I got a request from Justin saying that Alexandre Desplat’s music from the new Wes Anderson movie Grand Budapest Hotel would be perfect for ukeing. And he was absolutely right. As soon as I heard this tune I knew it would suit a campanella-style ukulele arrangement.

And it turned out to be even easier than I expected. Without even changing the key the whole first section of the verses mostly could be played on the open strings.

Trickiest Bit

As with most campanella arrangements the trickiest bit is memorising the string plucking order. If there’s a quicker way to learn it than playing through slowly over and over again I don’t know what it is.

Flicking the Bean

In the bridge section I’m trying to recreate the mandolin tremolo strumming. Tremolo strumming is a bit more tricky on the uke though. So I used a technique I refer to as “flicking the bean”.

It involves turning your strumming hand palm upwards and wiggling your middle fingers across the strings like this:

Links

Buy it on iTunes
GrandBudapestHotel.com
More movie theme tabs

I regularly get people asking what I use in my playing and in putting together the site. To answer those I did a post back in 2010. Things have changed a bit since then (most notably it makes no mention of apps). So here’s what I’m using these days.

I’d be interested to know what you use: to record audio, make videos and, of course, what your favourite ukulele is. So do leave a comment.

Ukuleles

What size/make ukulele do you play?

This hasn’t changed much in the last four years. I play mostly tenors. With my favourites being the KoAloha Sceptre and Ohana TK-35G. I use those almost exclusively in videos. And I play the Ohana slightly more practicing even though it picked up a giant crack when I moved house.

When the situation demands I use: Soprano Kala KA-ASLAS, tenor aNueNue Lani II (which I have strung in low-G), aNueNue Harp Ukulele and Ohana baritone.

Accessories

Tuner: Sometimes my ears and sometimes a Snark Tuner.

Strings: Worth.

Capo: Shubb mandolin capo (take note: it doesn’t work on smaller necked ukes).

Stands: Tanglewood Ultralite ukulele stand.

Tabs and Chords

Tabs: Guitar Pro 6. I’ve been using Guitar Pro 6 since I started the blog nearly seven years ago. I wrote a review of it here (tl;dr: I like it). Although this year it has at least got some worthy competition in the shape of Tabular.

Chords: I make the chord diagrams in Sibelius (I don’t recommend buying Sibelius though – I only bought it because I had to – but it does make attractive chord diagrams). Then I write up the chords in Pages.

Slow Downer: For slowing down songs to make them easier to tab. I use Capo (Capo 2 which I think isn’t available anymore). It does claim it can automatically generate chords and show you the notes being played. I’ve found those to be pretty much useless. But it does what I need it to do well.

Apps

These are all for iPhone there are some Android alternatives here.

Metronome: Visual Metronome.

Tempo Finder: Tap/Tempo.

Tuner: Cleartune (although I don’t have cause to use it often).

Tabs: I have all my tabs in PDFs on DropBox. Usually I just open them there. But if I want to do more with it or I’m going to be using it a lot then I import it from Dropbox into forScore.

Recording

Mic: sE Electronics USB2200a.

Software: GarageBand.

Camera: A Logitech that I hate so much I’m not even going to link to. If any has any suggestions for this let me know.

Blogging and Site

Software: WordPress.

Hosting: WiredTree. Highly recommend them.

Domains: UkuleleHunt.com is still on GoDaddy. Which I highly advise against you using. It’s a nightmare buying domains and they make it hard to do anything once you’ve bought them. These days I keep my sanity and buy new ones on Hover.

Site Design: The site and logo were designed by Ben Lew. Who is fantastic.

eBook Selling: eJunkie. Easy, cheap and I’ve never had a major problem with them in the six years I’ve been using them.

Misc.

Things that no one has asked about and don’t have an obvious effect on the site but without them the site would suck, be hacked or possibly not exist.

Online Storage: DropBox This is even more essential now. It used to be a pain keeping files in sync across computers. Now it’s impossible to keep them in sync across computers, phones, tablets, glasses, watches… without Dropbox. And it’s free (up to a point).

Password Manager: 1password.

Music: My favourite place to buy music is Bandcamp. Only partly because they put me on their front page. You can find my collection here.

