Time for the annual Uke Hunt Christmas time-waster.
– Grab a pen and paper
– Display knowledge.
– There might be spoilers in the comments.
– Check the answers here (no peeking).
– Return in triumph or despair and share you score in the comments.
Who first released the songs these ukulele orchestras are covering?
11. Durham Ukulele Orchestra
12. Otley Ukulele Orchestra
13. Ukulele Turin Orchestra
14. West Cork Ukulele Orchestra
15. The Ukulele Club
Name the Actor – GIF edition
Which actor is playing/crotch-spinning the ukulele in these gifs
16.
a) Zooey Deschanel
b) Emma Stone
c) Katy Perry
d) Shailene Woodley
17.
a) Doris Day
b) Diana Dors
c) Marilyn Monroe
d) Greta Garbo
18.
a) Peter Dinklage
b) Alfie Allen
c) Charles Dance
d) Tywin Lannister
19.
a) James Franco
b) Ryan Gosling
c) Shia LaBeouf
d) Leonardo di Caprio
20.
a) Christopher Walken
b) Christophe Waltz
c) Chris Pratt
d) Christopher Guest
Name the Lyric
Which song – oft covered on ukulele – are these lyrics from?
21.
See her walking down the street / Now I ask you very confidentially
22.
Though the days are long / Twilight sings a song / Of a happiness that used to be
23.
Somewhere in her smile she knows / That I don’t need no other lover / Something in her style that shows me
24.
Ukulele small and fierceful / Ukulele brave and peaceful / You can play the ukulele too, it is painfully simple
25.
Yeah it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no size two / But I can shake it, shake it like I’m supposed to do / ‘Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase / All the right junk in all the right places
Carrie Hope Fletcher – Somewhere Only We Know (Chords)
When I mentioned I was doing this song to Uke Hunt’s US Cultural Affairs Correspondent her reaction was, “Somewhere Only We Know?! Isn’t it several years too late for that song?” So I feel I should explain. Last year Lily Allen did a cover for a Christmas advert. The ad was everywhere, the song was everywhere, it went to number 1. I thought that was the end of it but it’s been cropping up again this year as Christmas song even though there’s nothing particularly Christmassy about it (other than containing a Jesus4 chord). But it’s a nice song so I’m not complaining.
I’ve written up the chords for Carrie Hope Fletcher’s version. Partly because it’s dead easy and a great place to start if you’re looking to get into fingerpicking. And partly because that makes this the first time I’ve featured separate a brother and sister ukulele songs.
To play along with the video tune up by one fret or put a capo on the first fret.
I thought I’d join with this week’s face sitting protests and put up the chords to this Monty Python protest song. The song is based on Gracie Fields’s Sing As We Go with some lyrical adaptation by Eric Idle.
Suggested Strumming
The main strum I use for this is just:
d – d u
I use that everywhere except in the descending intro/outro line. There I just done one downstrum per chord. Here’s how it sounds together:
Bruce Miller – Frasier Theme (Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs) (Tab)
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this tune. Several hundred I expect. But not once did it occur to me that there might be a reason he’s going on about tossed salads and scrambled eggs. Frasier writer, Ken Levine asked the tune’s composer Bruce Miller who explained, “these were things that were “mixed up” like Frasier Crane’s patients”.
And it’s not just the patients. The theme is a mixed up, mouse painting, moon howling kinda song. For a tune that only lasts 36 seconds this really packs in a lot of different notes. My advice is to throw yourself into it an not worry much about any mistakes.
You can pick up all three for the price of 2 by buying the whole Christmas Trilogy at once. And you can get an extra $2 off if you use this code in the shopping cart: theothertinytim
Tripping Lily’s ukulele cover of Mindy Smith’s Santa Will Find You has been the video to kick off every Christmas UkeTube since 2009. The song has the perfect mix of melancholy and jazziness for a Christmas song. And Tripping Lily played it so well. So it’s well past time I wrote it up.
Suggested Strumming
Two main strums will get you through this. Both of them just down strums.
For the more sparse parts you can just do two down strums per bar.
For the other parts you can do six down strums with the fourth being emphasised. Like this:
d d d D d d
In the verse and intro: Once each on E and Emaj7. Twice on everything else.
In the chorus: The first two lines the same as the verse. The last two strum the pattern once for each chord.
