the verses and the “Celebrate spring…” bit) just do one down-strum per chord. Then on the C9 on “Outside” just do a bunch of down-strums.

Here’s an example of the strumming for the first part of the verse:

Twiddly Bits

Here’s a uked version of the intro I like to use.

Links

Buy it from JonathanCoulton.com
More Jonathan Coulton tabs and chords

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Full Playlist

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