MP3

When Ben Lee’s in trouble he asks himself, “What Would Jay-Z Do?” After seeing how he handled Glastonbury, it’s certainly sage advice. But I prefer Jomes’s suggestion that we ask ‘What would Ken Middleton do?

D.O.A. samples Janko Nilovic & Dave Sucky’s In the Space but this riff isn’t so much a sample as a complete reconstruction. A quick noodle at the beginning of the song is cut up and stapled together to create one of the best riffs around.

When Jay-Z wrote this song he obviously hadn’t heard Carl Sagan’s A Glorious Dawn.

Part of the Guitar Riffs for Ukulele series.

Mya-Moe Ukuleles are played by a number of Uke Hunt favourites like James Hill, Lil’ Rev, Mark Nelson and Daddy Stovepipe. But I know very little about them. So what better way to find out more about them than throw a few questions at the husband and wife team behind Mya-Moe, Gordon and Char Mayer.

How long have Mya-Moe been making ukuleles and how did you get started?

Gordon made guitars & mandolins for 7 years. One of his early guitar customers, professional musician Moe Dixon, asked if he’d build him a ukulele. Gordon delivered that instrument in April, 2008 (18 months ago). By the time that instrument was completed, he had so much ukulele interest that he stopped building guitars and Char started helping in the shop. As of now we’ve built 150 ukuleles. Char builds the bodies and Gordon does the necks, fretboards & finish work.

What sort of players are your ukuleles aimed at?

We make a serious instrument that’s played by a number of professional, touring musicians (including the likes of James Hill, Emily Hurd, Lil’ Rev and Moe Dixon). But, we also have instruments starting at $575 which we aim at the player buying their second ukulele. They’ve already bought an inexpensive production uke and their instrument is starting to hold them back.

We work closely with professionals because they give us the input to improve our ukuleles. But, in ways, the amateur is more demanding. It is the beginning player that really appreciates the ease of fretting, fast neck, and perfect intonation.

What separates Mya-Moe from other ukuleles?

Rather than compare to others, we’d rather just highlight our feature set. We think that there are three things that are important to players. In order, they are playability, tone and aesthetics. We try to excel in all 3 areas.

In terms of playability, we have a compensated saddle for perfect intonation & tuning all the way up the neck, a radiused fretboard for ease of fretting (especially bar chords), hand-dressed frets for a very smooth feel, and a hand-shaped neck which is designed to be very “fast”. People comment that once they hold our instrument, they don’t want to put it down. The weight and balance are designed to be very comfortable and effortless.

In terms of tone, we hand-voice every instrument. That’s what Char does, and that’s where the magic is. Every piece of wood is unique and must be treated as such. You can’t build to a blueprint–you have to find the personality of every instrument. We aim for a big, broad voice with long sustain. We go to great lengths and expense to put in features that reduce instrument vibration in order to turn every bit of string energy into sound. While our instruments each have a unique personality that is a function of the individual type & set of wood, they have a consistent “Mya-Moe tone.”

And, for aesthetics, we try to have a unwavering attention-to-detail. We offer the choice of matte (satin, oil-rubbed) or gloss (UV-cured polyester) finishes. They are meticulously applied. Our owners consistently comment on the workmanship of our instruments.

We build about 150 ukuleles a year. That’s a small enough number that we have no employees, and we hand-build and hand-voice every instrument. But, it’s a large enough number (we string 3 per week) that we can constantly experiment, refine and perfect our designs.

What do you think makes a great ukulele?

Well, all the things mentioned above. But, I’ll say that a great ukulele is one that the player/owner just loves. We like to say that the instrument chooses the musician. By that, we mean that when you pick up the right instrument, you just know that it is perfect for you. We want owners that are absolutely fanatical about their Mya-Moe. And, if a person buys one of our instruments and doesn’t love it, we refund their money and pay to have it shipped back.

You’re one of the few companies that makes lap steel ukuleles. What inspired you to make them? And how did you approach designing them?

James Hill asked us if we’d make him a lap steel. We took it on as an engineering & design challenge. Luckily, we already had a successful resonator model, so we were able to use that design as a baseline. The hardest challenge is knowing the required pressure on the resonator cone & figuring out, based on the string tension and “break angle” how to deliver that pressure. The lap steel is probably our most gratifying design, because the first one worked perfectly the first time we strung it up.

Visit Mya-Moe Ukuleles.

