Radiohead – Creep (Tab)

Even though Radiohead have disavowed Creep, it’s still a classic song with ubiquitous 90s quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamics.

Intro: Starting off with a fingerpicking played with one-finger-per-string picking.

Verse: Mixing together the melody with the fingerpicked chords before switching to strums for the ck-ck bits leading into the chorus.

Bridge: Easily the funnest bit of the song to play. It gets a bit cramped at the top of the uke, though, so it requires a bit of careful fretting.

Outro: Just a stripped down version of the verse.

Links

Buy the original
More 90s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Paul Hemmings Trio – Caravan
Taimane – Pipeline's Daughter
Kala’i Kealoha – Maunaloa
Amelia Coburn – When The Tide Rolls In
Steven Warren – Prelude from Cello Suite No.1 (J.S. Bach)
Corina Lawrence ft. Miss Bolivia – LA DESCARRIÁ
Will Wood – Tomcat Disposables
Adrian Demain – Place To Be
Edem Soul – Vibe With Me!

The Chordettes – Mr Sandman (Tab)

The release of the new Sandman TV show seems like a good excuse to finally get around to tabbing this classic. My arrangement is heavily based on the Chordettes version. Although not the original version, it’s by far the best known.

Intro 1: I couldn’t resist rearranging Metallica’s Enter Sandman as an intro. Feel free to come up with an intro of your own or skip it all together.

Intro 2: You can’t skip this one! It sounds fantastic and fits on the ukulele very nicely.

Verse 1: Lots of tasty chords going on. And I’ve tried to incorporate some of the bass runs.

Verse 2: I’ve added some extra elements here. There are some changes to the melody and plenty of twiddles. I made al the twiddles have are descending to give it a feel of gently falling asleep. Plenty of room for your own ideas here. The verse starts with a few “dings and pings”. These are natural harmonics.

Links

Buy the original
More 50s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Another rag-tag selection of musical snippets that have caught my ear recently.

Update: It looks like Instagram has been messing around again and some of the video are embedding in a janky fashion. You can find all the videos on Instagram. They’re currently the most recent six.

Four Tops – Reach Out I’ll Be There

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @ukulelehunt

Wet Leg – Chaise Longue

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @ukulelehunt

Linkin Park – One Step Closer

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @ukulelehunt

Kasabian – L.S.F.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @ukulelehunt

Bojack Horseman: Sextina Aquafina – Get Dat Fetus Kill Dat Fetus

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @ukulelehunt

Atarashii Gakko! – Woo! Go!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @ukulelehunt

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Theme (Tab)

Here’s an absolute banger from my childhood: the TMNT theme.

The chorus is straightforward strumming. And it’s one of the rare occasions when the melody is all on the g-string.

The verse is much more challenging. The melody is very fast so I’ve skipped a few notes to make it more playable. Even so, it’s a bit of a finger-twister.

Links

Buy the original
More theme tunes
Uke Hunt Patreon

Jake Shimabukuro plays While My Guitar Gently Weeps at Abbey Road Studios

The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra reformed to pay tribute to historian Lydia Wevers.

Son repairs the damage his dad’s uke picked up in the Vietnam War.

The unbearable embarrassment of your mom being in a ukulele group.

Kala have released a new range of ukes: The Metropolitan.

Patreon

A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:

– Arthur Foley
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dan
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Fi Keane
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Kie77
– Lisa Johnson
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nick Parsons
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– T S
– Thorsten Neff

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including July’s: Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under the Bridge.

Alanis Morissette – Hand in My Pocket (Tab)

Another 90s classic today: Alanis Morissette’s Hand in My Pocket.

The intro and verses are very straightforward. It’s one chord all the way through and you don’t have to move up the neck.

But things get much trickier in the transition into the chorus. There’s more movement up and down the neck and some of the twiddles are a challenge. Bar 16 is the section I had to practice the most.

The harmonica solo is very simple. There’s lots of room for being more ambitious here (particularly with the chords just being a C drone) but I like the simplicity of the original.

Links

Buy the original
More 90s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Time for the Uke Hunt Annual Chord Quiz. Test your chord knowledge, theory knowledge and musical ear. The method is as low-tech as ever.

– Grab a pen and paper.
– Answer the questions (using a ukulele to help you is entirely allowed and encouraged).
– Check the answers here (no peeking).

If you’re reading by email or feed reader you may need to click through to the post to see everything.

Chord Diagrams

Name the chord from the chord diagram (the chords are either major or minor, nothing more complicated than that).

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Chord Flavour: Diagrams

All these are Bb chords but are they Bb, Bbm, Bb7, Bbm7, or Bbmaj7?

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Chord Flavour: Listening

All these are A chords but are they A, Am, A7, Am7 or Amaj7?

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Chord Makeup

Each of these triads of notes makes up a major chord (e.g. the notes of a C chord are C, E and G). Which one? (The notes are listed in alphabetical order starting at C to make it harder.)

16. D, F#, A

17. D, F, Bb

18. D, G, B

19. C, F, A

20. Eb, G, Bb

Chord Progression

Match the MP3 to the chord sequence:

a) Bb – C – F – Bb – F
b) Bb – F – Bb – C7 – F
c) Bb – Dm – C – C7 – F
d) Bb – A – C – C7 – F
e) Bb – D7 – G7 – C7 – F

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

Go here to check your answers

Links

Big Chord Quiz 1
Big Chord Quiz 2
Big Chord Quiz 3
Big Chord Quiz 4
Big Chord Quiz 5
Big Chord Quiz 6
The Big Chord Quiz 7
More ukulele quizzes

Neil Diamond – Song Sung Blue (Tab)

I was completely unaware of Neil Diamond’s Song Sung Blue before it was suggested on Patreon. Although I was familiar with Mozart’s Piano Concerto 21 which heavily influenced it.

The chill organ intro is my favourite part of the song. I’m picking this using one-finger-per-string.

The picking in the verse is a bit more haphazard. But the basis is the thumb alternating between the g- and C-strings with each followed by a strum. Then the melody sits of top of that.

In the original, there’s a half-verse solo with an instrumental of the melody. Since we’re already doing that, I threw in a quick solo of my own making. Plenty of scope for your own ideas here.

Links

Buy the original
More 70s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Stables – Solstice Soufflé
Laura Currie & George Hinchliffe – Johnny B Goode
Amanda Shires & Jason Isbell – Mineral Wells
Bobby Alu & Foloi Iulia – Si Fe’e (Story of the octopus & the rat)
Jim Boggia – Tenth Avenue Freezeout
George Elmes – Firefinger
Honoka – Ku’u Lei Puakenikeni
Allison Young & Joshua Lee Turner – Samba Ukulele (Thanks to Colin)
Tyrone and Lesley – Ending
Emily Elbert + Jacob Collier – Not Alone