I’ve never read a convincing justification for slotted headstocks. The best I’ve heard is that they reduce wind resistance when you spin round on stage. Jake Shimabukuro discussed it when he appeared at the Corktown Jam. He says that a thicker headstock gives you a fatter tone but the slots are required to stop it getting too heavy. I’m still not entirely convinced but he has some interesting things to say in that video.
Kala have fancied up their bicote ukuleles and they’ve emerged as butterflies. I still don’t like that grain though.
In the comments: reckons Martin ukuleles are over-priced: “I will still look for martins, but i refuse to pay a ridiculous amount of money for one. In reality the only reason they are so expensive is because they are very popular and vintage.”
The focus is on tunes that you’ll have fun playing and that people will recognise and be impressed by. The focus isn’t on good classical technique or faithful recreations of the original works (in some of them I’ve sythed out the less famous sections).
You get individual pdf files of each of the tabs along with an ebook (fancied up by Ben Lew) with my usual blathering and a few general pointers on playing. It’s not a full on guide to classical technique, more along the lines of the stuff that usually accompanies tabs on here. It’s all delivered digitally. Check out FAQ for more info.
I’ve decided just to go with the YouTube videos this time round. It cuts down on download size and technical problems. So there are no videos or MP3s included in the download. Just links to the YouTubes.
Why You Shouldn’t Buy It
In the spirit of bad marketing, you might not want to buy it if:
– You’ve never done any fingerpicking. There’s a variety of difficultly but none of them are suitable for beginners.
– You’re looking to develop classical technique.
– If you play soprano only: Some of the tunes use frets above the 12th.
What If I Get It And It Sucks?
As with all my stuff, if you don’t like it let me know within 7 days (with the email address you used to pay with) and I’ll send you full refund. No questions asked or seething resentment.
I Can Now Look Past Your Ugly Face and Repugnant Personality. How Do I Buy It?
Usually when I’m arranging for the uke I try to spread things across the strings, campanella style, so you’re not playing the same string many times in succession.
But there are times when that doesn’t work out. It’s then I bust out the running man:
You pick the string (the E-string in the case) alternately with your index and middle finger. That dramatically increases the speed you can play things at.
Here’s what the technique looks like when you have to swap between strings:
When you really have to bust out the speed, you can bring your ring finger in for support.
UPDATE: You can now buy the chords for this song (and other Bess Rogers songs) on Abatabs.
Bess Rogers is obviously a bit hit with the sensitive girl types who are fans of her cohorts Ingrid Michaelson and April Smith. I’ve had a bunch of requests to write up one of her songs.
Favourite video this week is a short and sour song from Savannah Smith. There’s only 1 minute and 13 seconds of it so I highly recommend listening to it five times in a row. Credit goes to Bossa for turning me onto Savannah and helping me to convince her to do a video for this song.
Also this a reet-petiting good time from Paolo Nutini, a Daniel Johnston cover with belated ukulele from Mates of State, Tift Merritt’s drummer and plenty more besides.
I’m a big enough man to admit this. I was wrong and Noel Edmonds was right. Last week I cosmically ordered a Koaloha Sceptre. This week my dealer of choice put up a Sceptre for the first time. I shall never doubt the Edmonds again. He is my new Jesus.
A few DeVine Ukuleles up this week from guitar and uke maker Eric DeVine. He has an impressive client list including Jack Johnson, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready, and Kimo Hussey.
If you hadn’t noticed, I made it back from Download safe and sound and only briefly jaloped. AC/DC were, as always, highly entertaining and completely ridiculous. The biggest disappointment was Them Crooked Vultures who only had two decent and made up for it with some interminable noodling. The band I enjoyed most, and I wasn’t expecting this, were Dillinger Escape Plan (as covered by Status Quo). They’re completely off their boxes and bloody brilliant.
Another surprise was in a Slash set that contained Paradise City and Sweet Child… the highlight was the Velvet Revolver song Slither. It’s got a huge riff and should have been in my Guitar Riffs for Ukulele series long ago.
To keep it in the original key, I’m using D-tuning (you could equally use a capo on the 2nd fret).
The fake strum is a simple technique that I use a lot in my arrangements. So it’s about time I gave it a post of its own.
It’s used in fingerpicking pieces to play full chords. It sounds like a strum but it’s just done by picking individual strings in sequence.
Here it is played twice slowly then up to speed.
Why bother?
Instead of doing this, you could just strum the strings and get the same effect. However, doing it this way keeps your fingers in position for picking individual notes. Making for much easier and smoother playing.
Here’s a quick video combining picking and fake strums.
In Tab
There isn’t any established tab for this as far as I know. I haven’t been distinguishing between fake and real strums in the past. But from now on I’ll be representing fake strums with a wiggly line like this:
You can do fake up-strums as well (although it’s more tricky and I can’t remember ever using one). But if one crops up I’ll be tabbing it like this:
