The Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning (Tab)

Sunday Morning is the poppiest song The Velvet Underground’s debut album. It has a laid back, easy going vibe. And you have two days to learn it so get to work. Watish!

Intro: Played high up the neck to give a music box feel. But if it’s too cramped up there or your uke doesn’t have enough frets, you can play the same picking pattern with any inversion of F and Bb and it’ll work.

Verse: Switching from thumb and two finger picking in the intro to one finger per string for the start of the verse. It’s tricky to bring out the melody in bars 13-16 with the melody switching from the A-string down to the C. So emphasise those as much as you can while keeping the chill vibe.

Back to thumb and two finger picking from the Fmaj7 in bar 17 to bring out the descending low notes.

Chorus: Bringing in a few strums in the chorus for contrast.

Solo: The original solo has a bunch of hammer-ons, pull-offs and double stops. So I’ve used that concept for this solo rather than recreating it note for note.

Outro: Similar to the first bars of the verse. But here there’s a slide up to the fifth fret instead of the open A-string. I toyed with playing it this way in the verse and decided to hold it back for the outro. But give it a go in the verse and see how you feel about it.

Links

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Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg – Je t’aime… moi non plus

Kasabian – Fire

The Platters – Twilight Time (From Only Up)

RADWIMPS – Zenzenzense (From Your Name)

Colleen Ballinger – Toxic Gossip Train

Green Day – Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) (Tab)

This arrangement of Green Day’s Good Riddance is played with fingerpicking the whole way through (one finger per string picking style). I love the way the intro sounds played that way and fingerpicking brings out the melody.

But I originally arranged it strumming so it’s closer to the original and it works well. Plus it’s easier to play that way. So you have my full permission to play it that way (not that you need it).

Links

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French luthier Rachel Rosenkrantz makes a ukulele out of mushrooms.

Somerset man plays ukulele to surgeons who saved his fingers.

A lecturer at UMASS has ditched the piano and is using the ukulele to teach music theory.

Possibly the most bizarre story I’ve ever seen in fifteen years of doing this: Colleen “MirandaSings” Ballinger responded to allegations of child grooming with a jaunty ten minute ukulele song. And of course I had to tab it.

Jake Shimabukuro has made the inevitable leap to selling ukulele-themed coffee.

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
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– 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
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– 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 June’s: Meat Loaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Amy Winehouse – Back to Black (Tab)

Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black has to be one of the best albums of the noughties. I tabbed Rehab a while back. And it’s high time I tackled the title track.

The chord progression is Gm – Cm – Eb – D in the verse and chorus. That drop down from Eb to D is so effective in conveying a sense of defeat.

The verse melody acts in a similar way starting out on just a single note repeated (G in this arrangement) and ending by dropping down one fret on the D chord.

Links

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Watch on YouTube

The art of the ukulele video has taken a real bashing recently, so a good time to run down some of the best uke videos of the year so far. If there’s any that I’ve missed you can shoot me a message here.

Tracklist
Andy Eastwood and Peter Moss – William Tell Overture
Kamakakehau Fernandez – Koali
Kainani Kahaunaele and Kaniualono H’pai – Kiuwail’lehua
4stringboy – Interstellar (Main Theme)
Max & Veronica – Dirty Mother For You
Feng E – Johnny B Goode
Ruthie Craft – Nineteen
Cammy Enaharo – My Brother
Chipped Nail Polish – Rut

Warren Zevon/Steve Winwood – Back in the High Life Again (Tab)

Back in the High Life Again was originally by Steve Winwood but my version is much closer to Warren Zevon’s cover.

To emphasise the Zevonness, my arrangement kicks off with a loose interpretation of Life’ll Kill Ya‘s intro. So long as you’re working within the F-Bb-C chords, there’s plenty of scope for your own ideas in the intro.

From there, I’ve tried to keep everything very simple and easy to play.

The only tricky bits are some fast hammer-ons and pull-offs at the end of bar 24 then into the Break section. Again, you can adjust this section to your taste. If you pick out notes from the chords and melody, you can’t go wrong.

Links

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Watch on YouTube

Tracklist

Mig Martins – Canoeiro
Chardonnay – Sweet Island Music
Evan J De Silva – Feeling Good
Bobby Alu & Foloi Iulia – Fa’afofoga Maia Samoa
KimaMusic & Ju Chuva – The News
M.J. – Harmony
Steven Warren – Schindler’s List Theme
sasha samara – Sobering Up
Eugene Kurenko – Prelude n.5

Paul Simon – Graceland (Tab)

I’ve already (inevitably) covered Call Me Al from Paul Simon’s Graceland. So it’s a good time to follow up with the title track.

Intro: The original starts with a bit of strumming before the picking riff. But on the uke there’s a drop in the energy when you go from strumming to picking. So this arrangement starts with the picking (with a touch of Stone Roses) and the opening C is much shorter.

Verse: The verse melody is loose and conversational, so there’s plenty of room to rephrase it so it flows naturally for you. Which I’ve done plenty of.

Chorus: The start of the chorus uses a bunch of techniques: slides, pull-offs, muting. Which makes it fun to play. The mutes in this section (e.g. bar 19) are done by playing a standard chnk (the one with x’s on all the strings), then leaving your strumming hand muting the strings, and plucking the g-string with your thumb (for the x on the g-string).

Links

Buy the original on Amazon
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Call Me Al tab on Patreon

Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag (Tab)

Wheatus’s Teenage Dirtbag has become a bit of a uke favourite with the UOGB’s version. I haven’t entirely decided if it’s an irresistible earworm or an irritating song with terrible lyrics. But I did have fun playing it.

Intro: Muted strums on the g and C-strings, then extra emphasis on the E and A-strings.

Verse: One finger per string picking with a few supporting strums where there’s no melody.

Chorus: The first chorus is full on strumming. It finishes off with a bar of 2/4 then a little riff (that’s my favourite part of the song).

The second chorus in this arrangement (the third in the original) has constant thumb picking on the C-string while the melody notes are picked on the E and A.

Bridge: A bit of stretch up to the seventh fret here. But the big challenge is the “She doesn’t know…” bit which first crops up in bar 27. It gets pretty fiddly in the cramped higher frets.

Links

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Uke Hunt Patreon