The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s performance at the Royal Albert Hall prompted a flurry of press interest. No surprises that the only one that’s interesting and doesn’t drop the F-bomb was written by George himself. Here he is discussing adapting Terry Riley’s In C for ukulele. You can glimpse the results here and download the score in the underbar.

The first part of Matt Kresling and his ukulele’s trip to Madagascar has been my favourite documentary of the year so far. And now episode two of his Madagascar Journals is up. And you can download the instrumental and vocal versions of the theme tune (MP3 links).

Fred Sokolow has three new ukulele instruction DVDs out.

Kickstarting: Aaron Keim is raising money for a new Quiet American. Rewards include a full collection of Aaron’s songbooks, Skype lessons and a Mya-Moe ukulele.

Recordings: Grant Wood’s Grave by Craig Robertson, Chistofer “Nevershoutnever” Drew seems to have struck out on his own with a new song The Light.

Pictures: HoneyBell labels, Marlene Dietrich with uke, Ukulele Man Figure.

Video: Jack Johnson sings about plastic.

I was completely unaware of Lute of Noah from Final Fantasy III before I got a couple of requests for it. But as soon as I heard it I knew it’s make a great campanella ukulele piece.

And it does work out really well. The tune is triplets all the way through. Just make sure you’ve got all the strings fretted for that triplet at the start of each triplet. For example, in bar 4 you’ll fret the E and A strings at the 7th fret at the start of the first triplet; then the g, C and E strings at the fifth fret at the start of the second triplet and so on.

There’s only one place where the “no consecutive notes on the same string” rule makes things tricky. In the first triplet of bar 3 you have to stretch quite a bit. If you’re okay with breaking the campanella rules you can replace the 12th fret, g-string with 10th fret A-string.

In the original version the tempo varies wildly. I’ve kept the tempo variation but made it a bit more subtle. If your fingers are nimble enough, feel free to keep up with the original.

Buy Nobuo Uematsu music

More Final Fantasy

Aloha de Chocobo
Ukulele de Chocobo
To Zanarkand (PDF link)

Judging by the amount of ‘I’m listening to’ stuff clogging up Facebook, Spotify has really caught on. And it’s now available in the countries the blog is most popular in (sorry Canada, Singapore and Brazil). Which is good because I’m a big Spotify fan and am forever fiddling with playlists. And I’ve put together a bunch of ukulele playlists.

If you’re not familiar with Spotify, it’s an app that will let you listen to most music released for free (if you’re willing to put up with ads – I pay for it to get rid of them). You can download it here.

For each playlist I’ve included a link to the playlist, a plain list tracklist and the fancy-dan Spotify doodad. If you’re reading by email or reader you might need to visit the blog to see the doodads.

If you’ve made a ukulele Spotify playlist let me know in the comments and I’ll add a link to the post. And leave a comment if there’s something I’ve egregiously left out of one of the lists.

Ukulele 2017

Spotify link

Ukulele 2016

Spotify link

Ukulele 2015

Spotify Link

Ukulele 2014

Spotify link

Ukulele 2013

Spotify link

Ukulele 2012

The ukulele highlights of the year so far.

Spotify link
Tracklist

Read the rest of this entry »

With Mumford and two of his sons toting Mya-Moe ukes I was hoping to find some ukulele action on their new album. No such luck though. If there’s any there, I missed it.

Nonetheless, the lead single from the album is pretty great and – with the addition of a capo – works well on uke. If you don’t want to use a capo you can play along with the live version which is one fret lower.

Suggested Strumming

The strumming gets a bit involved. You can follow the guitar you can use this half bar pattern

d – d – – u d –

So the second down is long and the up is short (and accented). So played twice it’s this:

Which sounds like this (slow then up to speed):

Strum

Use the half bar pattern:

Intro and Bridge Twice for Am and G. Once for C, F, C and two for G the first time and four the second.

Verse Four times for each chord.

Chorus Four times for C, twice for Em, twice for G. (Eight times on the C chord after the first chorus).

Middle Three on C, one on Cmaj7, three on the Am, one on F and C, two on G.

The dynamics on this one smell like Teen Spirit. If you’re playing this on just uke it’s worth dropping down to just one down strum per chord in the quiet bits.

Buy the MP3

Up this week: Jim Boggia’s tribute to Hal David, Awna “off of Po’ Girl” Teixeira, Michelle Blades and plenty more.

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a Robert Johnson ukulele tab book on the way.

Pictures: Martin factory 1925, Melvin Goaté the ukulele goat, Death Meets Amanda Palmer, Don’t you DARE walk away from me, Nick Nolte on guitarlele, gig bag maker and his mule (thanks to Phredd).

The pUKES have some sixty ukuleles between them and have started reviewing them all here.

Video: The Ukulele Hall of Fame has a lovely silent video including Manuel Nunes, Most Popular Ukulele Videos August, Skyrim dancing ukulele bear

Sophie Madeleine’s second album The Rhythm You Started has been officially released in the US (including a track I don’t think has been released before – annoyingly it’s album only). And here’s an exclusive clip of her in the studio discussing her gear:

The Olympics coinciding with Adele’s maternity leave certainly worked out well for Emeli Sandé.

My mum requested this one. I wasn’t intending to tab it so it’s pretty messy and busked together. I’d recommend you using this as a basis rather than copying it exactly.

Some pointers:

Bars 1 to 4: Picked with thumb on the C-string and index on the E.

Bar 5: For the first three notes here (and in the same phrase in the rest of the song) I’m doing a bit of a triplet strum. I strum down all the strings with my index finger, then I play the g-string with my thumb, then I pick the A-string with my index finger.

