The biggest surprise that came from my stats-trawl is that, after Hey, Soul Sister, this song is the second most searched-for-but-not-found on the site. And this one is much more of pleasure to put up.

The song doesn’t feature any uke and is in the uke-unfriendly key of Ab. So capo 1st fret (or sing it down half a step).

Suggested Strumming

For most of the chords you can use this two bar pattern:

d – d u – u d u
– u d u – u d –

The only exception is the final line in each verse, just use the first part of the strum once for each chord except the final G (which is back to the original pattern). In the final verse, the C in the last line also uses the two bar pattern.

Buy it on BandCamp.

I’ve used Guitar Pro for all the tabs I’ve made on the site. It was easily the best tabbing software around but GuitarPro 5 had a number of drawbacks for uke tabbers (read about them in my review). So I was very eager to try out GuitarPro 6 which was released earlier this month.

Here’s what I’ve found as I tested it out and I roped in BrianW who kept a very close eye on the bugs and problems with GP5.

Should I Upgrade to Guitar Pro 6?

Brian: This is a stable product and is a big upgrade and improvement on GuitarPro 5. We have been waiting for 2 years and it was worth it. The team have obviously taken the decision not to drip-drip minor fixes and improvements, but to take their time in re-building the product from the bottom up. Performance is very good on my Windows 7 machine.

The Big Improvements

Mac Version

Woodshed: This is a massive improvement. GP5 was unusable on the Mac. Hampered in what it could do and constantly crashing. GuitarPro 6 can do everything the PC version can do and I haven’t had any problems with it crashing.

Layout

B: Tools are now on the left of the screen. At first this seems strange, but it allows editing of a ‘what you see is what you get’ of a music sheet A4 portrait format – this look and feel (after a while) began to grow on me!

Multiple files can now be opened at the same time, and are displayed as Tabs across the top – not standard Windows layout, but very nice, once you get used to it

W: After the initial, “Holy crap, where is everything?” I found the new layout really easy to use. The browser style windows work great. The monochrome colour scheme is more modern but less friendly than old brownie.

The Ukulele is Fixed

W: Finally! The ukulele tuning is now right (for C, D and low-G tunings). And the standard notation is now in the correct octave. You can adjust the tuning to whatever you like via the tuning panel (yeah, it’s a bass guitar but you can’t have everything).

The Panels

Panels are little windows on the left, the two most useful are a chord panel (makes it so much easier – would be nice if you could drag and drop them into the score) and the lyrics panel (so you can now just type up the lyrics, divide them into syllables and you’re done).

Smaller Improvements

W: – As well as tab and standard notation you can now show chords in slash notation like this:

Brilliant new feature which I may well use for showing strums in future.

– You can set up templates for tabs that you can use as a basis for future tabs. That means you can set the layout you like, ukulele tuning and fill the chord panel with often used chords.
– Undo stretches back a lot further.

B:- Full Realistic Sound Engine (RSE) for non-rock band instruments (grand piano, strings etc.)
– Grand staff automatically supported for grand piano
– Multi-track lyrics
– Post-production sound features such as attack etc.
– More reliable input from PowerTab
– Notes can be made of longer duration or shorter by a keyboard short-cut (yes a simple idea, but a good one!)

W: Those of you with an incredible eye for detail and no life whatsoever will have noticed that the tabs on the Fall post had a transparent background rather than a white one. The tab images are now exported as .png rather than .bmp.

Niggles

W: A few things have got worse:

– You can’t transpose directly from one instrument to another. You have to create a new track with the right instrument and copy/paste to the new track.
– When you’re setting chord names on the uke they almost always come up as slash chords e.g. an F chord will automatically be set as F/C.
– Right aligned ‘1’s look strange in chords.

B: – Still no output to Powertab and continuing poor Music XML support e.g. to and from professional software such as Finale and Sibelius.
– Fingering notation: text positioning remains a problem (especially for re-entrant instruments like the uke where different fingers produce the same note). (UPDATE: There are options in the stylesheet for the placing of fingering notation).
– The Help file is in HTML not a Windows help file. I cannot find a ‘search’ feature (W: There is a search feature in the Mac version, but I agree, the help needs work). A list of keyboard shortcuts is missing and will be ” be made available in the very near future with an automatic update.”

Overall

W: If you’re on a Mac, upgrade without a second thought. I also think it’s well worth the money if you own GP5 on the PC. Fewer crashes, easier to use and much better for uke use.

B: It is good that existing users are offered a substantial discount on the upgrade – and the special offer for €30 upgrade cost for existing GuitarPro users only lasts until the end of April – existing GP users should upgrade immediately.

