I also jammed a reference to the main Doctor Who Theme in at the end.
7/8 Time
The main theme is in rather tricky 7/8 time. When counting it I went with “1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4”. But once I’d got the hang of playing it I dropped the count and just went with the swing of it.
Trickiest Bit
The high, screechy violin bit in bars 5-8. You can simplify this a couple of ways. You can drop the note on the A-string 8th fret at the end of the bar and just stick with the 10th fret. Or you could play a simpler version without the screeches. Either repeat the first four bars or play bars 17-20.
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat and tuning its ukulele. As am I. If you’d like to join us here’s all the Christmas stuff on the site.
Christmas eBooks
I’ve done two ebooks of Christmas songs arranged very simply for the uke. Each song is done in two ways. One solo version combining the chords and tune. And one that’s just the melody. You can read more about them here:
Charlie McDonnell/Chameleon Circuit – Big Bang 2 (Chords)
It’s the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who next week so this week a couple of Who tunes to get you ready. First up is Charlie McDonnell’s solo uke version of Big Bang 2 by his trock band Chameleon Circuit. The song is based on Murray Gold’s I Am The Doctor from the show. More about that song on Thursday.
T-shirt update: You only have a few days left if you want to buy a Uke Hunt t-shirt. The standard black t-shirt has sold over 100 so that will definitely be made. As will the women’s black t-shirt which has just past its goal. Unfortunately the white t-shirts weren’t popular enough so those won’t be made.
New Releases
– Ohana have released a new ukulele based on the original look of the ukulele as made by the Madieran bunch. It’s called the Ohana SK-28. aNueNue had the same idea with their 1879 series. The aNueNue version looks more faithful to the original. But it’s also around double the price.
– The Ukes in America DVD.
– Post Mortem of a Monster by Zahra.
So today I’ve written up one of her African-influenced tracks FIYA.
The tab shows the riffs used in each section of the song (not the whole tabs).
The Tuning
The tuning on this one is weird. I think it’s baritone tuning (on a tenor ukulele) with a high-d string. But that high-d is tuned half a step to Db. So it’s dbGBE.
Standard Tuning Version
In case you don’t fancy making the effort for that tuning here’s a version in standard tuning that more or less works out:
Most pop songs are in 4/4 time. So you’d count along with them “1, 2, 3, 4” Joey Ramone style. But there are many songs in 3/4 time i.e. you count “1, 2, 3” along with the song.