Reading

I reread these regularly to make sure I never do something stupid like getting a job.

Seth Godin The Dip
Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance
Anneli Rufus Party of One
Steve Pavlina 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

Beard

Beardsley shampoo and conditioner
Honest Amish Beard Balm

I know from experience that just having Amanda Palmer in the title is going to put off vast swathes of people who read the blog. But all the people who complain when I swear are amongst them so fuck ’em. But she did win many people over with her TED Talk and even more over with her response to the Faily Mail (you should never trust a paper that doesn’t know the difference between a ukulele and a balalaika). And I’ve had some requests for this one so here goes.

The song hasn’t been released yet so I’ve written up this live version.

Don’t be intimidated if you’re unfamiliar with the chord names. They’re all very easy to play. Most of the time she’s just switching between playing the A-string open and at the second fret.

Suggested Strumming

The strumming pattern is dead easy. It’s just down strums all the way through. Eight down strums for each chord for the most part. But 32 on the A7 (best to think of them in groups of 4).

The big challenge with the strum is keeping going. It’s pretty relentless and it’s a long song so it requires a bit of stamina.

Try varying the intensity of the strum in different parts of the song for extra emotional impact.

Links

Amanda Palmer on Bandcamp
Visit AmandaPalmer.net
More Amanda Palmer chords

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

Videos

– A new episode of my favourite ever travelogue Matt Kresling’s Madagascar Diaries.
– Mastering the split stroke (via @WillGroveWhite)
– Ukulele players square off in the Melbourne International Median Strip Table Tennis Tournament (don’t get too excited by the “strip table tennis” bit).

New Releases

– Tyrone and Lesley’s Gentlemen Songsters.
– Bella Hemming’s Little Ghost EP.
– The Burning Glass’s Things that Happened and Other Stories.

Kickstarting

– Savannah Smith is raising money to record her debut album.

Pictures

– “Day of Time of” Ukulele and Doctor Who Tardis Ukulele@jomonto).
– Cigar box ukulele with the Nat. Am. Ballet in 1924.
– Pohaku Askewkulele
– Girl with a ukulele.

Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer is Michael Gove’s favourite rapper (he’s the UK’s Education Secretary and exactly the person you’d expect to have an upper class white guy as his favourite rapper). Perhaps they’ll overturn that rule about rappers in the Bullingdon club. Here’s Mr B’s reaction to it.

Ukulele poetry.

The attempt to make the ukulele Hawaii’s official instrument has run up against opposition from the powerful steel guitar lobby. But the Hawaiian legislature is also having a hard time deciding whether it’s totally fine for cops to have sex with prostitutes so clearly they’ve got hard decisions to make.

I could pretend I wrote this post Spinal Tap 30th Anniversary. But I actually wrote it to brag that I got 10 out of 10 in The Guardian’s Spinal Tap quiz. Bow down before me. I am your new god.

For this arrangement I’ve taken the intro and outro of the song and made a mandolin solo sandwich. Mandolins are built for speed so I had to slow it down a fair amount to play it. And even still I didn’t play it as smoothly as I’d like.

The intro and outro is mostly octaves picked with thumb and middle finger. If your uke only has 12 frets you can just play the lower half of the octaves and it should work out okay.

The picking for mandolin section is a complete mess! Where I can I’m using running man picking (alternately picking the same string with index and middle fingers). But mostly I’m using whatever finger gets there first. Which would explain why I’m not playing it smoothly.

Links

Buy it on iTunes
Sex Farm tab
This is Spinal Tape

I’ve long been a fan of ukulelezaza (aka Remco Houtman). In fact he was in the third ever UkeTube in 2007. Back when MySpace was the obvious place to link to. So I was very excited to try out his tab book Happy Days are Here Again. Which Shelley of The Jumping Flea Market was kind enough to send me.

What You Get

A book containing:

– Tabs (no standard notation) for 16 tunes:

Bei Mir Bist Du Schön/Für Elise – Caravan – Drifting and Dreaming – Freight Train – Georgia On My Mind – Happy Days Are Here Again – Home – I Surrender Dear – Margaret’s Waltz – On The Sunny Side of the Street – Pa’au’au Waltz – Painting the Clouds with Sunshine – Sweet Lorraine – When You’re Smiling – Who’s Sorry Now?

