I’ve just released an updated version of How to Play Blues Ukulele ebook with a snazzy new look, more examples, YouTube videos of every example, and more backing tracks.

If you’ve bought the ebook in the past you should have had an email from me with a link to download this version (it may have ended up in your spam folder). If you don’t have it shoot me a message with the email address you used when you purchased it and I’ll get you a copy.

Buy it here

Or find out more about it here.

What It’s For?

Way back in 2008 I was working on a tab of the James Bond theme and I’d reached that, “I hate this instrument, I can’t play it, I’m going to throw it into the canal” stage. I was pulling my hair out trying to get it together (as you can tell in subsequent videos).

A few days later I was listening to music and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Look at Little Sister came on. I grabbed my ukulele and started jamming along to it. I was immediately refreshed and energized by it.

There’s something about that combination of having just a few notes to choose from and complete freedom to do whatever you like with them that the blues gives you. It’s exciting, inspiring and makes you feel like a rockstar.

The goal of the ebook is to give you the tools to help you do that too. So you can jam with friends, along with records or by yourself.

Side-note: check out what happens in that SRV video after he breaks a string in the solo.

What’s In It?

To give you an idea, are the last two examples in the ebook which take some of the chord progressions, soloing techniques, licks and scales from it contains and combines them to make a short solo.

The A Blues

The C Blues

You can get a full run down of the ebook here. But here are the basics:

– Learn to improvise and jam in the blues style.

– Learn the most common blues chord progressions, variations and adaptations.

– Packed with ideas and techniques for blues soloing.

– Play riffs and licks in the style of blues musicians from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to Stevie Ray Vaughan.

– Blues chord patterns and strum patterns in a variety of styles.

– 123 examples all with mp3s and YouTube videos.

– 4 backing tracks to jam along with.

– Minor pentatonic scales and blues scales for every key.

– Contains chord charts and tab for re-entrant, C-tuned ukulele.

Buy It

Buy it here

Or learn more about it here

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

New Releases

– Two new albums from the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra: Be Mine Tonight a collection of New Zealand songs from the Maori lullaby Hine e Hine to Lorde’s Team and Collected Hits featuring songs from their EPs.
– Bosko and Honey’s The Universe Will Provide.
– Rock journalist and Leonard Cohen biographer Sylvie Simmons has released her debut album Sylvie.

Videos

– Sneak peak of Street Punk! Banda Aceh a documentary about the ukulele-toting punks who were arrested and ‘re-educated’ by the Indonesian government.
– Phil Harris and Alice Faye’s ukulele lesson from 1949. (Thanks to Ron Hale.)
– Reggie Watts makes music with Garfunkel and Oates (US only) and some sort of cigar-box fiddle/ukulele.

Kickstarting

– The Love Leighs are making a new record Spreading the Love.

Pictures

– Madeira machete.
– Wood burning ukulele.

The UOGB have been commissioned to make a new show for the 100th anniversary of WWI: When This Lousy War is Over.

Have to admit, I’ve never actually seen Unforgiven. It’s a western with Clint Eastwood and that’s about all I know. But I got a request for Claudia’s Theme, gave it a listen and loved it. Plus it seems ideal for the uke.

The original starts in the key of E before switching to F. But I stuck to the more uke-friendly F for my arrangement.

The intro and outro are very sparse. If you catch me nodding my head in those sections that’s me trying to keep time. It’s very tempting to rush these bits. But I’d recommend trying as hard as you can to hold it back.

Links

Buy it on iTunes
Watch Unforgiven

How in the merry hell did it get to be November already? The year is fast disappearing and I’ve got a lot planned so here are my favourite ukulele albums and EPs of the year. Let me know what yours are in the comments.

Note: for the purposes of this post “2014” refers to the time betwen the last time I did this post and now. Which means I’m missing out WIUO’s debut album and Craig Robertson’s Greatest Hats.

If you aren’t satiated by these take a listen to more of this year’s releases in my Ukulele 2014 Spotify playlist.