Is It Worth Buying Guitar Pro 6?

B: Technical support has been good over the last 2 years – Franck at GuitarPro has responded quickly and helpfully to problems some of which were due to my own ineptitude in using the software and understanding music, and others which were genuine limitations or bugs present in GuitarPro 5.

B: Given that GuitarPro 6 is so much more capable than the previous version, the fact that it is selling for €60 is very good value for money. Sibelius G7 costs €150 (£100) and I am not sure that it is any better, and it is certainly not easier to use. However, many people will continue to battle on with PowerTab, but the flexibility of input into the standard notation bar that GuitarPro is worth the difference on its own.

You can Buy Guitar Pro 6 here.

In the Hey, Soul Sister post J-Hob declared that every time I post something appaling I have pay a Fall-feit. Last time, I attoned for the song with the name that shan’t be spoke with How I Wrote Elastic Man and Theme From Sparta FC. This time I’m going for something more recent with Blindness from Heads Will Roll.

I’ve beefed the bass line up by making them into power chords:

And here’s the keyboard riff (before MES shoulder barges her out the way and starts pressing random keys):

And here’s a total screw up to illustrate the dangers of tabbing from memory:

The is supposed to be the octave stabs on the guitar (which crop up only briefly on the album version but feature heavily in the live version). As it’s actually played, ignore the last two pairs of octaves.

Here’s me putting them together:

Uke version

Buy MP3

MP3

This one was suggested by Ben and Alec in the Essential Snippets post as a tune to play while waiting.

The first part of the tune, being in C, works really well on the uke. Then it switches up to Eb and plays exactly the same thing. Which makes things much more tricky. I’ve added some fingering suggestions underneath the tab.

Videos this week include Svavar Knutur via Ukulele Languages, Brett Domino bringing sexy and a host of fantastic instruments back, Kate Micucci giving herself a nap after confusing herself with tax terms (watch this video first if you want the set-up to the song), some nasty blues-funk from Manitoba Hal and Primrose with the least safe for work song I’ve ever featured.

Read the rest of this entry »

I went to Belper Uke Gathering last week. I wasn’t there long, but while I was I got a chance to try out Ohana’s new resonator ukuleles. They’re very nice ukes. Well made, top quality parts, sound great. I don’t understand why they did that.

The problem is, they’re in the same price range as Nationals. The tenor will be almost exactly the same price as a triolian (although the triolian is a concert). Even if the Ohana is better than the National, I’ll still want the National because they have the story. They’re THE resonator maker. Their instruments were used by the great bluesmen and Hawaiian players of the 20s and 30s. Buy a National, you buy the story free and you get to play at Son Houses.

Ohana have a great story too. They slap together ukuleles in China so you can have a nice sounding, solid wood uke that won’t give you any problems at a decent price. That’s the reason I play my Ohana more than any other ukulele. But it also stops me spending a fat wad of cash on one of their ukes.

Compare Ohana to Kala. They’re in a similar area and have both been rapidly expanding the number of models. But Kala have stuck more closely to the idea of making ukes that are like expensive ones but more affordable. So they make the Acacia tenor for people who want to have a uke like Jake’s and the uBass for people who can’t afford a Road Toad.

Ohana don’t seem to have the same focus. If Ian Ohana had asked me what I thought, I would have gone with a cheaper, mass produced cones rather than the top, handmade ones they have. (All this is just what goes through my head – any resemblance to good business practice is purely coincidental).

On the subject of resonators, there’s this unusual ‘Resonator Fiddle Baritone’ on eBay.

Photos: Dour women sit on a car, ukulele woman.

Here’s a useful site that’ll help you transfer guitar tabs to ukulele. Obviously, it’ll take a bit of reworking afterwards but it looks very useful.

Eleuke USA are on a big publicity drive at the moment and they’ve just announced a new contest that starts in June. It’s the usual video contest affair. The big difference is that, rather than offering a uke, they’re giving away a pile of dirty, filthy cash-money. And a decent chunk of it too. $5,000 to the winner and another $10,000 to various other participants. The downside is that you have to use an Eleuke in your video (and, from my experience, I wouldn’t recommend buying one). That seems like it’s going to significantly cut down the size of the field.

In the comments: The 10 things that might be bollocks has provoked a lot of discussion. There were some great suggestions for additions to the essential snippets post which I’ve added to the post.

Episode 1 of Bosko and Honey’s Oz Safari.

London’s Ukulele Wednesdays is celebrating three years of jamming next Wednesday.

CTFxC is for ukulele lovers.

