Don’t forget to make you nominations for Ukulele Video of the Year.

New Releases

– Harpy Things EP by Des Wong – The first record I know of using a harp ukulele as its primary instrument. And he did an amazing job with it
– The Castaways new CD Miniature Horses. You can buy it on CDBaby
– Square Meter from Kara Square and Piero Peluche

Kickstarting

– James Hill is raising money for his new album Kickstarter-style.

Tabs

– The Kamiki Ukulele Method tabs
– Collection Of Old Tunes For Ukulele by Michael Madden
– Leftover Cuties ukulele chord book

Pictures

– Glass ukulele
– Electric ukulele girl
– Postman Pat is putting the share sell-off money to good use.
– Strange goings on
– Totoro Ukulele

Videos

– Tune up with U and 900
– 25 hour long ukulele session
– Apparently sales of ukuleles have been skyrocketing
– Epic ukulele headstand

Johnny Depp honing his ukulele skills for next film role

Another arrangement from the ever-excellent David Beckingham. This time a ukulele arrangement of the guitar instrumental made famous by Reverend Gary Davis.

Lots of thumb and two finger picking with the thumb alternating between the g- and C-strings.

Links

Buy the Reverend Gary Davis version
David Beckingham on YouTube
More tabs by David Beckingham

Last year was another golden year for ukulele music. And it’s time again to spread the love for your favourites in this year’s vote.

For the first stage, everyone gets to nominate up to 5 videos – leave them in the comments (click here for the comments section if you reading by email or RSS). From those nominations, I’ll cobble together a list of ten (ish) that will be voted on in the next round. Use whatever criteria you like. I went with whichever videos/songs I enjoyed most.

The Rules

The rules remain as ramshackle as ever:

– There has to be a ukulele in there.
– Videos must have been originally uploaded in 2013.
– Videos must be publicly available online.
– Maximum of five nominations per person.
– Post your nominations in the comments (I might edit comments to make things easier to add up).
– Nominations close midnight Friday 7th February.
– The 5 – 10 acts with the most nominations go into the final vote with their most nominated song going forward.
– No prize. Just the love and admiration of the heaving masses.
– No sucking up by nominating me.

Don’t panic if your comments don’t show up right away. First time commenters and comments contains a few links can get held back for spam checking. Also, comments were acting a bit wonky. If you submit it and the page just spins then your comment will have been submitted.

My Nominations

It was a nightmare getting my list down to five.

Sarah Humphreys – Why Don’t We Just Stay Home
Cammy Enaharo – Feeling Sorry
Dingus Khan – Knifey Spooney
Janelle Monáe – Dance Apocalyptic
Elof & Wamberg – Øresundreel

Some Other Contenders

To jog your memory here are some other videos that caused a stir in the comments, on the web or in my pants.

Keston Cobblers’ Club – Beam
Ninebarrow – Birdsong
The Staves – Facing West
Twenty One Pilots – House of Gold
DeAnne Smith – Nerdy Love Song
Catey Shaw – Run, Run, Run
Peter Delaney – My Eyes Are Blessed
Me&Amelia – Relapse
Wilfried Welti – Tourdion
Sanford and Adrien Sala and Tesia Rhind – As the Living Do
Leftover Cuties – One Heart
Matt Kresling – My Apartments In Order
Brendan Maclean – Stupid
Tobias Elof – Kitchen Girl
James Hill and Elof & Wamberg – Uke Talk
Cody Simpson – Summertime of Our Lives
Lennon and Maisy – Happy Birthday Harry Song
Gail Sophicha – Kiyomi
Tom Milsom – Take Me Out
Peter and Paul Luongo – Crossroads
Rhonda Roberts – Sweet Tooth & Candyman
The Seattle Castaways – Freeze Frame
Robyn Zahra Lowzley – August Rush
Sarah Maisel – In a Sentimental Mood
Celisse Henderson – Well
Jay Chou – Ukulele
James Clem – Big River
Victoria Vox – The Heart
War Jacket – Water Wings
UkuleleTim – Fisher’s Hornpipe
Emma Blackery – My Thoughts on Google+
Jan Laurenz – Canzone per un amico
BoeckmannLudwig – Stringing The Blues
Ian Emmerson and Phil Doleman – 1 up Blues
Natalia Lafourcade – Aventurera
Matthew J Richards – Rubinstein’s Melody In F

By my reckoning the last ukulele song to win the Best Song Oscar was Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head in 1969.

But that could change this year with the nomination of Karen O’s The Moon Song this year. The song was written for the Spike Jonze film Her where it’s performed by Joaquin Phoenix playing ukulele and Scarlett Johansson playing a Siri. Here’s a ukulele-based précis if you need to catch up.

I’ve written up two versions of the song. Above is the plain chords based on the Karen O guitar version. And below the ukulele picking version from the movie.

Suggested Strumming

For the main pattern you can use:

d – d u – u d u

Do that once each for Dm and G. You can do it twice for the C chord. Or you can do this:

d – d u – u d u
– u d u d u d –

Just do one down strum each for the F and Fm.

Picking Version

The ukulele version has the same basic chords but a few different inversions. That means you can switch chord inversions as you see fit. Here’s Liz doing an excellent version by combining the picking with the open chords.

The arrangement, though, is slightly different. The intro is longer and there’s a verse missing.

