No shortage of ukulele book releases at the moment. Here are some of the more promising ones:

Mark Nelson (who you might know as the writer of the essential Fingerstyle Solos for Ukulele) has a tab book of his latest album featuring blues, ragtime and hokum tunes. There’s a tab from it and a video tutorial here on Uker Tabs.

Ian Whitcomb’s latest is Ukulele Heroes. There’s a podcast about it here.

Left handed chords for ukulele and other instruments.

New long playing record from Mr. B The Tweed Album.

Garfunkel and Oates appear on the Savage Love Podcast singing songs and dishing out sex advice. And Dan Savage talks about how he discovered G&O via Uke Hunt.

After a long hiatus the Ukulele Hall of Fame is inducting two new members: Sam and Fred Kamaka.

When You First Get a Ukulele – well worth a read even for non-noobs.

Videos: A 25 minute lesson with Jake Shimabukuro from Play Loud Ukulele, Ukulele film quiz (with very entertaining clues here if you get stuck).

Pictures: Ukulele nails, Fred, my uke and me.

I’ve started a Spotify playlist of the best ukulele tracks of 2012. Listen to last year’s list here. For non-Spotifiers, here’s the list:

LP – Into The Wild – Live
David’s Lyre – Heartbeat
Leftover Cuties – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
The Beach Boys – Isn’t It Time
OK Go – Needing/Getting – Video Version
Humming House – Gypsy Django
Katzenjammer – Cherry Pie
The Magnetic Fields – Andrew In Drag
The Vespers – Flower Flower
Garfunkel and Oates – Go Kart Racing
Mr B. the Gentleman Rhymer – A Rummy Old Day

I wasn’t as impressed with The xx’s debut album as most of the internet seems to have been, but there was enough interesting stuff on it to make me eager to hear the follow up that’s arriving in September. The most interesting being Crystalised with it’s interlocking guitar lines.

I’ve wangled the intro onto ukulele in few ways: with two ukes, with one, and a simpler version with one. The rest of the song is just Em – Bm – A. There’s also this guitar line in the chorus and the uke 1 part in bars 9 – 12 crops up later in the song.

Duet Version

Duet Version

Solo Version

Simpler Version

Simpler Version

Buy the MP3

I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on The ‘Ukulele: A History by Jim Tranquada and John King for a long time. John King’s Nalu Music has always been the most authoritative site on the subject.

When John died in 2009 it did look like it might not be finished. But Jim continued work on it and – spoiler alert – he did a fantastic job. He was also kind enough to send me a copy to review.

What You Get

An in depth and detailed history of the ukulele.

The book is 282 pages long but the main section (excluding appendixes, notes etc.) is 161 pages. There are plenty of black a white photos.

You can get a good sense of the book by reading A Strum through ‘Ukulele History on Nalu Music written by Jim and John.

The Good Stuff

Context – Finally!

Here’s how most ‘histories’ of the ukulele go: “This happened. Then this happend. Then this happened. Tiny Tim. Then this happened. The end.”

There’s never any historical, cultural or political context. They left a whole lot of questions unanswered. Like ‘why the hell did a bunch of Madeiran cabinet makers sail to Hawaii to become indentured servants?’ and ‘how did the ukulele go from being an instrument made by and for non-Hawaiians to being a central symbol of Hawaiian culture?’.

The book is great on this stuff.

Thought Provoking

Because the book doesn’t ignore everything that’s going on around the ukulele and its development, it sparks new thoughts and ideas all the time. It really gives you a sense of how much the ukulele, music and culture are a product of influences like geography, politics, the weather, economics, agriculture, religion and any number of factors. It also made me think deeper about whether it’s racist to play the ukulele, and the long history of women playing the uke.

Great Pictures

It’s not packed with photos like Jim Beloff’s The Ukulele: A Visual History but the pictures they use are fascinating and unexpected. Like that of John Phillip Sousa hanging out with a Hawaiian ukulele band in 1901.

Well Researched

There’s no blind repeating of second-hand knowledge here. Everything is meticulously researched and extensively footnoted. The notes are about half the size of the book itself (the main book is 153 pages and the notes are 74 pages long).

The Not So Good Stuff

There is more detail here than a casual reader is going to need. Which makes it hard going sometimes. I found myself getting bogged down in a few sections. So I did some judicious skipping safe in the knowledge I’m definitely going to go back and pick out stuff from it in future.

Overall

If you care about the history of the ukulele you have to buy it. It’s the definitive book on the subject. There’s no other book that comes close to it.

Buy it on Amazon US.
Buy it on Amazon UK

I’m slightly worried about the influence all this indie folk is having on my mental wellbeing. First it was the ukulele, then the flat caps, then the beard. Now those braces are looking very snazzy. This can’t be right. Nevertheless, indie folk provides a lot of ukulele-friendly songs (and it’s far too late to be worried about my mental health anyway).