The ultimate ukulele outfit (thanks to Bartt and Mrs Bartt)

Yes, I’ve finally caved. The endless requests, the hundreds of people turning up at the site looking for it, Ritek making me feel guilty about it, ukulele-tabs.com getting ganked. And then there’s the sensible part of me that thinks, “It’s only a damn song. If people just want to play it, why are you being such a dick?” My stated aim is to, “make sure everyone who wants to play an instrument does.” So until I amend it to, “make sure everyone who wants to play an instrument does – unless I think they have terrible taste,” here it is.

I have to admit, despite it having some of the most appalling lyrics I’ve ever heard, I did catch myself humming the tune on a number of occasions.

Judging by the video, he has the G and A strings switched round. So the B chord is actually being played 2324, the C#m 4446, A chord 0102 and E is 2444. The only advantage I can see with this is that the E chord is a lot easier to play. But I’ve written the chords up in standard tuning since I guess that’s what most of you will be using.

Suggested Strumming

The main pattern is:

d – d – – u d u

Play that twice for each chord in the verse. The only exception is on the lines that finish with a quick A – B change where you play the pattern once for each chord.

In the chorus, play the pattern twice on A and once on B. Then two down strums each for the E and B.

In the Key of F

The chords are in the uke-unfriendly key of E which is a sure sign it was written on guitar and hastily transferred to uke when they heard the bandwagon rolling into town.

A simpler set of chords to use would be in F:

Tune your uke down half a step to B-tuning if you want to play in the same key as the original.

In the Key-na Grannis

For her version of the song Kina Grannis uses the D chord shapes and is also in B-tuning.

Next week, Justin Bieber and High School Musical.

A few ideas for people who want to start making their own arrangements of tunes.

For this post I’ll be using Ode to Joy because the melody is very simple and you can play it against one chord (in this case C). Here’s the snippet:

MP3

You’ll have to forgive any sniffles, coughs and hocked loogies you can pick up on these MP3s. I’m down with a nasty cold at the moment.

Melody and Strums

The most common way to combine melody and chords is to strum the chord and add the melody note on top of that.

In this case, we can strum the open g, C and E strings (make up a C chord) while we play the melody on the top string.

MP3

To make the melody note stand out make sure it’s the last note you hit. So when the melody is on the A string use a down strum, when it’s on the g-string use an up strum. Because the melody here is all on the A-string, you use all down strums. I’m using my thumb for the strums and the single notes but for more complicated pieces varying your strumming and picking will make things more interesting.

Check out Mark Occhionero arrangement of Blue in Green for an idea of what you can do with this technique.

Melody and Harmony and Strum

You can spice up the chord soloing idea by harmonizing the melody. Here I’m harmonizing with notes a third below the melody.

MP3

Back-up Picking

Here we’re adding in a simple fingerpicking pattern behind the melody. The picking hand is one finger per string (thumb on g-string, index on C-string, middle on E-string, ring on A string).

MP3

There are all sorts of patterns you can use for this type of accompaniment. Take a listen to Rick Hulett’s arrangement of Falling Slowly for some ideas.

Alternate Picking

Fingerpicking again but this time, rather than having a dedicated finger for each string, the thumb flips between the g and C strings. On the guitar this type of playing is referred to as Travis picking or Cotten picking.

Here’s a typical pattern with the thumb playing the g and C strings, the index on the E and the middle on the A.

And here’s how you could use the pattern to play Ode to Joy.

MP3

Here are a couple of tunes played in this way.

Which is the Best?

The one that sounds best to you.

There isn’t a right answer. Try them all out (and try it campanella style).

I’ve already put up two arrangements of Ode to Joy and neither of them sound anything like any of the arrangements on this post. If I was going to pick one for this tune, I’d go with the alternate picking. Which I never even thought of trying before this post.

There are so many ways of arranging any tune the only way to go is choose the one that suits you best rather than blindly copying the way it works for someone else.

I was tempted to bust out some Boyoyo Boys licks, but this was the only choice for the Malcolm McLaren tribute post.

Twiddly Bits

The chords for this one are pretty simple, but there are plenty of opportunities for showing off as well

There’s a simple bit at the end of the lines in the verse:

You can mix it up with the little picking pattern Will plays like this:

For the general widdling, use the G major scale (there’s a fretboard diagram here) for runs such as this:

In the run up to the first break create a bit of tension with something like this:

For the first instrumental break, use notes from the A Dorian scale. That sounds way more complicated than it is. The A Dorian scale has exactly the same notes as the G major scale. The only difference is the key you’re playing it in.

The end of the first break goes something like this (on a low-G uke):

For the second break concentrate on notes from the A minor pentatonic scale and throw in some of the other notes from A Dorian for a bit of colour.

Buy it on Live in London #1 or the Prom Night DVD