James Hill – The Old Silo

Who? Canuck uke legend, world’s best ukulelist and and not Alan Sugar’s apprentice.

What? James’s first album with no instrumental tracks at all but plenty of nasty-ass distorted baritone ukulele.

Buy it on iTunes

Keston Cobblers Club – Pocket Guide to Escaping

Who? Instrument swapping folkies coming straight outta Bromley.

What? Another top collection of singalong, foot-stomping, good time music.

Buy it on iTunes

Arroyo Deathmatch – Through the Fear of It

Who? Dethklok when they had to play grandpas’ guitars.

What? “Nocturnal New Mexican Rage Folk” proving acoustic instruments are not just for pussies and grandpas.

Pay what you like for it on Bandcamp

Purple Ferdinand – The Dragonfly EP

Who? London singer songwriter and Ed Sheeran tattooist.

What? Spacey ukulele soul. And it’s free.

Download it on PurpleFerdinand.com

Allo Darlin’ – We Come from the Same Place

Who? Australian songstress who recorded her first record at Duke of Uke.

What? Third album of ukulele indie pop.

Buy it on iTunes

Sad news this week of, bass playing legend, Jack Bruce’s death. As my little tribute, here’s a write up of one of his biggest hits.

In the chord sheet above I’ve included the standard chord shapes. But I like to use these slightly trickier inversions:

White Room (Alternate Chords)

(Aside: The ukulele once owned by Cream’s producer has a colourful history – although this ukulele was more expensive.)

Suggested Strumming

Intro and Middle: This is in 5/4 time. So you can just do five down strums for each chord. But I like to ape the drums and do a triplet strum on the second bit. So it sounds like this:

Intro Strum

Verses: You can stick with just down strums here too. Twice each on D – C – G and once each Bb – C.

Verse Strum

Bridges: I like to go with d – d u – u d –

Links

Buy it on iTunes
JackBruce.com
Eric Clapton’s For Jack (MP3 link)

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

New Releases

– Pre-order the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra’s debut album. (Wait, debut album? … So it is).
– Maybe by Sage Harrington.
– UkePunk’s Punk Police The Album.
– Wild Child’s The Runaround.

Learning

– Halloween chord book The Haunted Ukulele.
– You can find all my Halloween tabs and chords here. And in case you still can’t decide what to be.

Kickstarting

– The Blues And The Abstract Uke by The Paul Hemmings Uketet.

Pictures

– Ukulele photoshop contest.
– Cat submits his ukulele record to Sony.

The ukulele orchestra feud continues with head UKUO man Peter Moss calling the UOGB “more of an amateur orchestra” and “a semi-professional outfit”. Which The Guardian followed up with, “Court papers show the UOGB turned over £4m over the past five years from a global concert schedule, which included shows at the Carnegie Hall in New York and Sydney Opera House”.

George Harrison’s sordid interest.

A luthier finds out if you can make a souvenir ukulele playable?

Way back in 2007 the second ever chord post I did was Despair in the Departure Lounge. Since then there’s been a steady stream of request for more Monkeys which I’d always replied to with, “I’ll do another Monkeys tab when they go back to making good records.” Johnny called me out on that promise correctly pointing out that the new album is awesome.

So here’s a medley of most of the songs on the album:

One for the Road/Do I Wanna Know?/Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?/Arabella/Knee Socks/I Want It All/R U Mine?

Trickiest Bits

The trickiest bits for the fretting are the two big leaps on the fretboard. There’s the big slide up in R U Mine? where it isn’t such a big deal if you don’t hit it exactly. The really hard one is the 8th fret in bar 5. Cut that 1st fret note before it really short to give yourself some time to get up.

The trickiest bits for the strumming hand are the palm muting (i.e. lightly resting the underside of your hand on the string at the bridge to muffle the strings). In One for the Road and Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? I’m muting all the strings. In Do I Wanna Know? I’m trying my best to mute the C-string while letting the E- and A-strings ring. As you can hear in the video I don’t always pull it off. It’s hard to get right so there’s nothing wrong with playing this section without any muting at all.

