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The April 2011 edition of the Uke Hunt podcast features flamenco ukulele from Herman Vandercauter, drizzly jazz from Patsy Monteleone, folktronica from Substitute Sandwiches and plenty more besides.

If you want to submit your stuff or – if you can get to Manchester – set up a session, you can find us on Soundcloud, or on Facebook, or email podcast@ukulelehunt.com

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All the Uke Hunt Podcasts are here.

Playlist:

1. Nicholas Abersold – Those Punk Rock Days

2. Herman Vandecauter – Andaluzukulele

3. Patsy Monteleone – April Showers

4. Jessica Delfino – Chinatown
Follow Jessica on Twitter.

5. The Corner Laughers – Inner Archaeologist

6. Jake Wildwood – Amateur Night Five Dollars

7. Substitute Sandwiches – Criss-Cross Celluloid

8. Uke Punk – Mister, Mister

9. The Spiraltones – Lost Weekend

At the end of last year, Kate Micucci was the recipient of AV Club’s “She’s Everywhere” Award. With any luck, she’s going to be even more everywhere this year because Garfunkel and Oates have signed up with HBO to make a pilot (amid much talk of them filling the Flight of the Conchords role). If it ever makes it to a series – and I’m informed by an industry insider that G&O fit nicely with where HBO are going – I’m sure this one will be slotted in there.

Quick note on the chords: on the first G in the chorus, the uke plays G but the guitar plays G then F# in the bass. If you want to recreate that on the uke, slip in a Gmaj7 after the G.

Suggested Strumming

INTRO
For the intro:

This strum is also used at the end of the chorus and the end of each section of the verses. Slowed down, it sounds like this.

Intro Strum

VERSE

In the verse, start out with:

d u x

For the first D chord, then move on to:

u d u x

Put together and slowed down, they sound like this:

Verse Strum

On the A chord you can go wild with d u d u…. Until you get back to the intro strum.

CHORUS

For the chorus, one of these for each chord in the first two lines:

d – d u

Then a d – x on the Bm and on the F#m:

u – u d –

Together those two go like this:

Chorus Strum

BRIDGE

And in the bridge section, you can do just up-strums on the off beats for the Dm chord. And a single down-strum each for E and F.

More Micucci

Garfunkel and Oates – Me, You and Steve (Chords)
Garfunkel and Oates – Present Face (Chords and Tab)
Garfunkel and Oates – Year End Letter (Chords)

Kate Micucci & Ted (Scrubs) – Screw You (Tab & Chords)
Kate Micucci & William H Macy – It’s Time to Get Laid (Chords)
Kate Micucci – Let Us Be Happy Together (Chords)
Kate Micucci/The Gooch – Mr Moon (Chords)

Kate Micucci Interview

A genre hopping week this week with soul from Celisse Henderson, backwoods punk from the Denver City Saltlicks (and check out their badass diddley bow riffing) and reggae from Tribal Theory along with the usual bits of instrumental wizardry and girls with jazzy voices.

If you’re looking for some non-uke action, take a listen to some Malawian diddley bow action and Wu Man playing the 4-string Chinese pipa.

Read the rest of this entry »

Local Registrar on Barack Obama’s birth certificate was one ‘U K L Lee’.

New live album from the UOGB on the way: Still Live. Tracks include new tour hits like Hot Lips and Good Sculptures and new versions of old favourites like Le Freak and Monster. Full track list on UOGB Frog Fans.

MP3s: New Re-entrants album available on CDBaby and iTunes, Jake Wildwood has a new instrumental record for free download, Thea Gilmore does a uke cover of John Wesley Harding on her new Dylan cover album.

The Hitachi Ukulele contest shambles I mentioned last week is rolling on. After complaints from schools they will look at the sites sending traffic and, “if we deem those sites to be inappropriate or unacceptable within the spirit of the competition then they will be disqualified.” I’m not sure how people are supposed to control which sites link to them. Or if it’s legal to change contest rules after they’ve finished in Australia.

She Geek does a ukulele song for Portal 2 (I still haven’t finished it).

It’s the big day tomorrow. Prince William finally makes Ken Middleton his bride. He’s always been royalty in our eyes.

As luck would have it, the Cabral machete method that I’ve been covering has two tunes appropriate to the occasion (read Part 1 and Part 2 of the series if you’ve no idea what I’m on about). Quite why a Madeiran machete method would dedicate two tunes to UK anthems I’m not sure.

Both these pieces are written for machete tuning DGBD (an octave above the baritone and with a low-D string and the E-string tuned down to D). But both of them sound great played with a standard ukulele with the A-string tuned down to G (so it’s the same pitch as the g-string).

God Save the Queen

As an atheist, republican with no desire to crush the Scottish, I have problems with this being the national anthem. I’d much prefer a song with a sentiment everyone can get behind like this one.

One thing I’m unsure of in this tab: the second chord in bar 3. I’m pretty sure I’ve written it up correctly but it sounds very discordant. Even more so in re-entrant tuning. Play it with an, “I know it sounds like shit and I don’t care,” attitude and you’ll get away with it (or pretty much anything).

