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

Buy the original
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

Buy the original
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

Buy the original
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

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

Buy the original
More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

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

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

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