I’ve had a few people ask me about tabs for the melody lines I play in the chord examples in Ukulele for Dummies. So I’ve put a few bits together. This isn’t anything official or perfect – it’s just a cleaned up version of the tabs I made when I recorded them. But I wanted to do something as a thanks to everyone who has made the book a much bigger success than I was expecting by buying it, recommending it and reviewing it. You can download the tabs here and the password is the first word of Chapter 13:

Tabby Extra

If you haven’t left a review yet, it would be great if you could because it can end up with just people who want to moan about their CD missing or slow delivery reviewing it: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon CA.

Jim Tranquada and John King’s The Ukulele: A History is available for pre-order on Amazon (and five months later and twice the price in the UK).

Luna’s ukulele suitcase amp is very handsome.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain have put a chord chart for their version of Hot Tamales (PDF link) and they’ve started a video tutorial series.

After the Creative Commons post I made a list of my Creative Commons tabs and whatnot.

Bossarocker’s ukulele shindig Levenshulme Uke Up is having it’s second meeting and it’s going to be a regular deal. So if you’re in the Manchester area head along.

Free Music: Vespers sampler, Bone and Bell EP, Ariel Rubin.

Videos: Shit People Say to Ukulele Players, Kazookeylele on Britain’s Got Talent.

Pictures: Buster Keaton, Felix the Cat, cat/ukulele tattoo.

On Uker Tabs: Gold on the Ceiling by The Black Keys

Being a fan of playing theme tunes on the ukulele, I very much enjoy the Uke of Carl blog. Carl’s done some great tabs of movie, TV and game themes. It was the first birthday of his blog yesterday so I asked him to guest blog a few of his arrangements and he was kind enough to agree.

My Most Viewed Video

Theme from Angry Boys

I posted this late on a Friday night after watching the show. It was a quick one I worked out by ear. When I awoke on the Saturday morning it had notched up well over a thousand views. This was around 950 views more than I was used to at the time!

My Most Requested Tab

Theme from Morrowind

This is a lovely melody, I’m not surprised that I get almost daily emails asking me for a copy of the TAB. I’ve just started to play Skyrim, so updates to my site will probably begin to peter out until I get sick of it.

My Video With The Most ‘Dislikes’

Theme from Parks and Recreation

Although I don’t dwell on it, the dislike button on Youtube is a strange invention. This has had 5 dislikes so far, compared to 8 likes. Perhaps the public didn’t like the mask I made for the video? I think it’s a vast improvement to the one I normally wear.

The One That Took The Most Time

Theme from Star Trek

No matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t get a perfect take on this one. After around a month of nightly attempts, I settled with this performance. People have often remarked that I look bored in my videos. I’m not bored, just angry and frustrated that I take so long when recording.

Theme from Star Trek (Lead Sheet)

Visit Uke of Carl.

Download the MP3

Podcast #15 in your face.

And it’s the last one (or at least the last one in a good while). But it’s going out with a bang with an interview from Manitoba Hal and a bunch of great tracks.

A huge thanks to everyone who has let us play their tracks, been interviewed and played sessions. And to everyone who has listened, commented and spread the word about the podcast.

And most of all to Bossarocker who has dedicated a shed-load of blood, sweat, tears and baked goods to the show. You can keep track of what she’s up to on her website and on the Twitters.

Playlist:

1. Victrola Lague DeBushwick – Fascination

2. Thomas Oliver Jones – Find A Friend

3. Tyrone – Lonely

4. Ciati Conlin – Our Life in Concentration Camps Pt 1

5. The Brass Traps – Settle Down

6. Lesley Marie Boileau interviews Manitoba Hal feat:

7. Manitoba Hal – Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women

8. Manitoba Hal – Incredible Bread Washing Machine

9. Manitoba Hal – Atlanta

10. Phredd – It’s My Birthday

11. Joker the Boxhead – So To Speak

12. Jack Lidgeley – Ode to the Disillusioned Worker

13. Jim the Schoolgirl – Tiptoe Thru Tha Tulips

14. Loveswing – The Brave

15. The Love Leighs – Philadelphia

Now that Netflix has made its way to the UK, I’ve been binging on episodes of the middle-class meth-dealer show Breaking Bad. I’m slightly concerned about what I’m going to do when I’ve watched them all. The plan is to take the edge off by watching the middle-class pot-dealer show Weeds.

Which brings us to this song which was used as the Weeds theme tune.

Suggested Strumming

I’ve done it slightly differently this time. Instead of say ‘play this twice for blah blah…’ I’ve set it out so you can just do this pattern once each time you see a chord:

d – d u d u

Strum

The only exception is at the end of each verse. There do two downs on the F and one on the C7 before going back to the pattern. (Let me know in the comments if you want me to do that more in the future or never again.)