Here it is played on a standard- uke tuned gCEG:

God Save the Queen (MP3)

Rule Britannia

In Manuel Morais‘s Colecção de Peças para Machete (well worth buying if you’re interested in this stuff) he says that an open bracket shape in the standard notation indicates that the chord is strummed down with the thumb. Which is the way I’ve written it up. But I didn’t play it that way. To play bar 16 that way is going to require some very nifty thumb work. Instead I went the easy way and used my fingers to pluck all the notes. Not authentic, but neither is playing it on a ukulele. Here’s the result:

Rule Britannia (MP3)

These pieces with arrangements by Manuel Joaquim Monteiro Cabral; and tab and audio by http://ukulelehunt.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

In what was intended to be a very straight-forward tab for Crazy, I couldn’t resist throwing in a few bent notes in bar 21. I’ve had a couple of people struggle with it so I thought I’d put up a brief post about bending.

The Basic Idea

You bend a string by pushing it upwards (for the E- and A-strings) or pulling it down (g and C) whilst staying at the same fret. This raises the pitch of the note. It looks like this:

Technically, you should bend the note up one fret’s worth where the tab has ‘1/2’ at the top and two frets worth where there is a ‘1’. However, nylon strings don’t take to bend as kindly as steel strings so you’re doing very well if you can accurately get a two step bend. I usually use bends on the uke to transition smoothly between two notes. Using it like a slide except it allows for a slower and more smooth transition.

A Couple of Tips

Finger Support: Use your ring finger to bend have your middle and index fingers behind it so you get extra bending power. In the example above, I needed my index finger to play the next note so I’m only using my middle as back-up.

Thumb Positioning: Bring your thumb over the top of the neck. That gives you much more squeezing power and it can also be used to stop the g- and C-strings from sounding – which they can do as your bend will rub up against them.

Use It

Patsy Cline/Willie Nelson – Crazy
WIUO – The Israelites
B-52s – Love Shack
Wayne Federman – Electric Ukulele Medley
Brian Hefferan – Mama Bear Bounce

This video made both me and L.bo Marie cry. She because the music is so affecting. Me because comparing their fresh-faces to my craggy, careworn flesh reminded me that my death is but a blink away.

Two things to bear in mind before you set out on this one. Firstly, he’s tuned down half a step to f# B Eb Ab. Secondly, I’ve simplified some of the chord names in the sheet. Technically the Em11 is Emadd11 and the F#m is F#maddb9.

Suggested Strumming

In the verses you can just do all down strums. That’s sixteen down strums for each chord (best to think of them as two groups of 8). If you want to follow what he does, he adds in a quick up-strum between the last two down-strums of each set of sixteen. So for each chord you’re doing this:

d – d – d – d – d – d – d – d –
d – d – d – d – d – d – d u d –

If you’re not doing the twiddly bit in the chorus you can continue with the down strums. Just be aware that it’s 8 then 6 down strums (not 8 then 8). So you’re doing this:

d – d – d – d – d – d – d – d –
d – d – d – d – d – d –

Twiddly Bits

The guitar part that’s played in the verse fits on the uke like this:

The fancy bit in the chorus (shown at the bottom of the chord sheet) pretty much combines that with the chords.

Requested by ukematt.

A big, fat happy half-century to Phredd for his birthday on Monday. In celebration, him and his buddies playing 42 Monkeys.

Also this week: woodland indie-folk from We Aeronauts, NSFW language from Garfunkel and Oates, some Whokulele silliness from Jo Stephenson, the new one from Sophie Madeleine and the Sophie Madeleines and plenty more.

New rule: I’m allowed to post one video a week that has a uke-related instrument in without having to apologise or explain. This week: Brazilians Sangue Brasileiro.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some very sad news on the ukulele sales front, musicguymic has had to shut up shop due to illness. Musicguymic was always the first person I recommended when it came to uke buying. I’ve never heard a word against the guy and he had the best selection and knowledge around. He’s really going to be missed and I wish him a speedy recovery.

The Eleuke electric acoustics are out. Eleukes have never been the prettiest ukuleles around but these really are an ugly piece of ass. Ukeku has a review (I don’t know how he could have given it 4/5 for looks).

Roper concert sized guitalele. Unusual to have a guitalele that small.

Some lustable vintage ukes: Martin baritone, Gibson baritone, Martin 3K.

I’ve been using Tumblr for a while now. There’s a lot of uke stuff, obviously, but also plenty of non-uke material. Official friend of the blog, L.bo Marie has been putting up some great uke photos on her Tumblr including these handsome ukers and a cycling ukulelist along with this insanely addictive little music maker. Also from Tumblr: ukulele pin-up, Tennessee-Virginia musicians.

James Hill has a new book out: Great Popular Songs. It contains chords and standard notation for songs like Sister Kate, Midnight Special and Roving Gambler in high-g friendly format. You can get a free sample here.

The New York Times talks ukes with Eddie Vedder, Amanda Palmer, tUnE-yArDs and Jim Beloff.

I’ve been grumbling about the over-supply of ukulele contests for a while but the Hitachi heat pumps thing going on at the moment is by far the most irritating of all time. Everyone has to record their awful jingle and the winner is the video with the most views. With a $10,000 prize, lots of schools have entered and people have badgered me to feature their videos. But the inevitable winner is the one willing to show the most tit. I’m never buying anything made by Hitachi again. Except maybe one of these – after that video I have a stiff, erm, neck?

Tab-u-learn/Tri-Tabs has moved again. It’s now PDF Minstrel.

Formby chords on Ukulele Cosmos.

Paganini and Bedouin Soundclash on Uker Tabs.

Zach ‘Scrubs’ Braff’s new play contains the role of Kim who, “Does not see how being an “escort” might not be the best path to becoming an internationally famous, ukulele-playing pop-star.” We’ve all been down that road.