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.
Suggested Strumming
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:
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Uke Friendly Chords
Foster the People – Pumped Up Kicks (Capo)
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.
Suggested Strumming
For the strumming, you can follow the rhythm of the riff like this:
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:
After a bit of break, the podcast is back in style this month. It features an incredible session from Emily Scott. I don’t want to play favourites with all the people who’ve taken the time to do sessions, but this is my favourite. After hearing the session, you’re going to want to pick up a copy of her album i write letters i never send.
I’m enjoying everything the Cobblers are putting out at the moment. And, judging by the number of requests for this one, it looks like I’m not the only one. They’re being massive teases and releasing their new album three tracks at a time. Pett Level crops up on the second part For.
The song is played with a capo on the 7th fret (which, along with the double tracking, give it a mandoliny sound). If you want to play along with out a capo, you can use these chords:
Keston Cobblers’ Club – Pett Level (Without Capo)
Suggested Strumming
A simple strumming pattern you can use all the way through is:
d – d u – u d u
Intro and verse: play that twice for the C5 at the beginning of each section and C at the end. And once for everything else.
Instrumental and Outro: play it twice for the C5 then once for everything else.
Middle: Once for everything except the G7s on ‘day’ and ‘away’.
A very bluesy week this week with Adam Franklin bemoaning his lack of clothes, George ‘off of UOGB’ Hinchliffe complaining of unruly youths and Chelsea and Jordan don’t want their diaper changed.
This week’s uke adjacent instrument is the mandoliny from Madagascar in a clip that’s criminally cut short.
National Style 1 ukulele prototype. It’s the first of the new line of National ukes, numbered 001 given to the guy who provided his triolion for examination.
In the war of the guiatar lookalikes I think the cutest are the Tomo Strat and Les Paul. In a similarly guitar-like vein is this electric Tiki Idol (via Phredd).
1930s Maybell.
Manuel Nunes uke from the early 1900s. The ivoroid tuners look strange to me but they’re apparently an original upgrade.
Photos: May Singhi Breen shoots pool, The Wilde Twins