As well as holding the fort until the 24th September, The Lumineers’ Ho Hey provides some excellent ukulele group fodder with its shouts, stomps, singalong chorus and simple chords.

The one downside is the tricky strumming.

Suggested Strumming

It’s so tricky I’m going to have to use slash notation to write it up.

Here’s the main strum from the intro and verses:

Which sounds like this slowed down:

Main Strum

The end of the verse goes like this:

Verse end strum

But if you find that a bit tricky you can get away with playing it like this:

Easier Strum

The chorus strumming is a lot more straight forward. Use this strum until you head back to the main strum:

d – d d u d u

Chorus Strum

In the middle section use that chorus strum once for the F. Then two down strums each on F and C. Then back to the chorus strum.

For a band that has a career’s worth of songs about lazing on Californian beaches, there’s not a lot of ukulele in their songs. But their latest album has a ukulele-heavy song and the uke slides neatly into the Beach Boys sound.

Also up this week is a blistering version of Classical Gas by sanfordandsong, some sound romantic advice from MrJnobianchi, Nicholas Abersold daydreaming of YouTube fame, Carly Rae Jepsen singing that song that’s all over the place and plenty more besides.

Warning: if you’re listening on headphones turn the volume down for Garfunkel and Oates.

The Full Playlist

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One of my favourite ukulele tunesters, Nicholas Abersold has released his album Porridge free on Bandcamp. It’s packed with top songs so grab it while there are still free downloads available.

Matt Kresling has made a travelogue about his trip to Madagascar with his ukulele and you can watch part one of The Madagascar Journals on YouTube. You may remember Matt from ukulele hits like The Beast That Swallows Its Young and Seventeen. And he makes excellent documentaries too. I loved this first part which includes him trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious death of King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho.

Lorraine Bow – off of the Ukulele for Dummies videos and LearnToUke – has released a book Ukulele Basics aimed at young folks.

Garfunkel and Oates have their own show on Comedy Central tonight (Friday).

Schoenhut used to make ukuleles in the 20s. And now they’re back in the game with a suspiciously familiar looking ukulele. UKISOCIETY has done a comparison of the fake Flea and the real thing.

On the subject of inferior knock-offs, UOGB rip-offs The UK Ukulele Orchestra are making their UK debut at the Edinburgh Fringe.

If you’re a fan of the real thing, there’s only a week left to fund the The Ukes Down Under documentary.

Also kickstarting is Joy Ike.

Tricity Vogue writes about ukuleles and women for The F Word.

Someone on Tumblr asked my advice on singing with a ukulele. I have enough trouble talking but my followers kicked in with some sage singing advice.

Most popular ukulele videos May 2012 – I switched this up so it’s the highest rated rather than the most watched. To take out the trolls.

Pictures: Creatures, I don’t know what this says but I get the message.

Jeff Lynne & George Harrison play ukuleles (via Ukulele Brasil).

UPDATE: Thanks to Peter Bulls for this translation of the comic:

“Here it is, I finally got what I lacked to be a true comic artist like Sfar, Boulet and the others… The unavoidable, indispensable ukulele!

At the start, you get the impression that your fingers are enormous, the frets are that small.

In fact, it’s a bit like playing guitar with boxing gloves.

(and after a while, it kills the fingers)

But what’s amazing is that, from the very first chord, you’re teleported to Hawaii. First class.

Then, you’re inclined to push on to Nirvana’s repertoire, like a teen that sits down with his first guitar… Hawaii can’t touch that.

*smash!*

(anyway, for The Mamas & The Papas, ukulele is fine as well)”

Following on from The Queen is Dead on Tuesday, here’s an arrangement of the song that kicks off the track, Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty. It was written during World War I and has a bunch of music hall features. Including the perfect opportunity to bust out your triplet strum in bars 21 and 25. Here I’m using this method:

Down with index finger
Down with thumb
Up with index finger

I’ve also given it a ‘whoops, have a banana’ (or ‘shave and a haircut, two bits‘ if you’re American) ending because I couldn’t resist.

It’s fairly tricky to play. But there is plenty of scope for simplifying. You can play bars 29-31 (i.e. the ones I screw up in the video) like this:

This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

As promised in the Hip Hop Riffs for Ukulele post, here’s an updated list of the riff posts on the blog.

The idea with these riffs isn’t to play the whole song or that the suit the ukulele particularly well. It’s to throw them in to your playing for a bit of light relief and audience recognition (like the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain on Orange Blossom), to provoke the ‘I didn’t think you could play that on the ukulele’ or just for shits and gigs. Because of that, the riffs aren’t always arranged in the original key but the key that suits the ukulele best.