Or you could just do one strum each and follow it with some box slamming like they do in the video.

Twiddly Bits

You can play a version of the slide lick at the end like this:

Which sounds like this:

Outro

Buy the MP3

I was in a very spring mood earlier this week – helped by springy tunes from Herman VDC and Danna Richards – and then it went and bloody snowed. So this posted has ended up as blossoms and summer dresses mixed with furry collars and duck-sweaters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Left-handed ukulele chord chart for beginners.

Kate Micucci romances Conan O’Brien ( alt. link thanks to @ukegnome).

I celebrated my 100th video with a cover of Napalm Death.

Google’s Project Glasses clearly has a glitch. It doesn’t set off a giant alarm when the wearer buys a ukulele book other than Ukulele for Dummies (thanks to Zym). (I covered that tune too).

Most popular ukulele videos in March.

Play Ukulele By Ear has three questions for Bob Brozman.

Pictures: Mr. Burns is a Ukulele Hero, Sad puppy, Ukulele rockstar trio, Pat Boone plays Superman a song (Thanks to PaulC), The Id and the Ukulele.

On Uker Tabs: Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl and Mumford & Sons’ The Cave.

Videos: Ukulele robot, ukulele/hurdy gurdy.

I had never heard this tune from the visual novel Clannad until I got a request for it. Even though I found it pretty damn irritating I couldn’t get it out of my head and had to work up a version.

It’s been a while since I made it hard on myself and did a full-on campanella version but it suits this tune really well.

I’m not sticking to any strict pattern for the picking hand. It’s mostly either thumb on g and one finger per string. Or thumb covering g and C with index and E and middle on A.

Make sure you let the notes ring into each other as much as possible.

Single Note Version

The campanella version is way more difficult than it needs to be. So here’s a simple version of the melody.

Buy the Clannad DVD

I love making things and I love the things that people make so the internet has been a huge boon for me. But the collision of copyright and the internet has thrown a few problems in the way. Things that used to be no big deal – like covering a song on your ukulele – can land you in trouble. Creative Commons is a way to solve that problem.

I’ve put a few things up under a Creative Commons (CC) license (like I did earlier today and with the First Ukulele ebook – there’s a full list of my CC licensed stuff here). When I do I usually get a few people asking what the hell Creative Commons is. So I thought I’d do a post explaining it with the help of three ukulelists who use it: Craig Robertson, Kahiwa Sebire and Howlin’ Hobbit.

What is a Creative Commons license?

Creative Commons sits alongside copyright but waives some of the restrictions. When something you make is under copyright other people have to ask your permission before they can use it (the “all rights reserved” thing). But if you give it a Creative Commons license you tell everyone they’re allowed to use it in various ways without asking (“some rights reserved”). And you can choose what people are allowed to do with it and what they aren’t.

There are four main restrictions you can put on it:

Attribution (BY): people can use it so long as they give you credit.
Non-commercial (NC): People can use it so long as they don’t make money from it.
Non-derivative (ND): People can use it so long as they don’t change it in any way.
Share Alike (SA): People can make derivative works but if they do they have to give it the same Creative Commons license.

You can choose to combine these.

For example, Amanda Palmer’s Ukulele Anthem has a BY-NC-SA. The BY part means you’re allowed to put the MP3 up for download so long as you credit her and don’t make money from it. Because she hasn’t put a non-derivative on it that means you’re allowed to cover it and put it on YouTube. And it means I was allowed to write up the chords. But because it’s got a ‘Share Alike’ you have to put a Creative Commons license on your version too. YouTube makes that very easy to do.

And you don’t have to be Amanda Palmer famous for people to use your music.

Kahiwa: “Someone chose to use my song Lovestruck as the soundtrack to their short stop-motion animation video about making yoghurt. I love yoghurt. It was so out of the blue, I was chuffed!”

Why Give Your Music a Creative Commons License?

There are a whole range of reasons why you might want to. Although it seems like copyright gives you more control, Craig and Kahiwa both (in their very different ways) like the extra control it gives them over how their music is used and by who:

Craig: “I pretty much dislike the entire copyright process anymore. It started out to protect ‘creative property’ but has just become another way for the suits to control things. I don’t believe most creative people (myself included) care about the ‘business’ side of art, music, whatever; as much as they care about the creative side… Creative Commons offers an alternative to the protecting creative property… and it is based on common sense, which first attracted me. If you play a song of mine, fine, if you make money doing it… well, give me some.”

Kahiwa: “I’m quite happy for people to share my music, do stuff with it, so the CC licensing process seemed like a good compromise between retaining some ownership (in the form of attribution and restriction on commercial use) and allowing the legal distribution of my music.”