I’ve suggested a thumb and two fingers picking pattern (shown in the first bar and repeated all the way through). It doesn’t seem to be what he’s using but it’s what I’d recommend.

Links

Karen O on iTunes
Visit HerTheMovie.com

When I got my first ukulele, I was completely clueless. This was in those dark, long forgotten days before the internet had been discovered. I didn’t even realise that the strings weren’t supposed to go thickest to thinnest and restrung it.

But you can save yourself from the social disgrace I experienced. I’ve put together a free mini-ebook covering the basics that every first time uke owner needs to know. Here’s what it contains:

Five Things to Know
Five Chords to Learn
Five Patterns to Strum
Five Songs to Play
Five Websites to Visit
Five Things to Get Free
Five Things to Buy
Five Videos to Watch
Five YouTube Channels to Subscribe to

You can download it free by clicking here:

And get playing by following the beginner ukulele lessons.

Hot off the press! Here’s a new, free tab book from Wilfried Welti (one of my favourite ukulele arrangers).

As the name would suggest, it’s a mixture of delights including folk, traditional and classical tunes. I’ve only just got my hands on it myself but the tunes look like they’ve been very simply and thoughtfully arranged. The full list of tabs is:

1 – An der Saale hellem Strande
2 – Bald gras’ ich am Neckar
3 – Nehmt Abschied, Brüder
4 – Der Frühling hat sich eingestellt
5 – Drunten im Unterland
6 – Bunt sind schon die Wälder
7 – Als wir jüngst in Regensburg waren
8 – Hab mein Wage vollgelade
9 – Santa Lucia
10 – Row, Row, Row Your Boat
11 – Und in dem Schneegebirge
12 – Guter Mond, du gehst so stille
13 – Au clair de la lune
14 – Der Mond ist aufgegangen

Here’s what Wilfried has to say:

I want to thank everybody for their kind feedback. I’m very happy for constructive criticism and suggestions too. While I obviously won’t be able to make my arrangements perfect for everybody, I’m always willing to learn and improve.

And I hope this e-book will be helpful for many ukulele players who are looking for some nice and easy practice pieces.

Humble as always! These tabs are a fantastic Christmas present!

Download it here (PDF Link)

Links

Visit Wilfried’s site
Get his other ebooks
His YouTube channel

That’s it from me for 2013 (year of the F chord). Just about. There’ll be the mini-ebook for Christmas uke-getters and possibly a super-special surprise post (or possibly not). After that, I’ll be back in late January.

Until then, happy holidays (if you’re into that kind of thing) however you choose to spend it. I’ll be eating, drinking, gambling and letting my servants wear my clothes in celebration of Saturnalia.

If you can’t bear to be without a steady stream of uke, I’ll be posting bits and pieces on my Tumblr, UkeToob and on Twitter.

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

New Projects
– New ukulele online magazine: Ukulele Rhythms Magazine with contributions from Uke Hunt favourites Sarah Maisel, Kimo Hussey and Jim Tranquada.
– Mr. Hewitt’s Middle School Ukulele Orchestra are Kickstarting their uke club (with the slightly unexpected support of Queen Latifah).
– New ukulele podcast: Ukulele Lately.

New Releases
– Gaspar Pozzi – El Amor Existe (a gorgeous record that would have been one of my records of the year if I’d heard it in time).
– Christmas Is Where You Are by The Jive Aces

Pictures
– Country Nerd Scout
– Caravaning ukulele
– Una Fleming plays a giant ukulele (Thanks to Karl).

Videos
– Ukulele round on University Challenge at about 15:20 (UK only I think).
– Also on the Beeb Helen Arney sings about astronomy as for the next Stargazing Live.
– Orangutan plucks and smashes a ukulele
– Looking forward to this technology coming to ukuleles.
– The Seattle Castaways help light up Seattle’s Christmas tree. New record from them soon.

A more challenging Christmas song this time. There are a lot of chords to keep track of. But many of the changes are just one note being raised or lowered by a fret so it’s not as tricky as it first seems.

I based this version on the version on JoCopedia with a few adjustments here and there. Mostly to make it more ukeable.

Tricky Chord Suggestions

For the A+ (A augmented) chord there are a couple of options:

– My preferred method is to hold down both the C and E strings with the tip of my index finger. It takes time to learn but it does make for an easy chord change.
– You can play the A before it with your first and third fingers. Then add your second finger on the E-string for the A+.

If you don’t fancy the E chord run in the pre-chorus you can just play E for the whole thing. Same with the Esus4 – E move in the chorus.

For the Dmaj7-F#m in the chorus you can play them both 2120. You lose the movement between the chords though.

Some Suggested Strumming

Here are a few ideas for the strumming:

Intro: A bar of ‘d u’ on the A. Then one down on the A, then ‘u d u d u d u’ on the A+.

Verse: ‘d – d u d u d u’ on the A. And ‘d u d u’ on both the D and E.

Chorus and Pre-Chorus: Mostly ‘d – d u – u d -‘. With two downs each for the E run in the pre-chorus. And in the chorus ‘d – d’ on the Esus4 and ‘u – u d -‘ on the E.

Links

Buy it from JonathanCoulton.com ( Direct PayPal link)
More Jonathan Coulton chords
More Christmas tabs and chords

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.