It’s not often I repost the same song from the same band. But it’s happened twice this week with Shiny and the Spoon reprising their cover of A-ha and Keston Cobblers’ Club. Also on the list is Scott Avett with a horrible ukulele, Walk off the Earth tossing around a Flea banjolele (head to 2:54 if you only watch their videos for headstock guy) and an instrumental from War Jacket.
I’ve had a lot of despondent messages since Ukulele Dav and Arnaud D’s site disappeared. But now their tabs are back. If you’re not familiar with the site, it’s well worth a visit for tabs of classic ukulele tunes.
After a break of four years, I’ve returned to Last.fm (I realised it’s the only social network I used that I actually liked because it’s about something). Do friend me up and feel free to join my long neglected ukulele group. This week I’ve been mostly listening to Sun Kil Moon, Mary Epworth and Nas.
One of my favourite techniques for rut-busting and expanding my playing is to listen to other instruments and brazenly steal everything. It’s instructive to learn from other weirdly-tuned, four-stringed instruments like the cuatro. But there’s also plenty to be learned from instruments that are completely different.
And it doesn’t get much more different than church bells.
Even so, this is far from the first time bell ringing has cropped up on the blog. I’ve long been fascinated with John King’s campanella technique of playing every consecutive note on a different string and letting the notes ring into each other.
If you thought the ukulele was restrictive, that’s nothing compared to bells. As well as being very restricted in the number of notes, they’re also restricted in the amount of time you can have between rings. Because of the bell’s momentum there needs to be a certain amount of time between rings. That’s why you don’t hear church bells playing tunes.
Instead there’s been the tradition in the UK and elsewhere of “change ringing”.
1. Every bell has to sound once – and only once – in each set.
2. Bells can only move by one position in the order they’re rung.
3. Once you get going you can’t play the bells in the same order twice.
4. You start off and end by repeatedly playing all the bells in descending order – known as a round.
Within these rules it can get very complicated and mathematical.
Bell Ringing Notation
Bells aren’t rung using standard notation but by numbers. And, unlike every other system, number one is the highest and then they’re numbered sequential going down the scale (usually the major scale). For these examples I’m going to use the A major scale so the numbers are:
1 = A
2 = G#
3 = F#
4 = E
So playing them in descending order – a round – you get this:
1. Call ringing: where a conductor calls out what changes are to be made to the order. 2. Method ringing: where the bells are rung according to a certain sequence (ranging from fairly simple to horrendously complicated).
The simplest method is the “Plain Hunt”. This involves pairs of bells switching with each other. So in our example of four notes:
Step 1: You start off playing rounds (1234). Step 2: The first two bells swap places and the last two bells swap places (2143). Step 3: The middle two bells swap places (2413). Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you get back to playing rounds (1234).
Here’s a little study I made in attempt to take the bell ringing ideas and combine them with the strengths of the ukulele. So I’ve kept the ideas of cascading notes ringing into each other, the changing patterns, starting and ending with repetitions of the same sequence.
But I’ve been much looser with the rules, made it more intuitive to play and taken advantage of the greater range of notes (not often you get to say that with the ukulele). And I’ve used a lot of open strings since they ring more than fretting ones.
The notes are all from the C major scale. But I was thinking more in terms of chord shapes. So it starts off with a Cadd9 shape (5435). Then a Dm7 shape (2213). I’ve tabbed the suggested fingerings once for each new shape.
One problem: TV shows aren’t quite as international as films. So I’ve split them up into UK and US TV shows (sorry other 95% of the earth’s population). Tackle one, the other or both.
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – Africa (Chords)
It really shouldn’t have taken a request I couldn’t turn down (they bribed me with a pizza) before I wrote this one up. It’s one of my favourite WIUO covers and definitely one of the funnest to play.
I’ve written up the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra’s version. It’s one fret lower than the Toto version but otherwise they’re very similar. So if you want to play along with the original slap a capo on the first fret.
If you’re playing by yourself it’s worth playing Gm instead of Gm7 (outside the Ab-Gm7-Cm move) otherwise the change between Gm7 and Bb get’s lost.
