You can always rely on Sufjan Stevens to release a few Christmas songs each year. But he’s really outdone himself this year with a giant collection of Christmas songs including a couple with ukes. Obviously it’s got some filler in there, but I think I’ll be playing this a fair amount this year. And if you don’t want to buy it yet you will do after you’ve watched the ads.

The Lumberjack Christmas part of the song is a pretty simple hoedown but things get a bit difficult in the second half. I’ve split the chord sheet into two and I’ve included different inversions of some of the chords for the second half (and I’ve missed off the piano outro).

Suggested Strumming

For the Lumberjack part, do this twice for every chord:

d u D U d u D U

Slowed down a bit, it sounds like this:

Strum MP3

With the emphasis on the capitalised D and Us.

For Christmases Past you can switch to a laid-back half-time strum and use this:

d – d u d u d u

Which sounds like this:

Strum MP3

Twiddly Bits

Here’s a version of the guitar and uke intro combined:

And you can play the fiddle bit that comes after that like this:

Here are those two parts slowed down a bit:

Intro MP3

And there’s a ukulele in the background of No One Can Save… doing this with varying degrees of loudness and softness:

Twiddle MP3

Buy it on Bandcamp

New video from Eddie Vedder’s Ukulele Songs with a trip to the Kanile’a factory. There aren’t may people that can match vocals with Vedder but Ali Ingle sounds just as great. Also up this week are some Halloweeny videos from Craig Robertson and Holland Greco, ridiculousness from Sid Laverants and Walk off of the Earth continue their run of striking videos with an increasing budget and Ben Harper (not the one off of My Family).

Full Playlist

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This KoAlana Special boxset from KoAloha looks so great. The downside is that it seems like it will only be available in Thailand.

1928 National Style 2.

1929/1930 Gibson Poinsettia.

Photos:
– Ukulele Group
– Ukulele Quartet
– Griswold Trio
– 1920 doll party

Sick of memorising the chords for songs? Lil Rev has a list 101 two chord songs.

Ukulele for Dummies is now available in German.

3D printing a ukulele.

Original Rudeboys turn down Chris Brown support slot because of their stance on domestic violence.

Sales of Martin ukuleles for their first 20 years.

New Releases:

– Joe Brown is capitalising on the popularity of I’ll See You in My Dreams with a full album of ukulele covers.
– Buke and Gase have released Hard Times and Blue Monday to benefit Sandy relief in Red Hook.
– New Person by Craig Robertson

On Video:
– Over Halloween I Tumblred a bunch of spooky ukulele stuff.
– Most popular ukulele videos for October 2012.
– Romney takes solace in his enormous piles of cash and a ukulele.
– Compilation from the Newcastle Ukulele Festival 2012

Photos

– Winter ukuleling.
– Kimo Hussey.
– Reading Tolstoi under the sun.

Some suggested I do an instrumental cover of this one and my immediate – and correct – reaction was, “Hell no!” But the more I thought about it the more I fancied the challenge of marrying the guitar and vocal parts together on the uke. Because of that, I didn’t make too many compromises in the arrangement. So it’s pretty tricky.

I’m using a few different picking-hand techniques:

Intro and verse: I’m picking with thumb on the C-string, index on the E and middle on the A.

Toni-i-i-i-ight bit: One finger per string with thumb on g, index on C etc.

Chorus: I’m using my thumb for the notes on the g and C; and flicking up with my index finger for the E and A strings.

Middle: Mostly flicking up with the index finger with some strumming on the full chords.

You also need a bit of thinking ahead on the fretting hand. I’ve included some fingering in suggestions in bar 5 and they apply to the similar moves that happen through the song.

Remember to the notes in brackets more softly so they fade into the background.

Buy the MP3

I might not have thirty years of special effects experience, but I still want to tackle a few myths and misconceptions I see crop up now and again.

If you’ve got any you want to tackle, leave them in the comments.

There’s only one way to play each chord

The chords you see in chord books and at the top of sheet music are only one way of playing them. There are many other ways you can play them (known as inversions).

Uke chords are made up of three or four notes and any combination of those notes will give you the chord. You can play the notes higher up the neck. Or you can switch the string you play them on. It’s still the same chord.

For example, a C7 chord has the notes C, E, G, Bb. So you could play it 0001 (G-C-E-Bb) or 3433 (Bb-E-G-C).

There are good reasons to play a different inversion of a chord:

– It fits better with the chords around it.
– You’re playing with other ukulelists and want to stretch out the sound.
– You want to give it extra emphasis by playing higher up (or lower down) than the other chords in the sequence.
– It’s easier to play. Which brings us to.

Fmaj7 is impossible to play

I don’t know who decreed that all chord books would list Fmaj7 as 2413 but there are two possibilities:

1) They were so impossibly good at ukulele they forgot mortals can’t twist their fingers into a shodow puppet of Hogwarts.
2) They’ve never played an Fmaj7 on a ukulele in their life.

The vastly easier way of playing it is 5500. But you can usually get away with playing it exactly the same way as Am 2000.

Chord charts are “tabs”.

This one is infuriating to me. Not because I’m a grumpy pedant (although I definitely am). But because you want to know what you’re going to get. If the there’s no distinction it makes it harder to find what you’re looking for.

You have to play things the way they’re tabbed

It’s best to see tabs as suggestions. You can always play the same note on a different string, change a chord inversion, use a different strumming pattern. Or change things completely, call it an original composition and hope no one notices.

