Harry Styles – As It Was (Tab)

I hadn’t heard Harry Styles’s As It Was before it cropped up as a Patreon request and my hopes weren’t high. Turns out it’s a pretty great song. Very catchy with a melancholy edge.

Intro: A bit of Take On Me action with this riff. Once the chords kick in at bar 2, prioritise keeping the energy up over hitting exactly the right strings. As long as you’re holding the chord, it’ll sound great.

Verse: Mostly one finger per string picking here but I’m alternating index and middle finger to pick the C notes in bars 7 and 11.

I snuck in a little lick at the end of bar 8 to fill up the bar. You’re welcome to use your own ideas here.

Chorus: Just strumming for the chorus. The trickiest part is hitting the F chord just before the end of bars 15 and 19. Don’t worry if you hit some of the open strings when you play the A-string, 7th fret the note before.

You could always extend that note at the 7th fret and hit the F chord at the start of bar 16/20. I doubt anyone will notice.

Bridge: A whole mess of notes here. Definitely need some alternate picking to get through it.

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R.E.M. – Endgame (Tab)

An instrumental track from R.E.M.’s classic Out of Time.

Intro: Starting off with thumb and two finger picking.

I love the way this riff works with open strings on the uke. So much so, I considered inserting into the song itself. In the end, I saved it for the outro.

Verse: By far the hardest part of the song comes with the big jumps down the fretboard in bars 13-16. Well worth practicing these bars by themselves until you’ve got them down.

Chorus: Switching to one finger per string picking and moving into strums at the end of the chorus.

Bridge: This section is just chord strumming.

Links

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The Jesus and Mary Chain – Sometimes Always (Tab)

Tabbing a Mazzy Star song inspired to me to bash together this Hope Sandoval featuring Jesus and Mary Chain song. And “bash” is an accurate description. It’s a route 1 arrangement with just strumming and melody.

Links

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Mazzy Star – Fade Into You (Tab)

By far the most challenging aspect of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You is the timing of the melody. Thanks to Gen X disaffection, the melody keeps coming in later than you’d expect.

In the verses, you’d expect the melody in bars 7, 11 and 19 to hit right at the start of the bar (as it does in bar 15). Instead, it comes in a quaver late (or eighth note if you prefer).

In the chorus, it’s similar in bars 23, 27 and 31. But I found these even trickier to get the hang of.

No such problems in the solo, though. Here you can mess around however you please using the chords as a basis for your twiddling.

Links

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It’s Uke Hunt t-shirt season again! Most years around this time I do a run of t-shirts. This year you can buy them from either the US or the UK:

Pre-order now from US

Pre-order now from the UK

I’m using Teespring again. If you want one of the shirts they’ll only be available until 30th November.

I’ve been using Teespring for many years now and it’s always worked well. My shirt came here (the UK) quickly and without any hassle. It’s nice quality and is still looking good after many years of wearing it.

For more information on the shirts and the system take a look at Teespring’s FAQ.

The Smashing Pumpkins – 1979 (Tab)

1979 is the Smumpkins’s biggest hit but was almost cut from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Which is confusing as that album could do with a dozen songs cutting but not this one.

This arrangement is mercifully easy after the nightmare of Send Me on My Way. This one is all strumming and nothing too difficult with the fretting hand. So you can really concentrate on mixing up the dynamics and enjoying the chill Gmaj7 chords.

Links

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Rusted Root – Send Me on My Way (Tab)

Rusted Root’s Send Me on My Way was a bit of a flop when it was first released. But it’s jaunty nature and semi-comprehensible lyrics have given it success in soundtracks to Ice Age, Matilda and that millipede.

There are a lot of rapid notes to get your fingers around in this one. Even at this slightly slowed tempo, it’s tricky to pull off.

Intro: The classic riff. Making use of the high-g string to avoid moving up and down the neck.

Verse: No avoiding moving up and down in this part. But it’s not too difficult until the end of bar 14 with the mabubadeesay mabubadeeum bit (lyric sheets claim he’s saying, “You know what they say about the young,” but there is no way). This includes my favourite trick: playing the same note on different strings (g and E) to allow for quicker picking.

Chorus: Busting out the strums for the chorus. Nothing too difficult here.

Bridge: The trickiest bit with the very quick “Send me on my way”s. I’ve cut down the number of notes in some of these to make them easier to play.

Solo: The funnest bit. As long as you keep the strumming up, you can play around with this section as much as you like.

Outro: Just strumming out the chords in the outro followed by a stripped down version of the riff.

Links

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Taimane discusses her new album and exploring her Samoan roots.

Mary Potter’s Girl with a Ukulele painting from 1922.

Ukes are being touted as a way to make money from your hobbies and pay your rent.

SUS discuss their top 10 tenor ukes.

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
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Kie77
– Lisa Johnson
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Nevylle Carroll
– Nick Parsons
– Olga deSanctis
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– ROBERT WALKER
– T S
– Thorsten Neff

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including October’s: Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Norma Tanega – You’re Dead (Tab)

For spooky season, Norma Tanega’s You’re Dead aka the What We Do in the Shadows theme.

The biggest challenge with this piece is getting the rhythms right. There are a bunch of time signature changes and even within the bars things get weird.

Intro: In straight 4/4 but the rhythmic weirdness starts right away. You’d expect the initial riff to be played four times but it’s only played three times before switching to the slightly different second riff.

Verses: These are made up of three bars of 5/4 and one bar of 3/4. Tricky to get the hang of but once you do the rest is fairly easy. It’s just strumming and occasionally picking the g-string. Other than that, there’s just a little lick at the end to deal with.

Breaks: After each verse there’s an instrumental section of varying length. You can do pretty much whatever you like in these sections. I’d recommend not following exactly what I’m doing and just use it for ideas for your own version.

I’m using mostly notes from G major and G minor scales with a few extra notes for a discordant sound. The only rule is to keep up the propulsive force of the tune.

Links

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Now you’ve got your kinky ski lift costume ready, here are some tunes you may wish to bone up on before the big night.

Addams Family Theme Tune
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Childish Gambino – Redbone (From Get Out)
Chopin – Funeral March
Jonathan Coulton – Re: Your Brains
The Cranberries – Zombie
Dance Macabre
The Decemberists – Shankill Butchers
The Doors – People Are Strange
The Fall – Mansion
The Gothic Archies – Freakshow
Halloween Theme
Harry Potter – Hedwig’s Theme
In Heaven (From Eraserhead
The Last of Us II –
Through the Valley
London Bridge Is Falling Down (From Halloween)
The Misfits – Dig Up Her Bones
The Misfits – Halloween
My Chemical Romance – Welcome to the Black Parade
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (from The Exorcist)
Nerf Herder – Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme
One Night Ultimate Werewolf – Fantasy Theme
Ray Parker Jr – Ghostbusters
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
Gustavo Santaolalla – Last of Us Theme
Skrillex – Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
This is Halloween (From Nightmare Before Christmas)
Tom Waits – Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard
Twilight Zone Theme
Twin Peaks Theme
The Walking Dead Theme
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London
The White Stripes – Little Ghost

Five Halloween riffs/intros: Thriller, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Sweet Dreams, Don’t Fear the Reaper and Jump in the Line
Five More Halloween riffs: Voodoo Child (Slight Return), All the Good Girls Go To Hell, Suspiria Theme, Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, Evil Eye.

And a tutorial to spookify your playing:

Spooky Ukulele Sounds