Suggested Strumming
The song is in 2/4 time. So this simple strum will get you most of the way through:
The trickiest bit of strumming comes in the Ab-G7m-Cm move which you can play like this:
I kept getting thrown by the Cm being in the middle of the bar. It feels like the start of a new bar. So if you’re as stupid as me it’s worth paying attention to the count in that part.
Twiddly Bits
I’ve included the tab for the little twiddly bit in the intro in the chord sheet. It’s made up of two parts. The top line (Uke 1) is the main one. So if you’ve just got one twiddling uke use that one.
Lots of good stuff to choose from for this one. I had to be quite ruthless with my choices to keep the list to a reasonable length. If you want to influence what gets included on here do rate the videos I post on UkeToob. I always check the ratings before I put together the list.
Finding particular favour this week are Ukulollo and his vertical pool, Sophie Madeleine and her Pearl and the Beard buddies and Origamibiro and their office equipment.
I’ve been meaning to do an instrumental version of this Muppet song (written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher) for ages. It’s a lovely little tune and I’ve kept things as simple as I could.
After the intro, there’s no fancy picking at all. It’s all done with the thumb.
Intro
If you want a simple, thumb-playable version of the intro you can use this:
Bars 7 and 8
Changing the fretting on the C-string from the middle finger to the index finger should make it easier to reach up to the fifth fret with your pinky.
Bars 11 and 12
Keep the notes in brackets soft. You can throw in a bit of fancy filigree here if you like but make sure it’s quiet enough so it doesn’t overpower the melody.
Same deal in bars 19 and 20; and 27 and 28.
Bars 21 to 24
Keep the fifth fret barred with your index finger.
Bars 31 and 32
I found this to be the trickiest move in the whole tune. Try keeping the fifth fret playing for the last note but start moving your other fingers ready for the A chord.
Melody Version
Rainbow Connection (Melody version)
Here’s a melody only version for you to do with as you wish.
After you’re done check the answers here. Then come back here and show off your score in the comments. And let me know if you’d be interested in a similar post with TV themes.
The Beach Boys may have released a ukulele song but it’s another Mike Love that has prompted a batch of tab requests. And I didn’t have any hesitation in fulfilling them. It’s an instantly likeable song and there are plenty of interesting uke tricks going on.
It uses a number of chord inversions (different versions of the same chord – the inversions are indicated by an apostrophe after the chord name), combines picking and strumming, changes keys and has a nifty ukulele solo.
He uses a low-G tuning for the song but everything works well on a standard tuned ukulele too. There are a few bits in the solo that sound a little off with high-G but it’s easy to adjust those.
Suggested Strumming
I’m not going to go into the whole thing because there are a whole lot of chord changes here. But most start with the G-string being plucked with the thumb. Then followed either by d u or d u d u depending how long the chord lasts. For the really quick changes just do one down strum.
In the last verse he switches from strumming to picking. You can use this pattern with the thumb (p) alternating between the G and C-strings while the index finger (i) handles the E-string and the middle finger (m) the A-string.
Twiddly Bits
No Regrets Solo (Tab)
The song’s solo is really effective. It uses the chords from the chorus along with an alternating picking pattern. Like the pattern before, the thumb alternates between G and C, the index finger plays E and middle A.
You don’t have to follow this solo note for note. I’d recommend building up your own solo using the same ideas. Start off by taking the chord progression from the chorus and picking the pattern above from the last chorus.
From there you can add in additional notes from the C major scale. If you’re not familiar with the scale, steal a few of the notes he adds in (or kick the dust out of your brain and learn it, I suppose).
And if you want to get fancier you can start changing the picking with the index and middle fingers so you can add in more notes. But don’t screw with the thumb; keep that constant.
There are a few more little licks in the song. They’re all at the end of the chord sheet. This lick transitioning from the key of D back to C is really effective. But the last note doesn’t fit if you’re playing a high-G. So it’s best just to hold the C-string, 2nd fret at the end for the whole beat.