There’s a ukulele on I’m Yours

There no ukulele on Jason Mraz’s released version of I’m Yours (or any version I’ve ever heard by him for that matter).

The chugging instrument goes as low as the F# on the bottom E string of a guitar. Much too low even for a baritone ukulele.

The higher instrument is much closer to standard ukulele range (he’d only have to tune down a semitone to fit it on). But it sounds a lot like an electric, steel-strung instrument to me. There aren’t many steel-strung electric ukuleles around, even fewer in 2008. Seems very unlikely.

The entire world seems to be against me on this one. So if you have any evidence either way let me know.

UPDATES

Some more myths from the comments:

Any uke made of laminate will sound rubbish: Suggested by Lizzie. Cheaper ukuleles are made with cheap wood underneath and just a thin layer of nice wood on top for looks. Can you tell the difference between that method of construction and a solid wood ukulele? Here’s a – not entirely fair – test by Musicguymic. (The answers are here.)

Three Things I’ve Got Wrong

Of course, I’ve spread a few myths of my own. So, in the spirit of the meme that’s been knocking around the UK politblogs, here’s just three of them.

1. You can never have too many ukuleles

I was fully in the grip of UAS. Coming up with any excuse I could think of to buy another uke. But I finally hit rock bottom when I wasted far too much money on this ridiculous monstrosity.

Despite a huge collection of ukuleles, I only play two or three regularly. The rest collect dust. And now I wish I had fewer ukuleles.

2. You should start on a soprano

I’ve never been quite sure of the best advice to give when asked what size ukulele they should start with. So I went with soprano since that’s what most people mean when they think of a ukulele.

When I started, it took a lot of stumbling around before I settled on which ukes I preferred for which purposes. And I don’t really think there’s any shortcutting that process. So now I’d say try a few out if you can. Otherwise just buy whichever size takes your fancy. It’s not a big deal which you start out on. So long as it’s not a baritone.

3. I didn’t give Hawaiian culture enough repect

While I don’t agree with the, “Hipsters playing the ukulele is horrible cultural appropriation,” thing, I do think we should keep in mind we owe the instrument’s popularity to Hawaiians and should show them and their culture respect.

I wouldn’t tab Ukulele Lady now for that reason. It’s a song that turns Hawaiians into a caricature and reduces the language to nonsense.

And I’m going to try to combine points 3 and 1 by only buy ukuleles made in Hawaii from now on. I’m not sure if I’m capable of sticking to that though.

If you’ve got any myth corrections or something you’ve changed your mind on, leave it in the comments.

It’s been quite a while since I did any proper pop songs and risked hospitalisation. So this week I’m doing two.

I never thought I’d write up a McFly song but:

a) They’ve released a ukulele.
b) It contains a diminished chord and is therefore beyond reproach.
c) It’s insanely catchy.

The trickiest part of the song is the quick changes between the E and F#m. I’ve shown the standard fretting in the chord chart but test out some of the variations to see which feels best to you. I went with number 4 and blocked the g-string with my thumb.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this as the main strumming pattern:

d – d u d – d u

Which sounds like this:

Strum (MP3)

And vary it up with this:

d – d u d u d u

Use one of those patters –

Doo sections: Twice for the A’s and F#m and once for the D and E.
Verse and bridge: Twice for each chord.
Chorus: Once per chord except the quick F#m – E change. Do two downstrums each for those (or just one if you want to make it a bit easier).

Twiddly Bits

Tom might have taken up the uke but Danny remains my favourite McFly. Even if he’s not a ukulelist he was still kind enough to make the solo ukeable. Here’s a quick tab of the solo/outro lick for uke:

Here’s how (half) the solo sounds this on uke:

Solo (MP3)

Buy the MP3

The History of the Fall-feit: Back in 2009 I caved to pressure to write up Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours. About an hour after that post went up I was laying unconscious on the floor with a head injury before being taken to hospital. (I’m leaving out the details in hope you’ll assume I was doing something sexy and dangerous.)

This was clearly beyond a coincidence. The only rational explanation was that the wrathful Indie Gods were displeased with me writing up a song people liked and decided I must be punished. To placate them, I had to write up tab for the most indie and least popular band in history, The Fall.

Since then I’ve been required to tab a Fall song whenever doing anything vaguely populist. There are two pop songs this week so I’m getting my Fall-feit in early. And, since it was Halloween, I went with their spooky instrumental Mansion.

More Mighty Fall

Blindness
How I Wrote Elastic Man
Theme From Sparta FC

Buy the MP3

I absolutely love Keston Cobblers’ Club’s new album One, for Words. It’s the best British album of the year. (This one would have been close if the second half was as good as the first.)

The Cobblers kick off this week’s selection looking much better dressed than usual in a session for Burberry. Joining them are Daniele Andrade, LP, Ali Ingle, McFly and plenty more besides.

Full Playlist

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Gary Jugart has put together a great (and free) ebook of fingerpicking studies Ukulele Arpeggiator. I’ve really enjoyed playing through them. Here’s a video I made of one of the studies. The difficulty ranges from straightforward to very tricky. If you’re looking to improve your picking you’ve got to grab it.

There’s a new DVD in Jim D’Ville’s series: Play Ukulele By Ear Vol. 3.

New free album from Nicholas Abersold Fillers including some that have been featured on Uke Hunt and one that mentions it.

On Video: Making KoAlana ukuleles (speaking of The xx), A bunch of excellent performances from the Paris festival.

Photos: Mobile ukulele school (via beginnersuke), UOGB in Lego, This one time at ballet camp (via Ukulelia).