MP3

Time for another series of Guitar Riffs for Ukulele. Or riffs for ukulele at least – I’m planning to include a bit of bass and piano. The idea with these isn’t to recreate the entire song but to throw in an unexpected snippet for the sake of entertainment (and to get a, “are you playing AC/DC on the ukulele? type reaction). They’re not complete songs and they’re not necessarily in the same key as the original (so hold the, “wrong key dude EPIC FAIL lolz” comments please).

First off is the Red Hot Chili Peppers; who I really should have featured a long time ago. With its syncopated rhythm and the sliding around, this riff is a whole lot trickier than it looks. If you’re dealing with a paucity of frets, you could play it this way and get away with it.

Part of the Guitar Riffs for Ukulele series.

Arborea – Beirut (MP3)

One of the most pleasing aspects of the whole ‘New Weird America’ genre is that it’s made it okay to play instruments that aren’t guitar, bass or drums. It’s still labelled ‘weird’, of course, but there are an increasing number of bands stretching out the instrumentation. One such band is Arborea. They use banjos, dulcimers, a combination of the two, and ukuleles. And they were kind enough to let me share the ukulele track from their new album House of Sticks.

Which is just one reason why you should support their Leaves of Life project which brings together the toppermost alterna-folkies – including Devendra Banhart, Alela Diane and Rio En Medio – to on one album to raise money for the UN’s World Food Programme and Not on Our Watch.

You can buy it on Darla, on iTunes, on eMusic and on Amazon. Essential Tracks: Alela Diane’s Cuckoo, Rio en Medio’s Mary, Denise Dill’s Work, Work, Work.

Visit Arborea on MySpace and buy House Sticks on Amazon

There seem to be a few British comedians playing the ukulele: Phill Jupitus, Frank Skinner, Lee Evans, Harry Hill, Michael Legge (more on that below) and Russell Brand. Some of them are more competently than others. Phill Jupitus is definitely one of the more dedicated ones. He’s often seen with his uke and showed up at the London Uke Festival.

He also uses it as backing to Stephen Fry’s cozy Phill and Phil’s The Perfect Ten. But, apparently, he doesn’t know what chords he was playing. Which is why Sean requested it.

The theme is just these four chords over and over:

G Gdim C6 D7

The version on the show is tuned down half a step (f#BEbG#).

Requested by Sean.

Ian Emmerson – Precious Little Theme (Chords)

Michael Legge and James Hingley’s Precious Little Podcast features quite a bit of ukulele. Legge uses it as punctuation. He did the show’s original theme tune as well but Ian ‘Re-Entrant‘ Emmerson found it so terrible he recorded a new one (using the 5 Foot 2 chords). Which is a bit harsh. He might not be the world’s greatest uker, but he does shout ‘Uke Hunt’ at regular intervals in the show. So he’s obviously a big fan.

Buy The Re-Entrants’ CDs

This week’s selection includes a new video from the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, Rocky and Balls want you to munch on their delicious, moist love cakes, Hayley Sales, Brandi Carlile the long awaited return of Exoticorn and plenty more. Read the rest of this entry »

KoAlana is KoAloha‘s budget range of ukes (relatively speaking). They’re not made in the Hawaiian factory but in China (if memory serves) so it’s not surprising that the word on the street was that they are nowhere near the quality of the KoAlohas. They’re not regularly available but MGM has just started selling new solid wood versions of the uke.

I’ve been eyeing up 6-string ukes for a while and Ohana‘s new six string is very tempting.

Larrivee stopped making ukuleles a few years ago so it’s rare to find them for sale. Even so, a starting bid of $600 seems a bit steep. But I’ve never played one so maybe it’s worth it.

Luna ukuleles are a new name on me, but if you’re dying to buy 6 fairly gaudy ukuleles at once you can now do so.

Here’s an interesting instrument from Sicilian luthier Stefano Caponnetto. But it’s positively bland compared to some of his guitars

I’m glad people don’t know the difference between ukuleles and mandolins. Otherwise I wouldn’t have seen this photo.

Kala will be releasing a Joe Brown signature ukulele this year. Do Americans know who he is?

Only a week and a bit to win your place on Bosko and Honey’s ukulele safari.

Friend of the blog, Acilius has an extensive review of UOGB’s new album.

Put your moleskine to good use.

Jim D’Ville enlightening series of interviews continues with Del Ray (I’m slightly embarrassed by my contribution now).

Two new releases on CLLCT: one from Linguistic Banter and one from Existential Hero.

The weekly ukulele pin-up to keep Jodi happy: Betty Page.

