Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová – Falling Slowly (Tab)
Another song from the movies today. And it’s a really lovely song from a really lovely film. In fact, second best song from a film ever (best song from a film ever coming up next week).
My instrumental version is very heavily based on Rick Hulett’s. It uses familiar chord shapes (G, C, D and Em) and simple picking. For the double notes in the tune I use a mini up-strum with my index finger. that gives the first string you hit (always the melody note) a bit more emphasis. But there’s nothing wrong with picking them with index and middle fingers.
I’ve been looking back through this year’s UkeTubes and there’s been some really fantastic stuff. There’s been so much variety in the stuff that’s been produced. I was about to say best year ever, but perhaps it’s not quite as good as last year – I’ll say this year is best for videos and last year was best for records.
So today I’ve put together two posts with my favourite videos from UkeTubes this year* along with ones that caused a stir in the comments and those that spread on the net. Let me know your favourites and what I’ve missed out in the comments.
*Rules fudged so I could include Keston Cobblers’ Club.
Bella Hemming – (She Might Love You If You Learn To) Play Guitar (Chords)
After all the ukulele songs about the ukulele, it makes a pleasant change to have a song about guitars. It’s terrible advice, of course, but a catchy song and an excellent chord progression.
Suggested Strumming
For the strumming pattern you can use:
Do that once for each chord. During the Bbmaj7 – Bbadd9 move you can use the same strum but change here:
The only exception is with the Bbmaj7 to C9 in the chorus. There just do the first bar of the pattern for each chord.
Richard Durrant’s planned collaborative performance of Tubular Bells at Wukulele next week had me going back to my arrangement of it and the accompanying comments about how dumb I am because there are easier ways to play it. Well, I always listen to my readers. I’ve gone back, reworked it and come up with a more difficult way to play it.
Campanella Version
Tubular Bells (Tab)
This time I’ve arranged it campanella style (so there’s one note per string) which seems appropriate since we’re talking about bells. It’s really important that you keep all the notes ringing into each other. So your index finger needs to be glued to the C string and your pinkie on the E string.
I’ve never quite understood the big deal about easy when it comes to music. The most common uke-related question on Yahoo Answers is, “How easy is it to play?” It’d be nice if, just once, someone asked, “Can I use the ukulele to wordlessly express the very core of my being?” or, “Can a ukulele make a sound that will bring great men to tears at the revelation of the fragility of perfect beauty?”
But if you must have an easy version, here you go. Just know that you’re the reason fairies die.
The time signature he uses is much easier to count out. But it does mean the E note moves about in the bar (which fries my brain and ends in me screwing it up). It’s a matter of personal preference which way you prefer to think of it.
Three of today’s videos come courtesy of Jeff’s series of animated videos. Flesh and blood offerings come include Those Darlins (who are my biggest band crush since The Detroit Cobras), a new song from Sophie Madeleine (with one more on Wild Honey Pie where you can also learn why Sophie is friends with dicks and whores) and Hellogoodbye being a bit quiet.
But the two ukuleles I’d be willing to camp outside a Bangkok shop for are this Kamaka signed by both Samuel Kamaka and Ohta-San this Martin 5K (which is already provoking some fierce bidding).
One advantage of people not knowing the difference between mandolins and ukuleles is occasionally stumbling across photos as brilliant as this.
In keeping with this week’s Halloween theme. Mad Tea Party have released a rollocking new Halloween EP Rock-n-Roll Ghoul. And if you didn’t pick up Zombie Boogie last year, I recommend you do so forthwith.
The theme tune for Halloween the film was written by its director John Carpenter. Which may account for the fact it has all the horror film cliches: the weird time signature, the devil’s interval. And the main part is just the same phrase moved slowly down the neck.
I’ve posted up two tabs: one with just the main part and this one with the main part and the string bits as a duet.
