You have to be comfortable with a very high level of camp to play a cowboy Fluke. I think Dent May is the man for that job.
Requested by Fiona.
More Dent May
Meet Me in the Garden (Chords)
Oh, Paris! (Chords)
You Can’t Force a Dance Party (Chords)
Daddy Stovepipe’s bluesy ukulele videos are a favourite of mine and he’s recently tabbed up one of his tunes. So I took the opportunity to throw a few questions at him.
What’s your musical history? How did you come by the uke?
I started playing blues fingerpicking guitar when I was 16 years old; I mostly learned from records and with the help of the Stefan Grossman tablature books.
The reissue label Yazoo, specialised in blues music recorded between 1926-32 (the golden age of country blues) also had an lp by Ukulele Ike. I liked the album but never went any further. It’s only after starting with my Youtube channel, a few years ago, that I came to know uke players like my fellow countrymen Winin’ Boy and Ukulelezaza. Winin’ Boy is one of my subscribers and I always visit their channel to get to know them. Surfing the internet did the rest; your website proved very helpful to get to know the ukulele world. Same goes for your 101 book.
Who are you big musical inspirations?
Mainly the “old blues guys” who recorded in the 20-30ies; men like Lonnie Johnson, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell, the inevitable Robert Johnson of course, etc.
What are your top tips for playing ukulele blues?
Listening to the music you want to play, is half the battle.
So far I only focused on keys like C and F as you can use the open top-string often and there is a lot of material in those keys. I found that the more jazzy blues by players like Blind Blake or Mississippi John Hurt works best for the ukulele.
Do you have any favourite blues licks?
Bending the 3rd and 4rd fret of the second string, when playing in F comes to mind,or playing the 3rd string fretted at the 3rd fret simultaneously with the open 2nd when playing in C.
How do you approach playing blues on a uke differently from blues on a guitar?
I approach it as a guitar with less strings. My thumb plays a monotonic bass on the 4th string or an alternating bass between strings 4 and 3. With the alternating bass I sometimes get in trouble if the 3rd string is needed for a melody note but then I simply quit the alternating bass pattern.
What I especially like about the ukulele is the re-entrant tuning. The sound of the high 4th string really does it for me.
Are you going to put together more uke tabs?
I sure will.
Subscribe to Daddy Stovepipe’s channel and visit his website.
I’ve loved this tune for many years (after hearing Colin Reid’s version of it) so when I found Penguin Cafe barrister Geoffrey Richardson was a uker I decided I had to find a way to play it on the uke. How hard could it be? Five months later…
The first thing you need to do to play this arrangement is tune the g string up to a (so it’s aCEA). This lets me do one of my favourite things on the uke: play the same note on every string then do a bit of very close harmony. The picking pattern for this section is thumb, index, thumb, middle.
In the main section of the tune I’m picking what was the g string with my thumb, the E string with my index finger and the A string with my middle finger. As for the left hand, I use my ring finger on the E string, middle finger for for A string 4th fret and pinkie for the fifth fret. This makes it easier to slide down for the second phrase.
The middle section of the tune (starting at bar 16) is the one I had most problems with. For the picking I’m using the same finger set-up as the previous section but with the thumb covering the G and C strings.
The strumming section was a late addition to the arrangement – I thought it needed something more forceful to finish it off. As I result, I haven’t got this section nailed down as much, so you might have to feel your own way through this section.
PocketFox – No One Knows (MP3)
Pockets – The Final Countdown (MP3)
Pockets – A Fake (Ukulele Empire) (MP3) via Mmm… Fruity
Me when first seeing this video: Hmmm, kazookeylele. Nice gimmick. We’ll never hear from him again.
You can download a whole pile of his stuff (and as half of PocketFox) on Mmm… Fruity.
I’ve done a whole load of tabs of John Williams tunes (Star Wars, Cantina Band, Olympic Fanfare, Indiana Jones). Yet I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line up and I regularly get him mixed up with the guitarist of the same name.
This arrangement does miss out a lot of the original. If you can recreate all the swirling strings, you’re a way better player than me. But I have included the two main sections of the piece. The first is a slow waltz and the second a rapid 4/4. The other arrangements I’ve seen miss out the second part – not sure why since it’s much more fun to play. And it’s fairly straight forward – mostly just moving the minor chord shape up and down. The tricky part is the speed so start slowly until you’ve got it under your fingers then build up speed. To give it a bit of variation, I play the first half of this section strumming with my thumb and the second half with my fingers (all down strums in both cases).
After a bit of a male dominated week last week, the girls are back in force
I was originally going to post Via Tanya’s video for Wonder Stranger but the version she did for Shoot the Player. Also this week: Sophie Madeleine doing my second favourite song of hers for a Crypt session (watch the whole session in dazzling HD here), Victoria Vox previewing a song from her next album and plenty more.
Prettiest ukulele this week has to be the Kahiko Concert Flyer.
And ugliest ukes this week have to be the Luna Ukuleles. You have to question the design sensibilities of any company that would use the papyrus font in their logo.
And ukulele I haven’t made my mind up about yet of the week is the Kala Acacia. I haven’t quite come to terms with the open-headstock look and the twirly fret markers are a bit much.
The Kala/EleUke marriage looks to be working well. The new look EleUkes aren’t a whole lot different from the old look but they’re definitely more elegant.
Since I seem to be obsessed with looks this week, cute guy plays ukulele 4 fun.