Links

ArcticMonkeys.com
Arctic Monkeys on iTunes
Fluorescent Adolescent tabs and chords
Despair in the Departure Lounge chrods

Get Plucky with the Ukulele is the new book by Will Grove-White off of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and his own group Will Grove-White & the Others.

As you would expect of someone who started playing the ukulele when it was ignored and deeply unfashionable in the 80s, Will has an obvious deep love of the ukulele. And that’s reflected in this book’s wealth of uke knowledge, anecdotes and photos collected over decades of playing.

The book does a full sweep of the ukulele. The first half covers the history of the ukulele and notable ukulele players (those famous for ukulele, famous for their music and famous for other reasons). And the second half delves into how to play the ukulele. The writing is witty, informative and opinionated. I heartily recommend picking up a copy.

Will was kind enough to send me one and here are a few of my favourite bits to whet your appetite.

Laura Dukes, Rabbit Muse and Charlie Burse

Great to see these three getting some attention. It’s a crime that all Rabbit Muse‘s music is all still out of print.

Usually I’m the sort of pedant referred to in the book who points out that a tenor guitar isn’t a ukulele. But that Charlie Burse clip is so great I’m willing to overlook it.

The Ukulele Built in a POW Camp

For sheer bloody minded ukulele fanaticism in the face of misery and torture, Second World War veteran Thomas Boardman has to take the first prize.

There are a bunch of profiles of musicians and other famous folks who play the ukulele packed with interesting detail and anecdotes. But my favourites are the less well known like Greenwich Village ukulele painter Bobby Edwards.

The most impressive is the story of Thomas Boardman who managed to build himself a ukulele from whatever bits of wood, metal and wire he could scavenge as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp in World War II. If you ever find yourself in the Manchester Imperial War Museum search it out.

America Takes Hawaii (And it’s Ukulele)

It came as no surprise that when in 1893 a group of European and US businessmen (with some gentle support from a group of US marines overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy…

Too many histories of the ukulele gloss over the machinations behind the uke’s first big push into popularity. So it’s good to it being pointed out that the ukulele was used by the businessmen who stole Hawaii from the Hawaiians to drive tourism to the island and fill their pockets.

Aside: After this good work it’s a bit of shame that he includes a couple of illustrations of the ‘topless Hawaiian hula girl in a grass skirt and lei’ variety.

Part of the strategy of these businessmen was to use songs and images to present a Hawaii packed with pliant, nubile women. And those songs and images are, unfortunately, still part of ukulele culture. With the huge contribution that Hawaiian women have made to the ukulele world it’s time to cut that bullshit out.

This is a criticism of the ukulele world in general rather than the book in particular. The writing in the book is very strong on the contribution of Hawaiians and women in general to the ukulele. And I think it provides the framework for understanding why these images are part of ukulele culture.

If this sort of thing is your bag I wrote a whole thing about music and cultural appropriation.

Agatha Christie Murder Solved by Uke

You caught her round the throat with it and strangled her… And you put another string on the ukelele – but it was the wrong string, that’s why you were so stupid.

*Spoilers for the 80 year old short story The Bird with the Broken Wing.* It gives me great pleasure that a character would be undone by their lack of uke knowledge.

The book also has the real-life murderous tale of Frederick Galloway ‘The Ukulele Slayer’.

Playing in a Ukulele-Only Group

Even though you’re all playing the same instrument, you don’t all have to play the same thing.

This is the bit I was really looking forward to. The only other people as well qualified to write about this are also in the UOGB. And with the number of people who are part of ukulele groups there’s no shortage of need for help on this.

Unfortunately, there’s just half a page on this. But it’s a good half page. And I’m still holding out hope of a full book on the subject from one or more members of the UOGB.

Links

Buy on Amazon UK
Buy on Amazon US
More on WillGroveWhite.com