This arrangement of Green Day’s Good Riddance is played with fingerpicking the whole way through (one finger per string picking style). I love the way the intro sounds played that way and fingerpicking brings out the melody.
But I originally arranged it strumming so it’s closer to the original and it works well. Plus it’s easier to play that way. So you have my full permission to play it that way (not that you need it).
French luthier Rachel Rosenkrantz makes a ukulele out of mushrooms.
Somerset man plays ukulele to surgeons who saved his fingers.
A lecturer at UMASS has ditched the piano and is using the ukulele to teach music theory.
Possibly the most bizarre story I’ve ever seen in fifteen years of doing this: Colleen “MirandaSings” Ballinger responded to allegations of child grooming with a jaunty ten minute ukulele song. And of course I had to tab it.
Jake Shimabukuro has made the inevitable leap to selling ukulele-themed coffee.
Patreon
A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:
– Arthur Foley
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Leia-lee Doran
– Lisa Johnson
– Loreena Humbert
– Mary
– Michael Lufkin
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nevylle Carroll
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Thorsten Neff
– Tina Knight
– Virtual Performing Arts Academy
If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including June’s: Meat Loaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light
Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black has to be one of the best albums of the noughties. I tabbed Rehab a while back. And it’s high time I tackled the title track.
The chord progression is Gm – Cm – Eb – D in the verse and chorus. That drop down from Eb to D is so effective in conveying a sense of defeat.
The verse melody acts in a similar way starting out on just a single note repeated (G in this arrangement) and ending by dropping down one fret on the D chord.
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The art of the ukulele video has taken a real bashing recently, so a good time to run down some of the best uke videos of the year so far. If there’s any that I’ve missed you can shoot me a message here.
Tracklist
Andy Eastwood and Peter Moss – William Tell Overture
Kamakakehau Fernandez – Koali
Kainani Kahaunaele and Kaniualono H’pai – Kiuwail’lehua
4stringboy – Interstellar (Main Theme)
Max & Veronica – Dirty Mother For You
Feng E – Johnny B Goode
Ruthie Craft – Nineteen
Cammy Enaharo – My Brother
Chipped Nail Polish – Rut
Back in the High Life Again was originally by Steve Winwood but my version is much closer to Warren Zevon’s cover.
To emphasise the Zevonness, my arrangement kicks off with a loose interpretation of Life’ll Kill Ya‘s intro. So long as you’re working within the F-Bb-C chords, there’s plenty of scope for your own ideas in the intro.
From there, I’ve tried to keep everything very simple and easy to play.
The only tricky bits are some fast hammer-ons and pull-offs at the end of bar 24 then into the Break section. Again, you can adjust this section to your taste. If you pick out notes from the chords and melody, you can’t go wrong.
I’ve already (inevitably) covered Call Me Al from Paul Simon’s Graceland. So it’s a good time to follow up with the title track.
Intro: The original starts with a bit of strumming before the picking riff. But on the uke there’s a drop in the energy when you go from strumming to picking. So this arrangement starts with the picking (with a touch of Stone Roses) and the opening C is much shorter.
Verse: The verse melody is loose and conversational, so there’s plenty of room to rephrase it so it flows naturally for you. Which I’ve done plenty of.
Chorus: The start of the chorus uses a bunch of techniques: slides, pull-offs, muting. Which makes it fun to play. The mutes in this section (e.g. bar 19) are done by playing a standard chnk (the one with x’s on all the strings), then leaving your strumming hand muting the strings, and plucking the g-string with your thumb (for the x on the g-string).
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Call Me Al tab on Patreon
Wheatus’s Teenage Dirtbag has become a bit of a uke favourite with the UOGB’s version. I haven’t entirely decided if it’s an irresistible earworm or an irritating song with terrible lyrics. But I did have fun playing it.
Intro: Muted strums on the g and C-strings, then extra emphasis on the E and A-strings.
Verse: One finger per string picking with a few supporting strums where there’s no melody.
Chorus: The first chorus is full on strumming. It finishes off with a bar of 2/4 then a little riff (that’s my favourite part of the song).
The second chorus in this arrangement (the third in the original) has constant thumb picking on the C-string while the melody notes are picked on the E and A.
Bridge: A bit of stretch up to the seventh fret here. But the big challenge is the “She doesn’t know…” bit which first crops up in bar 27. It gets pretty fiddly in the cramped higher frets.
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Will putting helium in a guitar turn it into a ukulele?
The songs people most want to learn to play on ukulele (#1 will leave you completely unshocked).
Ukuleleist Iam Tongi has won American Idol.
Window Shopping
– RIGuitars Bo Diddley style uke.
– Lichty build a family of ukuleles from one tree and a uke with eight steel strings.
Patreon
A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:
– Arthur Foley
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jeff Otto
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Kie77
– Lisa Johnson
– Mary
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nevylle Carroll
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Thorsten Neff
– Tina Knight
If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including May’s: Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing
The Magnetic Fields were one of the bands that got me to take the ukulele seriously. So it’s long past time I did a version of The Book of Love. It seems that (thanks to its use in the finale of Scrubs) Peter Gabriel’s version is the best known. But, on this occasion, the original remains my favourite.
This arrangement uses a few elements of the Gabriel version (including the slower tempo and a few bits of filigree) but mostly sticks to the original.
It’s a very simple song with the same chords the whole way through: G – C – D11 – G. D11 is just a standard D chord with the g-string left open.
The intro and solo are just me noodling around with the melody and chords. With the intro in the first position and the solo higher up the neck. Lots of scope for your own take on these.
I’m using one finger per string picking for this up to the last bar of the solo. There I switch to strums for the final chorus.
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More 2000s tabs and chords
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