Hobbit was inspired by others’ use of Creative Commons:

Hobbit: “Mostly a desire to avoid feeling like a hypocrite but also an extreme disgust with what’s happened to copyright law. Many of my personal heroes in this new musical landscape we’re living in use CC (and the pay-what-you-think-it’s-worth model) and I have long been singing their praises. I thought it was about time to walk my talk.”

Although I agree with Craig and Hobbit that copyright laws are dangerously restrictive, I have other reasons. There’s a lot of CC licensed stuff on the site (like photos on Christmas quizzes and on ebook covers, and music on the podcast) and I build on stuff that’s in the public domain. So it’s only fair that I give something back.

And giving my the First Uke ebook a CC license has definitely helped it spread. Every year the Uke for Xmas? post gets lots of attention, tweets, mentions, likes. And it gets sent to people who are just picking up the ukulele. Getting the site in front of people like that is worth much more to me than whatever I could charge for it.

Plus, it makes things easier:

Craig: “It actually relieves a lot of stress connected with ‘copyrighting’ my songs. And headache. It makes recording songs and putting them out more reasonable. I don’t worry about other musicians stealing my songs…I worry about businessmen stealing my songs.”

So How Am I Supposed to Make Money?

You might think that giving your music away for free would mean you didn’t make any money. But all three had plenty of people happy to pay for their music:

Hobbit: “Often they pay *much* more than I would have put my “set price” at. Your fans are going to want to support you, so get out of your own way and give them the opportunity.”

Kahiwa: “I was blown away that people would pay for it (or individual songs) when they had the option of a free download from bandcamp or soundcloud. Most of those people I know and they’re music-related friends/acquaintances from the internet. None of my family or real-life friends have paid though ;)”

Craig: “People have a tendency to buy music that they have already heard. That is the way pop music has always been marketed. People would hear it for “free” on the radio, and then go out and buy it if they like it.”

And getting your music out there helps you make money in other ways:

Kahiwa: “I got more for an appearance at a community ukulele festival in the Blue Mountains (NSW, Australia) than all of the song download proceeds put together.”

And they’re not alone. Nine Inch Nails and Jonathan Coulton have made serious bank from CC licensed music.

As Craig points out:

Craig: “A Creative Commons license, intelligently applied will actually protect the songwriters financially.”

How Do You Give Your Stuff a Creative Commons License?

Lots of sites will make it really easy to do. YouTube, Flickr and Bandcamp all give you a option to give your stuff a Creative Commons license. If you look at any of my YouTube videos that are my own compositions or works in the public domain they have a Creative Commons license. Like this one.

Otherwise you can go to this page on the Creative Commons site and make your own.

Even if you decide not to put a CC license on your music (or photos, or videos, or writing, or knitting patterns or whatever) I hope you take advantage of the stuff that does have a CC license. You get to use great stuff and not worry about infringing or getting sued. Here’s a good place to start your search.

Pick up some Creative Commons licensed music on Hobbit, Craig and Kahiwa’s Bandcamps:

Howlin’ Hobbit
Craig Robertson
Kahiwa Sebire

And, yes, this post has a CC license.

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

Ever since I put up this video of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus I’ve had a steady trickle of requests to play it at people’s weddings (not going to happen!) or for a recording they could use.

I made a recording of it that I’ve been handing out and here it is:

The Bridal Chorus – MP3 Version (quick download)
The Bridal Chorus – WAV Version (higher quality)
The Bridal Chorus – AIF Version (higher quality)

I’ve given it a Creative Commons license (more on that later today) so you’ve got full permission use it for free (even for commercial purposes). But if you want to make a donation to Ukuleles for Peace that would be nice. And if you do use it, I’d love to know.

It is a bit short. It was made for the specifications of the first person who asked it who – like I’m guessing most people wanting a ukulele rendition of Here Comes the Bride – was having a beach wedding.

I’m also giving the tab for it a CC license in case you ever get roped into playing for someone’s wedding:

It’s part of the How to Play Classical Ukulele ebook.

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

UPDATE: Here’s the little bit I tacked onto the end.

It’s official. Being a bearded, bald, chubby ukulelist is the height of itness.

I’ve written up Stephin Merritt’s solo ukulele version for this chord sheet. The album version is in the key of C (so the chords are C, Am, F and G)

Suggested Strumming

The strumming isn’t very straight forward.

In the verse, for the F:

d – d u – u d u
d u d u

Then 2 down strums for the Dm or one each for the Bb – C.

In the chorus, if you want to keep it simple you can do this for each chord:

d – d u – u d –

But if you want to be more accurate you have to have one extra strum on the first chord in each line. So you can do this for the Bb and Cs:

d – d u – u d – d

And then this for the F and Bbs:

u d u d u d u

Buy the MP3