– Descriptions of the techniques used in the DVD.
– Two-page histories of Martin and National ukuleles (used in the DVD) and shorter descriptions of a few other ukuleles.

A DVD containing:

– Performances of all the pieces (in a more ornamented fashion than they’re tabbed).
– Short demonstrations of the techniques described in the book.

The Good Stuff

– Having a Style: The biggest lesson I took from the book was an abstract one. The tabs as they’re presented in the book are really straightforward. Then for the DVD he pours that ukulelezaza-sauce all over them. He has a jazz-ear style, sound and set of techniques that make his playing immediately identifiable. I admire that because I feel like I don’t have a style at all. And it was interesting to watch him transform the simple arrangements.

– Clean, Simple Arrangements: All the tabs are simply arranged. Mostly combining single notes for the melodies with chords. If you wanted to play them straight they’re comfortably in an intermediate difficulty.

– Concise Tutorials: The tutorial bits in the book and the DVD are short and to the point. The trend on YouTube seems to be for long, boring ukulele tutorials. I’m much more into doing things the concise way.

– Well Presented: The book is nicely laid out with easy to read tabs and (black and white) photos of vintage ukuleles for some eye-candy.

The Not So Good Stuff

– Tab/DVD Differences: It’s my favourite aspect of the book but I know from experience some people are going to be really annoyed by that the tabs don’t match his performance. They’re just the basis of his version.

– Nitpicking: There were a few points in the book fingering suggestions would have been useful but I picked it up from the videos. And DVD menus are never a pleasure to use.

Overall

If you’re a fan of golden era jazz and that style of ukulele playing the book is a must. Ukulelezaza is a master of that style and this is the best book around on that style.

Links

You can buy Happy Days are Here Again at The Jumping Flea Market’s Etsy for £11.59 (or the equivalent where you are).
ukulelezaza on YouTube

Walk off the Earth do a great job of making the covers they do look like a ton of fun. Every time they make a new one I get the urge to write it up. And I caved once again with their version of Pharrell Williams’s Happy with Parachute. It combines a funky riff with some tricky jazzy chords.

I’d recommend trying out a few variations of the chords. For example, you could use these for the F7sus4 – F move:

Suggested Strumming

You can use this once for every chord in the choruses:

d – d u – u d –

Which sounds like this:

Happy Strum 1

For something more involved you could do this on the first two chords:

d u x u – u d –

Then on F7sus4:

d – d – – u d

And on F7:

u – u – u – u d u

So you’re switching to the F7 on the last up strum of the bar.

Together they sound like this:

Happy Strum 2

And for the intro and the outro just do five down strums.

Twiddly Bits

Here’s the verse riff:

Here it is played slowly then up to speed:

Links

Buy the Pharrell version
Visit WalkOffTheEarth.com
More Walk off the Earth chords

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

“Craze my be over, but uke sales still going strong”. An interesting survey of 1,000 ukulele retailers. There’s not much to backup that headline though. Over half of the retailers have seen sales rise over the last year and only 9% expect sales to drop in the next few months. Seems like Kala’s basses might be included which would swell their numbers.

Pictures

– 2014 entrants in the Pimp my MUF ukulele art competition (warning: contains boobs).
– Alright, got three chords memorized. Let’s try and play Saria’s Song now

Videos

– YouTube, ukuleles and participatory culture.
– Rejected Bachelor contest, Lucy Aragon does some naked ukuleling in solidarity with fellow rejectees.
– Pray silence please for the Electric Light Orchestra.

New Releases

– New one from The Quiet American: Songs from a Rocking Chair. You can download a couple of tracks free on Soundcloud.
– Craig Robertson sings Just Another Ukulele Song. If you want to play along the chords are here
– Svavar Knutur – Girl from Vancouver

James Hill is touring the UK with Anne Janelle and doing some ukulele workshops.

And Happy Pi Day! There’s ukulele tab for pi here. And tab for Magnum PI here.