Roger and Dave are doing another Beatles Complete on Ukulele Festival. This one will feature 16 Yoko Ono impersonators.

This year’s Bushman contest has just started. So what better time to put up chords for the winner of last year’s Bushman contest: Ukulelezo’s Optional Accessory. It was a deserving winner; refulgent with wit, originality and a killer chord progression. Must have been the easiest decision the Bushman nabobs ever made.

None of the chords in the song are too tricky but they come along fast and furious which makes this one a bit of a bugger to play. I still can’t get the hang of it.

Suggested Strumming

Zoe’s a bit of a chord-slag and doesn’t spend long on any chord. Most of them just last for two down strums.

Requested by Kelly.

Arranging tunes for the ukulele is obviously a subject close to my heart so when Michael (who you may know as LStrachey and reyalpEleluku on YouTube) asked me to look over the draft of his book Make Your Own Chord Solos I jumped at the chance. It’s now available and it’s an excellent little guide to the process and well worth looking at if you want to start making your own arrangements. I asked Michael a for a few pointers on arranging for ukulele.

What is your number one tip for creating ukulele chord solos?

Number one for me is: The notes of a tune are usually contained in the chords. For example, suppose a ‘C’ chord is the chord for a section of a tune. Play the chord one string at a time. On a ukulele, this chord will give you three different notes (ok, four different notes if you count the low and high C notes as ‘different’). It is very likely that this section of the tune consists of some or other of these notes from the C chord. For each note in that section of the tune, aim to play that C chord in such a way as to emphasise (in the correct order and time) the melody notes of the tune.

This is why I’ve included in my little book a page that gives tabs for all the notes of all the strings of a ukulele that is tuned G C E A. I’ve also included a number of pages that give a few different forms of selected chords. For each of these chords, I’ve shown the notes on each string in note form and tab form. I’ve also provided the chord diagrams as well.

For someone who has never arranged a tune before, what’s the best way to start

My advice would be to start with a simple tune that you know very well. Use only a few chords, and use single notes between chords to fill out the tune.

One of the first tunes I arranged was a real oldie by Harry Akst (1925). There are all sorts of wonderful jazz chords that might be used to play it. I just use two forms of the F chord and two forms of the C7 chord with a bit of fiddling in between. If you know the tune, you’ll recognise ‘Dinah’ when I play it.

After I could play Dinah easily, I found that I had a head-start for other tunes with similar chords. I could transfer techniques that I learned arranging ‘Dinah’ to make an arrangement of ‘Whoopee’ (a more modern tune from 1928).

How much music theory do you need to know to start arranging?

It depends. If you have natural talent, genius and perseverance, you don’t need any. Some great musicians knew/know little formal music theory. The great vaudeville ukulele instrumentalist, Roy Smeck, only learned to read music after his professional performing days had ended. He only did it so he could begin teaching.

Ok, if (like me) you are to start with nothing but perseverance, I’d say you’d need to know what standard musical notation looks like and have some idea what each bit means. Stuff like key signatures, the different durations of notes/rests, sharps, flats, accidentals, repeat signs, etc.

This might seem like a lot to know, but some of this is not needed if you know the tune – the timing and the duration of the notes are in your head already. Other parts of the theory can be side-stepped for a beginning arranger if you happen to have a page that gives tabs for all the notes of all the strings of a ukulele. With such a device you can see where a G# (for example) can be played, without necessarily knowing that it is a G#.

In my little book, I’ve explained the basics of music theory simply in only six pages – and there is lots of white space.

What’s the biggest challenge in making chord solos and how do you overcome it?

For me, the ‘big challenge’ changes from tune to tune.

Sometimes it is working out which key to play the song in. I had given up on the old standard ‘It had to be you’ (1924), because I couldn’t see how to play it comfortably in the key of G. Then, one day, I thought – try transposing the tune to another key – Bb – which met with almost immediate happiness.

Other times it is getting my hands to do what I’ve written in the tabs. When faced with this, I either practise till my family petition to have ‘ukulele playing’ made a capital offence, or I modify what was written in the tabs (after all, it was only me who put them there). If I like a tune and play it often, I notice that my way of playing it develops (mutates?) over time.

How can people get hold of your book?

I sell my book as a hobbyist, and information about the book (and how to buy it) may be found here: The Backwards Ukulele Player

I ask $16 (Australian dollars) for the book, plus postage and handling. P&H to UK, USA, and Canada works out at $9 (Australian dollars) – for other places, please ask.