Quite tricky to play this one. The first section is made up of campanella bits on G and Am (5450) mixed with short runs. For the runs in both sections it’s worth using pinkie, ring and middle for fretting. It’s a stretch in some places much makes it easier to set up for the chords.

My picking in this video is, I’ll admit, a mess. I use my thumb, index and middle and move them between strings. It’d be better to allocate one finger to each string in the campanella parts. Also, I used just my middle finger to pick the runs. It’d make it easier to speed up if you used index, middle, index in a running-man motion.

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

Back in 2008 when I first did an Irish tabs post I was wondering why there wasn’t any ukulele scene in Ireland. But I’m proud that post helped kick off Ireland’s ukulele group and festival and there seems to be a lot of ukulele interest over there now.

If you’re looking for some Irish music to play for St Patrick’s, here are a few ideas.

Uke Hunt Stuff

Whiskey in the Jar/Kilgary Mountain
The Pogues – Streams of Whiskey
The Pogues – Irish Rover
Father Ted Theme
The Pogues – Fairytale of New York
Van Morrison – Keep It Simple
John King – Larry O’Gaff
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova – Falling Slowly
U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday (Riff) (Tab)
The Pogues – Fiesta

Other Stuff

Ken Middleton has a Celtic ukulele ebook and a few free Irish tune tabs.

Akulele has a number of Irish tunes: Sally Gardens, Drowsy Maggie, Another Jig Will Do, Kesh Jig and The Star of County Down.

The site Irish Ukulele has tab for The Battle of Aughrim and their own version of Another Jig Will Do, as well as a couple of other tunes.

And for your listening pleasure: Ireland on Ukulele Languages

If you know of anything else, drop it in the comments and I’ll add it to the list.

Time again for a week of Irishness starting, as always, with some St Shane.

Another dead simple one with just three chords. Since the instrumental bits are quite long, I’ve included bar lines. Which reminds me, I should probably do a post about bars some time. I’ve written up the full version, the video has a shortened intro.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this strum all the way through (except the stoppy bits):

d – d – d u d u

You can take it at a steady pace like this:

Slow strum

Or you can get into the spirit of the song and go double time like this:

Fast Strum

Twiddly Bits

Here’s the instrumental bits (and the intro is a shortened version of this).

Instrumental section

Donate to British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal

Donate to American Red Cross

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

In honour of the weather warming up a bit here (with apologies to those places under snow) a couple of summery tunes this week from Hellogoodbye and Shugo Tokumaru.

Highlight of the week is the video of Mel Torme busting out the bari that Shelley discovered. And there’s plenty more jazz this week from Sarah Maisel, Honey and the Baldies and Eugene singing a song that could be my theme tune.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve always associated coconut ukuleles with tacky tourist ukes. But here’s a Cox’s Cocolele from 1937; the year it was invented. You can see the patent here. Turns out old Coxy didn’t intend them as a cheap souvenir but a vast improvement over the heretofore crappy sounding ukulele.

Heretofore ukeleles have been made of mahogany, ohia, monkey-pod or redwood and, in spite of the exhaustive efforts made, fine tonal qualities have not been obtained.

It is therefore the principle object of my invention to produce a ukelele having fine tone, and I accomplish this by constructing a substantial portion of the main body of the ukelele from cocoanut shells.

Strange how that didn’t work out.

Sedlacek Jazz Ukulele

I was quite interested in the Blackbird Carbon Fiber ukulele being a uke impervious to heat and moisture (even if it doesn’t sound that great). But the $1,300 price tag makes it much less appealing.

“The hell with that damned guitar. It’s a haole-made instrument. And how’s my ukulele playing?” Kahauanu Lake died last Sunday. He’s most famous for writing Pua Lililehua (which I tabbed a little while back) and was a militant supporter of traditional Hawaiian music, Hawaiian culture and the ukulele’s place in them. As you can see in this interview. Ukulelia has a round-up of links.

Geek Pop’s sampler Geek Like Me is out now and features ukes from Helen Arney (as featured in the podcast), Jonny Berliner and MJ Hibbett.

Vingtage Ukulele Ike songbooks on Ukulele Cosmos. And less vintage chords for Uni and her Ukelele songs.

Charlieissocoollike did a ukulele song with Tim Minchin – and forgot to turn the mic on. There aren’t enough heads or desks in the world to do that one justice.

Musician microfunder site, Pledge Music has set up a publishing and made Sophie Madeleine their first signing. (Those three guys behind her do make her look like a cheery despot parading prisoners of war).

Amanda Palmer comes up with a clever solution to the playing ukulele whilst standing problem.

I was halfway towards doing a version of the Patsy Cline Crazy when I heard Don Ross’s cover of the Gnarls Barkley Crazy and decided on that instead. Or maybe as well as; I might do both.

I play this one quite loosely – strumming when the mood takes me and messing around with the verses – so the tab shows the melody and the chords and you can strum as you see fit. It’s also worth hitting a few extra notes along with the melody to keep things going.

There are lots of rapidfire note sections which are quite tricky to play. You could pare these down a bit to make it easier to play and still recognisable.

Yesterday – it being International Women’s Day – I was musing on how gender balanced the ukulele world is (compare the average ukulele festival to scenes from NAMM). I like to have a healthy mix on the site and writing about the ukulele makes it very easy.

But it goes beyond gender. The ukulele scene is generally inclusive and has long been home people who are not fitters-in. It’s one of my favourite aspects of the scene. And it got me thinking of Tiny Tim.

When the campaign to induct Tiny Tim into the Ukulele Hall of Fame came along I was more than a little sceptical. And I still have my doubts. But I’ve started to change my mind.

The uke has always been an outsider instrument. It was built by immigrants and adopted by Hawaiians quickly being elbowed out of their own country. Ever since it’s been taken up by the misunderstood, the misshapen and the mentally other. And Tiny Tim is the embodiment of all those things. Best of all, he was happy to be that way. It never seemed like he was putting on an act but just gleefully being himself. It’s a point Penn Jillette makes in this video:

What I really love most about Tiny Tim is the complete lack of irony and the complete lack of cynicism in Tiny Tim.

Whether you’re seven hundred pounds, buck-toothed, slightly deranged or all of the above, Tiny Tim means you’ll never be the weirdest person to pick up a uke. And that’s the way it should stay. No matter how many skinny, straight-toothed popstars pick it up.

Tiny Tim should be in the Ukulele Hall of Fame because he is the ultimate representation of one concept: the ukulele will always welcome freaks, weirdos, outcasts and outsiders.

Amanda Palmer’s new one Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under is a very enjoyable listen. Particularly Map of Tasmania (C6 – D) and this simple little waltz. She’s really good when she manages to get her ukulele in tune.

Suggested Strumming

Almost all the way through it’s this four times for each chord:

d – d u d –

The exception is at the end of what I’ve called the chorus. There do this for the C:

d – d u d – d – d – d –

And just one down strum for the D.

Links

Buy it on Bandcamp
More Life is Strange tabs and chords

Requested by Amy.