Macy Gray – I Try (Tab)

Thanks to Lin for suggesting Macy Gray’s I Try for a tabbing. She’s remembered as a one hit wonder, but Macy Gray had a few great songs.

Verse: The first verse is nice and simple, with everything in the first position. Just a few sus chords among us. And the open g-string gets a lot of use in the melody.

The second verse is more tricky, with a couple of trips up the neck.

Pre-Chorus: Just a big jump up to the seventh fret to deal with the first time around. Again, the second time around, things get tricky and you’re playing way up the neck.

Chorus: I love the campanella run in bar 16. It’s a little fiddly to play, but I think it’s worth the effort.

Outro: This section might not be worth the effort! The key change in this song is so iconic I couldn’t leave it out. But it makes the song much more difficult to play. I wouldn’t blame if you just played the chorus in the original key here instead.

Links

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Uke Hunt Patreon

A massive thanks again to the massive generosity of 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:

And extra thanks to May’s Tenor level backers:

– Arthur Foley
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ely Fletcher
– Ivo
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Leia-lee Doran
– Margit Stadlmann
– Mary
– Moses Kamai
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Ryan Grubbs
– Tina Knight

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including May’s: Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.

Taylor Swift – august (Tab)

Taylor Swift seems to be ubiquitous these days. And there’s no getting away from her here, I’m afraid. Here’s my take on a track from her album Folklore (giving you plenty of time to practice before it becomes relevant): August

Verse: These are nice and simple. Standard chords in the first position.

Chorus: There aren’t many songs that get more gentle in the chorus. But it’s very effective here. This section is slightly more difficult. It moves up the neck for a bit of campanella action and there’s some swift picking required.

The second chorus starts with an A minor chord rather than a C. If you prefer, you can just stick with C since that’s what she did on the Long Pond version.

Bridge: The song changes character here and it gets much trickier to play. The melody is less structured than in the verse and chorus, with a bunch of words crammed in.

Outro: I tried to mimic the way the song drops out for the first bar of this section the second time it crops up. Then blasting in with full on strumming.

Links

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Jawbreaker – Boxcar (Tab)

I was very sad to hear of the death of Steve Albini recently. I’ve covered a bunch of songs he worked on in the past including Where Is My Mind?, All Apologies and Heart Shaped Box.

For this tribute, I went with Jawbreaker’s response to sell-out accusations: Boxcar.

The arrangement is just blasting out chords with a few picked notes here and there. The only thing that makes it tricky is the speed. I found the G-Am change in the chorus particularly tricky to get the hang of.

Links

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Watch on YouTube

Playlist
Cyrille Aimée & Handmade Moments – Another War
Taimane – Gotta Get It
Ukulollo – Monopolele Pizzica
M.J. & Saskia – First Light
Dingus Khan – Japanese Fighting Bugs
Eugene Kurenko – Paso doble for Elise and ukulele
PROMISE. – How It Feels To Be Loved
4stringboy – Star Wars Duel of Fates
UkuleleJarmo & Mig Martins – Um tom pra Jobim

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – Home (Tabs)

Here’s a tab for probably the biggest hit of the indie folk era: Home.

Intro: Straight in with the trickiest part of the song. If you wanted to make this easier, you could just chug out the chords rather than tackling the fingerpicking.

Verse: I’ve tried to keep the feeling of a duet in this section. For the female part, I use bends and play close to the bridge to give it a raspier sound. Then play away from the bridge to get a fuller tone for the male part. You can judge for yourself whether it works. I’m not sure.

If you don’t want to play the bends, you can replace them with the open A-string.

Chorus: Nice and easy. Just picking a simple melody and strumming the chords.

Solo: Nothing difficult here either in terms of fretting. But there are a bunch of bars of 2/4 which make the timing tricky to keep track of.

Links

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More folk tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

The Black Keys – Tighten Up (Tab)

The Black Key’s Tighten Up, like most of their songs, is a very straight forward blues rock song. But there are a couple of oddities. The first is a rogue bar of 3/4 in bar 38.

The second starts at bar 48 when the song, ironically, loosens up and the tempo slows. I think you could switch the 3/4 bar to 4/4 and no one would notice. But the tempo change feels integral to the song.

Links

Buy the original
More rock tabs and chords
Uke Hunt 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:

And extra thanks to March’s Tenor level backers:

– Arthur Foley
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ely Fletcher
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Leia-lee Doran
– Margit Stadlmann
– Mary
– Moses Kamai
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Ryan Grubbs
– Tina Knight

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including April’s: ELO’s Mr Blue Sky

Blink-182 – All the Small Things (Tab)

Here’s a fun version of Blink-182’s infectious (in the good sense and the bad sense) earworm All the Small Things.

Intro: All strums. I’m using my index finger a bit like a pick here (and in most of the song).

For all the strumming parts in the song, don’t worry about hitting the exact strings so long as you’re holding down the chord.

Verses: I’m using a bit of palm muting on the strings during the strums (i.e. resting the side of my strumming hand lightly on the strings). That allows the melody to stand out more.

The only tricky part here is in bar 17. I like the harmony on “At my show” so I’ve included that with the lower note picked by the thumb and the higher note by the index finger.

Pre-Chorus, Chorus and Outro: All very simple strumming on standard chords.

Solo: Similar to the intro but with a little melody on the g-string. So try to emphasise that as much as you can.

Break: Starts of with strumming then switches to fingerpicking which builds into the outro. The picking isn’t complicated but it is fast. If you’re only it for the strumming, you can skip this bit entirely and just play the first four bars of the break.

Links

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

R.E.M. – Pop Song 89

50 Cent – P.I.M.P.

Justin Hurwitz – Another Day of Sun (From La La Land)

Bruno Mars – Runaway Baby

Guppy – Texting and Driving