I’ve got my hands on a new ukulele! It’s an aNueNue harp ukulele. I’m still getting to grips with it but I’ve done a couple of videos with it: Here Comes the Sun and Albatross. I’ll be doing a review of it next year but you can read Tim’s thoughts right now.
Two sweet looking (and very expensive) DeVine ukuleles: DeVine 1 and DeVine 2.
1928 National Style 3 Resonator.
John Wayne lunch-boxalele.
Young man with ukulele.
Ukulele Hall of Famer and world’s oldest performing professional musician, Bill Tapia has died at the age of 103. Ukulelists paying their respects include Ralph Shaw, Lil Rev and Bartt. You can read an interview with him on Fretboard Journal and watch a clip from his documentary.
Kimo Hussey present a TV show dedicated to the ukulele. You can watch episode 1 of The Uke Project here and episode 2 here.
Aquila have had to stop making real gut strings due to mad cow disease. Before you panic, it shouldn’t affect their bionylon and nylgut strings (thanks to Zym).
Ian Whitcomb has a new book on the way Ukulele Heroes: The Golden Years (thanks to Ron Hale) And Guitar Muse has seven more books for musicians.
8 necked guitar/bass/ukulele/mandolin.
Thanks to phi for pointing out that tabs for the Jonathan Coulton song I posted last week can be found here.
Jim D’Ville’s ukulele tune is the soundtrack to every cat video.
Molly Lewis recounts playing for Stephen Fry.
In a hurry? Tune your ukulele with a drill.
New releases: The multi-talented Lil Rev has a new album out and a book of poetry on the way, Salwa Azar’s For America, Ariel Rubin’s Big Spoon.
Free Christmas ukulele music: Leftover Cuties, Tricity Vogue, Phredd’s pirate Christmas and Kahiwa’s Christmas down under, Darren Hayman, Steffaloo, The whychristmas? podcast.
No Hawaiian category in the new slimmed down Grammys. But the ukulele is represented in the 2012 nominations list by Eddie Vedder’s Ukulele Songs. My nominations for Ukulele Album of the Year are:
Givers – In Light
Leftover Cuties – Places to Go
Emily Scott – i write letters i never send
Tune-Yards – W H O K I L L
Leave yours in the comments.
I’ve just put out the 2nd edition of How to Play Christmas Ukulele. The main points of feedback I got from the first edition were:
– Make the arrangements easier.
– Make the tabs bigger.
– Do videos.
So that’s what I’ve done.
I’ve made the full arrangements simpler. There’s less fancy fingerpicking – they’re mostly just using the thumb of the right hand. And even simpler still, I’ve done melody-only arrangements (so you’re just playing one note at a time) with chord boxes for the backing.
There are videos for all the full arrangements and MP3s for all the melody arrangements (they’re made so you can adjust the balance on your speakers and play along to the chord backing).
The book has a new look and the tabs are easier to read.
If you bought the first edition, you should already have an email letting you download the new edition free. If not, send an email to ukulelehunt@gmail.com with the email address you used to buy it and you’ll get the second edition.
Buy it below or go to How to Play Ukulele to find out more.
Once you’ve paid (payments handled by PayPal) you’ll be taken to the download page and receive an email with a link to the page where you can download a zip file containing:
– Tab for full arrangements 11 Christmas tunes for standard tuning (gCEA re-entrant). You can watch videos of all of them being played on YouTube.
– Tab and standard notation for the melodies only with accompanying chord boxes.
– A pdf file containing performance notes for all the tunes and descriptions of some of the techniques used.
– MP3s of all the melody arrangements. You can hear the melody being played and – after a bit fiddling with your balance knob – use them as a backing track.
If you haven’t bought an ebook from me before you might want to read the FAQ page for more information. And if you’re using an iPad or any idevice, you’ll need to download to your computer, unzip and transfer the files from there.
Here are the videos for all of the full arrangements:
Auld Lang Syne
Deck the Halls
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Good King Wenceslas (Rocky Version)
Good King Wenceslas (Traditional Version)
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Here We Come A-Wassailing
In the Bleak Midwinter
Silent Night
Sussex Carol
The Holly and the Ivy
Twelve Days of Christmas
Click the button below to buy it or go to How to Play Ukulele to find out more.
Buy it here” target=”_blank”>Buy it here
If you’re looking for some Christmas tunes to get your teeth into, have a go of these:
12 Days of Christmas
A Christmas Duel – The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver/Ballard C Boyd
Cold Outside – Julia Nunes & Wade Johnson
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Give the Jew Girl Toys – Sarah Silverman
It’s Cliched to be Cynical At Christmas – Half Man Half Biscuit
iPod X-mas – Hello Saferide
Let It Snow
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) – The Ramones
Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade
No Christmas – Zee Avi
Present Face – Garfunkel and Oates
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Santa Baby
Silver Bells – She & Him
The Christmas Song – Weezer
The Christmas Song Song – Rocky and Balls
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland
Year End Letter – Garfunkel and Oates
You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch
German Christmas Carols
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Instrumental)
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bells
Mele Kalikimaka
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
O Christmas Tree (Single Note Version)
Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer
Silent Night (Harmonics Version)
Silent Night (Single Note Version)
Sleigh Ride – U900 / The Ventures
White Christmas
Good to see Zooey Deschanel busting out the ukulele for this cover of Livingston and Evans’s Silver Bells on She and Him’s Christmas album. Also good to see that she’s handled being constantly referred to as ‘adorkable’ without having sprayed crowded streets with machine-gun fire.
Zooey goes with mostly just down-strums all the way through. It’s in 3/4 time so do three down strums each for the C-Cmaj7 bit and six strums for everything else.
If you want to vary it up, you can replace a set of three down-strums with:
d – d u d u
The guy playing ukulele in this clip is Benny Wenda. He’s also a leader of the movement to free West Papua from Indonesia.
He’s been living in the UK since 2003 when he was granted asylum after escaping arrest and torture in Indonesia. He now faces arrest and deportation after the issuing of an Interpol red notice.
On Radio 4’s Today program an Indonesian ambassador claims he’ll get a fair trial. Which doesn’t seem likely judging by Amnesty International’s report on Indonesia. The Indonesian government accept that torture takes place and calls it, “unprofessional”.
I heard about Benny from Jimmy off of the Bobby McGee’s:
I met Benny on a bus in Brixton coming back from a gig about three years ago. He had two beautiful little girls on his knee and a ukulele tucked under his arm. I had mine on my lap, we nodded in some kind of uke brotherhood recognition and we started talking.
Benny told me that he was a tribal leader in exile from West Papua, that he had been forced to flee the country under increasing fear for his life from the Indonesian government.
He had been recording a CD of ukulele freedom songs, “everyone plays ukulele over there!” he told me. We had lovely chat, He seemed like a lovely guy and when we shook hands and said “bye” at Victoria, he gave me a leaflet about his “Free Western Papua” cause.
Six months later, totally unrelated, at a music festival on the south coast I met a young lady who came over and started talking to me about my ukuele. Her neighbour played and had shown her how to play. In the silly serendipitous way the world works it turns out her neighbour was Benny and we spoke about him and his daughters and his story, we’ve been friends ever since….
Today I heard on BBC Radio 4 that Indonesia were putting pressure on the British Government to have Benny extradited. According to the Indonesians he is a wanted criminal, an arsonist and murderer.
I don’t believe them.
I don’t know the ins and outs of his case and I certainly don’t know enough to pontificate on the situation in West Papua. But I do know it’s wrong to threaten to send a guy back to a police force that tortured him and continues to torture others.
You can find out more about Benny and Free West Papua on FreeWestPapua.org. And you can follow them on Twitter and Facebook.
Videos this week include Jonathan Coulton, Dante in various states of facial hairedness, Phredd celebrating his new Martin and plenty more besides.
After being on the wagon for a while, I’ve given in to UAS this week and got myself a Christmas present. 10 internets to anyone who guess what I’ve bought.
Mr Kazookeylele is selling a genuine Kazookeylele.
aNueNue are continuing with their signature ukes with an electric ukulele styled after, Canadian uke rockers, Lucky Uke.
Six foot five Tangi ukulele.
Two cases of multi-instrument attribution: one described in it’s title as tiple, cuatro, ukulele and mandolin, and on that looks like a hybrid of electric guitar, mandolin and ukulele.
Heindel ‘Black Beauty’ soprano: gorgeous back, not so sure about the front (via Phredd).
Ukulele photo from 1894.
Videos: Jake plays and answers questions on livestream (thanks to Phredd). Incredible clip of Laura Dukes on iPlayer (after a minute of Alexis Korner) (thanks to Bossarocker). Live ‘Ukulele interview James Hill.
I’ve been over exited about the release of John King and Jim Tranquada‘s The ‘Ukulele: A History for what seems like years. And it looks like the University of Hawaii Press is excited about it too. They’ve given over the front cover of their 2012 catalogue to it with a marvelous picture.
Pluck Magazine – for Francophone ukers.
Pictures: Kermit and Brett McKenzie jam (thanks to Kevin), as do Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon, Winston Churchill’s license plate (via Bartt).
Sweet Soubrette discusses her ukulele-playing, insider-trading, theremin-making, Zeigfeld-girling ancestors.
Make your own cardboard ukulele which sounds better than I expected it to (thanks to cardboardfrog). Although the folding ukulele does sound as bad as I expected (via Ben Lew).
Playing: Scott Joplin’s Elite Syncopations. Manitoba Hal has some blues lesson videos.
I think it’s about time I did a song people actually want to play. I’ve had a few requests for a uke version of the riff so I thought I’d knock up the chords as well.
The original version is in the uke-unfriendly key of Fm. So it’s easier to do with a capo on the first fret as Sophie Madeleine does in her version. So you can use these chords with a capo. Or just as they are if you don’t mind being in a different key.
For the strumming, you can follow the rhythm of the riff like this:
d – x u – u d –
Here’s how that sounds (played fast then slow):
Or, if you’re not into chnks, you can just replace it with a down strum:
d – d u – u d –
This song is a good illustration of a quick and simple way of transferring (a few) guitar tabs to ukulele. If you look at the guitar version of the riff you’ll see the riff uses mostly the two lowest strings on the guitar: E and A.
So anything played on the E and A strings on the guitar you can play exactly the same on the E and A strings on the uke. The only problem is the D-string 1st fret which we can play on the A string at the 6th fret. That gives you this:
Relative to the capo it looks like this:
But if you prefer to play without the capo, it’s easier to play like this:
Which sounds like this:
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