Theme tunes to films, games and TV shows provide a great test for your tab playing abilities and give your something instantly recognisable to play for friends and family.
Tabs for tunes that combine melody and chords but can all be played with just your thumb on the picking hand. So you can concentrate on the fretting hand without having to worry about complicated picking.
Once you’ve reaching this stage in your ukulele playing, you’ll have put in many hours of practice. Before you get much further it’s time to get yourself a really nice, solid-top ukulele. Ohana and Kala both have solid ukuleles at affordable prices. If you budget stretches a bit further, take a look at KoAloha and Pono.
Now head to the advanced section and prepare to blow people’s mind with your mad-skills.
If you think there’s a post that deserves a link here or have a topic you’d like me to cover in this section, leave a comment.
Following on from the beginner lessons, you’re rocking through the easy chords, have your strumming down and learnt some fundamentals. In this section we’ll kick it up a notch with some more advanced chords.
To get this far you’ve shown some dedication. If, like me, you started on a really crappy ukulele, you’ve earned yourself a nice uke. Kala make some nice ukuleles and Lanikai both make good ukuleles at reasonable prices.
You’ve just got your hands on a ukulele (or are just thinking of buying one). Here are a few things to read and songs to play that’ll get you up to speed quickly.
Extra Credit: Ukulele for Dummies – The (paper) book I wrote covering all the ukulele basics from buying your first uke, to strumming, chord shapes and far beyond.
Extra Credit: Joan Jett – Bad Reputation – Easy chords but you’ll need to have your chord changes down and a strong strumming-hand to play it up to speed.
Since his arrangement of In the Mood, I’ve been looking forward to seeing what David would come up with next and I wasn’t disappointed. His version of Mississippi Blues has plenty of bluesy licks. And he was kind enough to let me share the arrangement here.
As far as I’m concerned, the UOGB’s performance at the Proms is the high-water mark of the ukulele revival (so far).
If you’re not familiar with the Proms, they’re a series of straight classical music concerts that have been held at the Royal Albert Hall for the last 115 years and culminate in a display of chinlessness and nostalgic faux-nationalism at the Last Night of the Proms. They’re about as establishment as you can get. So having the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain play at the Proms is similar to the Queen breaking out an Abbott Monarch for a rendition of Five Foot Two.
If you hadn’t guessed from the last paragraph, I’m not much of a fan of the Proms. They represent a staid, backward-looking, elitist side of Britain. Which begs two questions: Who the hell put the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain on the bill? And why was I so pleased they were part of it?
Part of why I enjoyed it is that the music feels slightly homemade. The Ukes are good musicians but they’re certainly not virtuosi. George quotes of one fan’s response to his fears of not getting all the notes right, “We don’t come to your concert to see you get the notes right.” No matter how big they get, there’s still a sense that they’re one of us. Playing inappropriate tunes on the ukulele just for the fun of it.
And that idea reaches its natural conclusion with 1,000 audience members playing along with Ode to Joy. Anyone watching that hoping to hear the right notes is going to come away disappointed. But the sight of 1,000 people cheering and waving out-of-tune ukuleles feels like a vindication of everyone who has picked up an instrument (or a paintbrush, or knitting needle or a saw) and decided that making their own entertainment was more important than switching on the telly to watch someone competent.
Is should probably talk about the DVD itself. If you want a proper write-up, I highly recommend you read Acilius’s review. He asked a question: “Is it really worth paying £15.00 plus postage?” His answer was an emphatic yes. Mine is a bit more circumspect. It’s a must buy for anyone who, like me, wants to own a bit of ukulele history and UOGB completists. But people who just want a flavour of the Ukes would be better off with Live in London #1 and #2.
Buy Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain Prom Night on their website.
I think this tune has to be the most overused piece of music on television: reality shows, sporting montages, documentaries. And now it’s been covered by the guy off of G4. That would usually be enough to kill off any song. But this song is so magnificent it gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.
For the uke arrangement I’ve moved everything up a fret from the original to the more uke-friendly key of C. The first half of tune is all played campanella style (i.e. one note per string letting them ring into each other). I know a lot of people don’t like this way of playing but, screw it, it’s easily the best way of arranging a tune like this.
The most important thing to get right is the dynamics (quiet and louds bits). The original gets this one spot on. Obviously you’re not going to have the same dynamic range as a full band and a string section. But try to let the music swell in the first half and blossom in the second half. The dynamics are what gives emotion to the tune.
Another important thing to get right – which I completely failed to do in the video – is to keep an even tempo. I speed up much too fast towards the end. So do as I say not as I do.
Favourite find this week is Cosmo Jarvis’s catchy, King-Blues like, bros-before-hoes anthem She’s Got You. Also this week (thanks to Oren) is super(ish) group Operation Aloha hewn from members of Gomez (it’s Ian Ball on uke), Maroon 5, Phantom Planet and others who met up on Hawaii and, inevitably, end up using a uke.