Five Riffs Series

Acoustic: Roll Away Your Stone, Fly, Heartbeats, Fast Car, She Talks to Angels,

Acoustic 2: Day Is Done, In the Ghetto, Holocene, Put Your Records On, Hold Me,

Black Keys: 10am Automatic, Act Nice and Gentle, Tighten Up, Your Touch, Modern Times.

Funk: The Meters – Cissy Strut and Funky Miracle, Stevie Wonder – Superstition, Funkadelic – Hit It and Quit It, Rick James – Super Freak.

Grunge:Soundgarden Spoonman, Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box, Pearl Jam – Alive, Temple of the Dog – Hunger Strike, Alice in Chains – Them Bones.

Hip Hop: Jay Z and Kanye West – Ni**as in Paris, Dr Dre – Still DRE, Missy Elliott – Get Ur Freak On, Usher – Yeah, Panjabi MC – Beware.

Hip Hop 2:

Hip Hop 3

Jack White: White Stripes – Hardest Button to Button and Icky Thump, Raconteurs – Salute Your Solution, Dead Weather – Treat Me Like Your Mother, Tom Jones – Evil.
Manchester: Stone Roses – Waterfall, Happy Mondays – Loose Fit, Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart, Chemical Brothers – Galvanize, The Fall – Right Place, Wrong Time

REM: Losing My Religion, Shiny Happy People, Pop Song 89, Driver 8, Pretty Persuasion.

The Who: Can’t Explain, Substitute, Pinball Wizard, The Seeker

Single Riffs

AC/DC – Back In Black
AC/DC – Hells Bells
AC/DC – Let There Be Rock
AC/DC / James Hill – Thunderstruck
Aerosmith – Walk This Way
Alice Cooper – School’s Out
Audioslave – Cochise
Beastie Boys – Fight for Your Right To Party
The Beatles – Come Together/Day Tripper
Biz Markie – Just A Friend
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear the Reaper
Chic – Good Times/Rapper’s Delight
Chic – Le Freak
The Clash – Straight to Hell / MIA – Paper Planes
Cream – Sunshine of Your Love
The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry
The Darkness – I Believe In A Thing Called Love
Deep Purple – Smoke On the Water
Deee-Lite – Groove Is In The Heart
Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus
Dillinger Escape Plan – Milk Lizard
Dire Straits – Money for Nothing
Donna Summer – Hot Stuff
Electric Six – Gay Bar
Eric Clapton – Layla
Free – All Right Now
Girls Aloud – Love Machine
Gogol Bordello – Not A Crime
Guns n Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
Hanson – MmmBop
Happy Mondays – Step On
Harold Faltermeyer- – Axel F
Ian Dury – Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll
Iron Butterfly – In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Jay-Z – Death of Auto-Tune
Jimi Hendrix – Fire
The Hives – Hate To Say I Told You So
Judas Priest – Breaking the Law
Kasabian – Vlad the Impaler
The Killers – Mr Brightside
Lady Gaga – Poker Face
Led Zeppelin – Kashmir
Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love
Lenny Kravitz – Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Metallica – Enter Sandman
Metallica – Master of Puppets
Metallica – Seek and Destroy
Michael Jackson – Beat It
Motorhead – Ace of Spades
Muddy Waters – Mannish Boy
Muse – Plug In Baby
Nirvana – Come As You Are
Nirvana/UOGB – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train
Pearl Jam – Jeremy
Phoenix – Lisztomania
Pink Floyd – Money
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows
Rage Against the Machine – Freedom
Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name Of
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Suck My Kiss
Rolling Stones – Satisfaction
Slayer – Raining Blood
The Sonics – Have Love, Will Travel
System of a Down – Toxicity
They Might Be Giants – Older
Thin Lizzy – Boys are Back in Town
U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (Riff)
The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – Pin
Yes – To Be Over

A long weekend of Jubilee nonsense has put me in the mood for a song saying how great regicide is.

This is a tricky one to fit the lyrics against the chords. Morrissey’s lack of respect for non-democratic rule is only matched by his lack of respect for scansion, so they’re crashing all over the place. There’s a rollocking live version of it on the recent box set where he stumbles over the words. So good luck with that.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this one all the way through:

d – d u d u d u

Do that once each time you see a chord name.

Buy the MP3
Republic.org.uk

More Smiths

Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
This Charming Man

A Dylan cover from the Leftover Cuties to belatedly celebrate his birthday (much overshadowed on the net thanks to him sharing it with Maru). Also this week: Arborea do a session for NPR, the steam-punk Posh and Becks sing a murder ballad and Herman VDC picks up a timple.

At the behest of JimUke, I’ve put this week’s videos into a YouTube playlist so you can listen through without any interruption. If you find it useful and want me to do that every week leave a comment letting me know.

Full Playlist

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