Ukelear Meltdown – Newcastle-Upon-Tyne’s foremost ukulele festival – is looking for suggestions on who should be a part of their 2010 event. If you want to suggest yourself or someone else get in touch with them.
There have been a few pale imitations since, but the original Ukulele Hero T-Shirt is easily the best – or it was until it was taken off the market. But luckily it’s back and you can buy it here along with the other cowbell, kazoo, bagpipe etc. hero t-shirts.
Ashton Kutcher is a big fan of WS64.
Ukulele Perspective drew my attention to a new iphone/ipod app that lets you cart around your tab.
Jim D’Ville has started a great new series on intervals – a great way to improve your ear.
Shelley Rickey goes ukulele spotting.
MP3s: Good Cop Bad Cop release their, “instrumental ukulele rock opera about the parting of the christian church into the western Roman Catholics and the eastern Greek Orthodox,” (not another one).
Zings Music Group are offering the chance to win a Kala ukulele in return for some Twitter spamming.
Pictures: Cat Green Bike tour poster, dynamic duo, Billie Joe Armstrong and his ukulele.
Budding Amy Crehores can answer the call for ukulele art submissions.
On Uker Tabs: Owls by Cocoon and Funky Tonight and Zebra by John Butler Trio.
In the comments: There was a lot of discussion this week about solid body, electric ukuleles and their relation to guitars both on the Kala solid post (with a contribution from the Wellingtons) and on the RISA post. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently and haven’t come to any conclusion on. And Andy has an excellent suggestion for hotels to provide ukulele rental.
Another one from the wonderful WIUO. This Prince cover is the standout track on their latest EP The Dreaming. Another good one for ukulele groups – easy chords for the beginners and twiddly bits for the showoffs. The only unusual chord in it is Ab. If you can’t get your fingers around that you can just move the whole G chord shape up a fret and reach your thumb round to stop the G string sounding.
Suggested Strumming
d – d – d u d u
Will see you almost all the way through.
In the verse: once for C, once for G and twice for F.
In the chorus: once for F, once for G and twice for F. Once for the other chords (except the final G – two down strums for that).
Twiddly Bits
There’s a lot going on in the intro. I’ve written it up for four parts:
And here’s me playing that arrangement slowed down a bit.
More WIUO
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra interview
Hey Ya
The Bucket
Israelites
Blue Smoke (Chords)
The RISA solid ukulele isn’t like any other ukulele out there: it’s shaped like a hollowed out cricket bat, the tuning pegs are at the wrong end, it doesn’t have a head, its bridge is aluminium. Obviously, I had to have one.
Construction: Solid walnut.
Fretboard: Walnut 17 frets.
Neck: Solid walnut.
Bridge: Aluminium.
Tuners: Friction
Pickups: Passive Piezo.
The sound of an electric ukulele is going to have more to do with what you run it through than the uke itself. But here are a few clips of it through a Boss GT-10 to give you an idea.
Clean Tone
First time: as it comes out of the ukulele. Second time: through pre-amp. Third time: pre-amp, EQ and a bit of reverb. Fourth time: cheesed up (pre-amp, EQ, a bit of reverb, quite a lot of chorus).
Country Slapback
Rocked Out Widdle-Fest
Maximum Effects
Link
All sorts in there: looper, slicer, wah, delay.
– It’s very easy to play: The neck feels very slick. The action is low. It’s very light. Unlike a lot of ukuleles that pack on useless frets, all the frets are playable with any finger. Because the body and neck are all one piece you can also do a bit of fretless playing above the top fret.
– Design: It’s not just a ukulele with pickups on. RISA have obviously given a lot of thought to what is required of an electric ukulele and designed towards that. It’s also pleasing as an object – to look at and hold (it’s very light).
My only grumble is the big RISA logo slapped on it. There’s a reason you don’t see chairs with ‘THOMAS CHIPPENDALE’ scrawled across the front of them. The design of it says it’s a RISA more clearly than the logo.
– It’s well made: No flaws in mine. And the intonation is spot on.
– It’s solid: Not just in the sense that it’s not hollow. It’s also very sturdy. As the shape suggests, you could play cricket with it.
– It takes a lot of getting used to: It’s very different from any ukulele you’re used to. I found myself falling off the end of the neck a few times. The tuning pegs are on the body and it took me a while to get used to which tuning peg goes with which string and which way to turn them. You need to buy a strap to play it comfortably.
– The tuning pegs: This is the main drawback of the ukulele as far as I’m concerned. Even after getting used to the system there are problems. Like a lot of friction tuners, it’s hard to tune them accurately and they’re placed too close together for comfortable tuning.
– Aaaargh, the string is jammed: During some over-enthusiastic widdling I broke the A string. I went to take it off to find that the string was jammed in the hole at the nut end. There’s no way of getting direct access to it either. I had to bash a pin through the hole to free it. Even after setting it free, the rest of the string changing experience was also a pain in the arse.
I haven’t heard about this happening to anyone else, but the fact it can happen seems like a pretty big design floor to me.
– Passive pickups: That means you don’t get the on-board kajiggers like tone and volume controls. Not necessarily a big disadvantage. But you don’t get a headphone socket like you do with the EleUke which comes in handy for quiet practice.
I enjoy playing the RISA. The string jamming incident has soured me against it a little, but it’s a way better ukulele than the EleUke.
RISA Uke-Solid on eBay UK and on UkeSurfer.
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