Bars 5 to 21: Other than that, it’s almost all down strums in this section. I’m even strumming rather than picking the single notes.

The ones in brackets are backing strums – play them a bit quieter.

Bars 22 to 26: This bit is a nod to the drums-only section of the song. Back to thumb on C and index on E.

Bars 32 – 39: In the, “you’ll find him next to me,” bits of the song I’ve had to fudge the melody on the “next” because it goes down to a B. For this final few bars I take this section up an octave so I can include the B. You could use this version all the way through but I thought the switch in octaves was a bit too sharp to do that.

Melody Version

Here’s tab for the melody along with the chords to help you build your own version. Or just play an easy version.

Buy the MP3

Ukulele straps are a bit of a vexed issue. Traditionalists dismiss ukulele straps as being unnecessary. While plenty of people find them essential – with problems varying from boob-interference to the need to play lightening fast licks.

For my own playing, I’m mostly in the traditional camp. I don’t use a strap myself. But I’ve lightened up on straps in general. Particularly since the popularity of tenor ukuleles has exploded.

The big problem is that most ukuleles – even tenors – don’t come with buttons allowing for a strap. And there aren’t many ukulele specific straps so people make do with comically outsized guitar straps.

But people have started tackling these problems in ingenious ways. The latest being the – manga sex pun named – Uke Leash. Lori was kind enough to send me a couple of leashes to check them out. I’m not going to enter the whole strap debate, so this review is mostly going to be covering how well it works and comparing it to standard straps.

How It Works

The Uke Leash only attaches to the headstock of the uke. The other end has a loop that goes on your shoulder (or on your belt if you’ve got plenty of time or on your leg if you want to look a total spanner). That means you still hold it in your strumming arm the way you usually would but your fretting hand is free to twiddle wildly/send an email/slap a small child.

You can also drop the uke entirely and it won’t crash to the floor (although it will smash into any wall or kneecap that gets in its way as it’s penduluming).

There’s two main pieces to it: a long strap with the arm loop and a mini strap that goes round the headstock. The two click together so you can buy a headstock bit for each of your ukes and just attach the main one to whichever uke you want to use.

You can get various adaptors from the website that let you use it with a banjo ukulele and as a normal, guitar-style strap. I didn’t try those out though.

Overall, it works as advertised and does a good job of reducing the fretting hand’s workload. It attached to all my non-ridiculous ukes without any problem.

So this or a normal strap?

Advantages Against a Standard Strap

Non-invasive

The big advantage is that it’s much easier to attach to a standard ukulele than a normal strap. You can put it on and remove it easily and have your uke in exactly the same state it was before.

I also much prefer the way this one attaches to the uke thong – which attaches to the body and therefore dampens the sound. (I also worry about it scratching the body but that’s based on my neuroticism rather than any actual facts or evidence.)

More in-keeping with the ukulele

Having a full-on guitar strap on a ukulele does feel like complete overkill. Using a Uke Leash feels much more natural.

Disadvantages Against a Standard Strap

A bit uncomfortable and restrictive

It’s not a pain to use but I was adjusting it and myself often. And I found it to be more of a faff to put on than a normal strap.

I like to point the uke away from me when I play – much more than most people do. And I couldn’t do that with a tenor while I had the strap. But I was near the top end of the strap size I chose. It would have been less restrictive if I’d skipped up to the next size.

I just didn’t feel right using it. It felt like I was wearing socks with sandals. And, of course, it stops you spinning the ukulele over your shoulder and looking like a rockstar badass as I often like to do.

Still requires body-holding

It is a lot less secure than a full-on strap. Your strumming arm is still going to have to do plenty of holding work. I was quite happy with that but people who rely heavily on a strap and aren’t used to it are going to struggle.

And the holding does mean the soundboard is more muffled. In his review, Ian Chadwick found he was holding it less with his strumming arm and therefore getting a better tone than playing without a strap. I didn’t find myself holding it loosely enough to get any noticeable tone improvement, though.

Am I Going to Keep Using It?

I can see some people enjoying the Uke Leash but it’s not for me. Now that I’m doing reviewing it they’ll packed away and never used again. It doesn’t offer enough stability in exchange for the loss of movement and general feeling of being a socks-and-sandals-wearing twazzock.

Visit UkeLeash.com

Allo Darlin’ are doing pretty well for themselves these days. And this song has picked up a fair few requests.

It’s very straightforward. Just four chords. But does use a capo on the second fret. You can achieve the same thing by using D-tuning. But I’ve kept the chord names in their C-tuning names. If you’re used to D-tuning, the chords are A, E, Bm and F#m.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this pattern all the way through:

u d u x

Four times for each chord. Notice that it starts with an upstrum – you have to play that before the first beat of the bar. Often she’s just playing all the strings open on that upstrum then hammering on the chord.

Twiddly Bits

The bit in the intro uses the same chords but with a little twist. For both the G and Em chords you play the usual chord for one strumming pattern, then take your finger off the A-string second fret and play that open for one go through the strumming pattern. Then repeat that.

So for the G chord you do the standard G then Gsus2: 0230. On the Em it’s the standard Em then Emadd11 0430

She does the same thing on the Em chord throughout the song.

Buy the MP3

In this week’s line up: electronic grave-wave sensation Grimes (with whom I share a taste in food), Allo Darlin’ pay tribute to Neil Armstrong, Jake Shimabukuro, Victoria Vox’s new duo, LP does another in her cover series and plenty more.

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »