Dec/16/11

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Best Things from 2011 to Spend Money On

I’ve only bought one ukulele this year (my aNueNue harp ukulele) and I haven’t entirely formed my opinion on that yet. But there’s other stuff I’ve bought this year (or wangled for free) that has been well worth the money.

Music

The ukulele albums I’ve listened to most this 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

But there are plenty more great ukulele songs released this year. I’ve made a Spotify playlist of some of them I could find on there.

And I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of my favourite non-ukulele songs of the year.

Both are a random assortment of tracks that happened to pop into my head. I’m sure I’ve left out plenty of stuff (and quite a few great uke albums aren’t on Spotify).

Books

I am, of course, going to be completely biased and suggest you buy a copy of Ukulele for Dummies.

On less self-interested note, I’d highly recommend Lil’ Rev’s 101 Ukulele Licks for anyone looking to do some ukulele soloing.

My copy of Ralph Shaw’s The Ukulele Entertainer has yet to wing its way across the ocean but – since it’s based on his blog posts – I feel confident that’ll be well worth the money.

On a non-ukulele front, and after some initial skepticism, I took the plunge and bought a Kindle. It’s part of my drive to get rid of as much junk from my life as possible. I’ve tackled the biggest problem (CDs) and books are next on the list (ukuleles are third – don’t know what I’m going to do about that). Best thing about it: you can hook it up to Instapaper and make it a whole lot easier to read long articles on the net.

If you’re worried about me being easily bought (a very fair position to hold) the stuff I got free was: Leftover Cuties, Emily Scott and 101 Ukulele Licks. I would have gladly paid full whack for all of them.

Dec/16/11

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Friday Links

That crack when Steve Martin stands up after singing Tonight, You Belong to Me? It’s the sound of a foot going through a Martin ukulele.

I wrote a bit about ukulele songs and cultural appropriation. The short version: the mock-Hawaiian songs from the early years of the ukulele-boom are really horrid.

Amazon US are offering $3 off my book Ukulele for Dummies (click where it says ‘Clip this coupon’).

The book of Ralph Shaw’s blog, The Ukulele Entertainer is out now.

More free Christmas ukulele tunes from Patsy Monteleone and Shiny and the Spoon.

Will from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain discusses the tracks of his years.

Oh shit, I own a Mahalo.

Good news for Aquila, bad news for cows. They can make real gut strings again (via @danieladuck).

It’s the best day ever to be a bartione player.

Learn pieces quicker backwards.

Ryan Gosling is Time’s Coolest Person of the Year mostly due to his ukulele playing.

Un Ukulélé pour Junior (you can buy it here)

Dec/15/11

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Away in a Manger (Tab)

Away in a Manger (Full Arrangement Tab)

I thought I’d do a tab to give you an idea of what the stuff in the How to Play Christmas Ukulele ebook is like. Which, by the way, you can get $2 off if you use the code ‘armadillo’ by the 18th December.

But I’m not sure why I chose this one. I can’t stand the ‘baby Jesus meek and mild’ lyrics. I’m more into the ‘Jesus is here to fuck shit up‘ songs. But the tunes nice.

Like in the ebook, I’ve done two arrangements for this. The first one is a full arrangement that has the melody and back played on one uke. It’s arranged very simply. The right hand is all done with the thumb. And the left hand is based on familiar chord shapes (F, Bb, Gm and C).

Melody Arrangement

Away in a Manger (Melody Arrangement Tab)

The second arrangement is even simpler. The tab is just the single note melody which stays in the first position (except a quick trip to the fifth fret). And the chords above it.

For the strumming I’m doing this once for each bar:

d – d u d –

Here’s that being played:

Away in a Manger (MP3)

I’ve put the chords and melody on different sides so you can adjust your balance and play along with either.

Buy How to Play Christmas Ukulele

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

Dec/14/11

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Ukulele Christmas Quiz 2011

Instructions:

– Grab a piece of paper
– Display your uke knowledge
– Check the answers here (no peeking)
– Leave your score in the comments along with your dangs/woohoos.

Name That Chord

What chords are these on a standard C-tuned (gCEA) ukulele?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Name That Celeb

Which famous person is ukeing in these pictures?

6.

7. Half a point each.

8.

9.

10.

Name That Singer

Who is singing these ukulele songs? (Update: Round ruined by YouTube changes!)

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Name That Ukulele

What brand are these ukuleles? (You don’t have to name the model but I’ll be suitably impressed if you do)

16.

Photo by: Monsieur Gordon

17.

Photo by: Metal Chris

18.

Photo by: TEDxHonolulu

19.

Photo by: Vicki and Chuck Rodgers

20.

Photo by: cartoixa

Name That Note

In tab for standard C-tuning (gCEA) what notes are these? (e.g. C, D, Eb)

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

Name That Cover

Which act are these ukulele orchestras covering?

26. Baines Ukulele Orchestra

27. Ukulele Orchestra of the Western Hemisphere

28. Hull Ukulele Group

29. Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra

30. Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Go here and check your answers.

Past Quizzes

Ukulele Quiz 2010
Ukulele Quiz 2009

Dec/13/11

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Chuck Berry – Run Run Rudolph (Chords)

An easy 3-chord Christmas song. And the benefit of being a twofer since Little Queenie (worth clicking for the video) is exactly the same.

Suggested Strumming

You can just stick with a simple down-up pattern with a bit of emphasis. Like this:

d u D U d u D U

Or you can throw in a few sixth chords like this:

I’m doing all down strums on this:

Strum

Twiddly Bits

An essential Berry intro:

Intro

And a not so essential harmonized outro:

Buy the MP3

Dec/10/11

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Raymond Penfield: UkeTube

This week’s selection contains the most popular video I’ve ever featured on UkeToob.com: Raymond Penfield’s Addicted to Love. Universal 5 star votes and it’s not hard to see why.

Also up this week: The Jive Aces, Imelda May, Injured Birds using a banjolele in a new way and plenty more besides.

You can blame YouTube for this week being shorter than usual. They took away the x button that allowed you to get rid of videos in your subs box (even after you’ve watched them). And then they took away the two pages that still let you do that. So I’ve probably missed a whole load of good stuff.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dec/9/11

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aNueNue Harp Uke: Ukulele Window Shopping

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.

Dec/9/11

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Bill Tapia: Friday Links

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.

Dec/8/11

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How to Play Christmas Ukulele

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.

Buy it here

What You Get

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.