It’s not often I do requests for non-commenters any more. Partly because I despise people in general and partly because most requests look like this, “Song request – Mr. Brightside by the killers and the ukulele is by Julia Nunes.” But this week I’m doing a three requests from people who seemed quite nice and, more importantly, requested songs I wanted to do anyway.
The first one is for one of the funniest songs from Garfunkel and Oates (Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome). As always with their songs, I need to slap a big NSFW on this one. And there are two bits of Micucci good news. She’s currently recording the next series of Scrubs and she will be playing played at Uketober Fest in Griffith Park LA along with fellow Uke Hunt favourites: , Madame Pamita and The UkuLady.
Suggested Strumming
Two down strums for almost all the chords. The only exceptions are the G in the intro (which last for four beats) and the last line of the middle section (one down strum for each chord lasting four beats each – you can pluck a few individual notes as well if the mood takes you).
Crowdsourcing is the hot thing nowadays. So when I had to come up with some questions for Lulu and the Lampshades whilst laid up with a cold and with their PR guy giving me the bums’ rush, I tasked it to my Twitter followers. The response: I should ask them the Proust questionaire. Which is why I’m asking the country’s finest new ukulele band for their opinions on military history.
Reasons to love Lulu and the Lampshades:
– They write great songs.
– Their list of instruments includes ukuleles, yoghurt pots and nipple-tassels.
– They’re buddies with Peggy Sue.
– Luisa (vocals, ukulele), Jemma (guitar, bass) and their flatmate (background historical knowledge) were game enough to answer these questions.
What’s your present state of mind?
Luisa: Fuzzy
Jemma: Fine, ok, alright.
Which natural talent would you like to be gifted with?
L: I’d quite like to be bendy, but on second thoughts a really good memory would be very nice.
J: Flying.
What’s your favourite virtue?
J: In general or my own?
L: I think they mean your own
J: Depends what you think is a virtue is, err…
L: Mine is the ability to sleep anywhere/anytime, not really a virtue but it’s very handy.
What’s your chief characteristic?
J: My nose.
L: An inability to make up my mind.
What do you most value in your friends?
J: Honesty
L: Play-fighting skills
What’s your idea of happiness?
J: When I feel like a cat on a windowsill.
L: Yes! I second that, basking in the sun with outstretched paws, they do happiness better than anything, if I’m half as happy as my cat looks I’m doing well.
What’s your main fault?
L: An inability to make up my mind
J: I’m a bit cynical sometimes
L: That’s not a fault
What characters in history do you most dislike?
Jemma has left the room.
L: What, aside from all the Dictators and Imperialists and their ilk? It’s too much … pass.
Who are your heroines in world history?
J: Joan of Ark? A suitable martyr.
L: These are really hard questions to do on the spot. Emily Pankhurst? Sophie Scholl? Actually yes, I just watched a film about her, I’ll go with Sophie.
Which event in military history do you most admire?
J & L: Ukehunt we have a question. Is this a military/history/feminist/ukulele website? [UkeHunt: I like to think it’s more intellectually diverse than most uke blogs.] This based on the fact that we’re asked to like heroines in history, but we can hate anyone regardless of gender, but more to the point, ukehunt … sounds a lot like … is that intentional?[UH: I’m far too pure of thought to have any idea what you’re talking about.] But flatmate says: What about King Harold, when he marched his army to the southern front to meet William’s troops, thousands of soldiers, they must have run.
J&L: That’s very impressive.
How do you wish to die?
L: I might live for ages. My Great-Grandma just died at a 107, when she turned a hundred they threw her a big party in her village in Colombia, and counted 100 great-grandchildren alone, 100! That’s an army not a family … so I’ll have one of those, the massive family and the big party bit, and die when they’re all gathered to celebrate my century, probably of consumption, or a stray firework.
J: I have no intention of dying now, anytime soon, or ever for that matter. Hopefully they will have invented a way for me to stay alive in the foreseen and unforeseen future.
What’s your motto?
L: Nowhere is that far away – but I definitely don’t mean that metaphorically. I just cycled to Florence with a friend and it was a simple conclusion we were pretty chuffed to arrive at. We also discovered that there is no such thing as a flat road (also easily misinterpreted as a life metaphor), and we discovered escargot butter, it should be used in all cooking but goes particularly well with fire-cooked snails.
J: I don’t have a motto but I have a theme tune.
L: How does it go?
J: Naaaa na na naaaaaaaa na.
Last in the series of Easy Themes is a reworking of the James Bond Theme. And it’s still not all that easy. I’ve tried to reduce that amount of switching between picking and strumming, but there’s still a lot of it.
The first two bars is done with the thumb on the G string, index on the E strings and middle on the A string. The next section has the thumb on the G and strumming the other strings. The main theme is all strums. The most difficult section is the one that begins with bar 19. This part combines a bit of all those mixed up.
The coda strays a bit far up the neck. If you haven’t got access up to the 14th fret, you could try it this way:
It doesn’t sound quite right but you might just get away with it.
I very much enjoying Charlie Brooker’s new show GamesWipe this week. The highlight of the show was a ukulele-featuring song/game review by Rebecca Mayes. I do hope that’s a regular feature.
Also this week are rib-tickling videos from Amelia Robinson and Ben Lerman (whose song is definitely NSFW), The Leisure Society, some hapa-haole a beautifully sung version of Blue Moon and a couple a tracks by Rusty Cage (I hope that’s his real name). Read the rest of this entry »
The Hidden Lake Estate Sale looks like a mine of great vintage ukes including this William Eden custom tenor. But the real stroke of genius is that they’re offering a weekend getaway where you can try out all the instruments for yourself.
This uke is advertised as a “1910’s Nunes Ukulele”. But I don’t remember ever seeing a fretboard like that on an instrument that old.
A shoebox full of fascinating ukulele photos knocking around this week:
– African American man with ukulele #1
– African American man with ukulele #2
– African American woman with ukulele.
– Farm girls
– Lynne Thorne ukulele pin-up.
– Teenage girl playing a ukulele.
The Bushman World Ukulele Video Contest 2009 has kicked off. This year the winner will be decided by a vote – perhaps they’ve realised they have bloody awful taste.
The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra’s new EP The Dreaming is now available online.
Blog Status Update: It looks like the blog problems are under control (for the moment at least). The old theme which you know and tolerate is back but in a reduced state. Some of the missing features (like the related posts) might reappear once I get braver. A huge thanks goes to J-Hob for helping out. Would anyone miss the ‘Latest Comments’ bit in the sidebar?
Today’s easy tab is a version of Hawaii Five-0 which is simplified, shortened and moved down the neck for soprano players.
One part to take care with is the end of bar 7. Use your middle finger to fret that so it’s in place for the Bb chord in the next bar.
Before you read this review, you should know that aNueNue sent me this ukulele to review for free. I’m anyone’s for a bag of Wine Gums, so feel free to take this review with whatever degree of salt you see fit. They asked me which of their ukuleles I’d like to review. My initial reaction, of course, was, “The most expensive one.” But I realised that you can tell a lot more about a ukulele maker’s prioritise by their less expensive ukuleles. So I opted for one of their ‘beginner grade’ ukuleles (yes, I really am that stupid).
So after giving the aNueNue Lani II a good going over (and many hours spent singing ‘a-nu-way-nu-way oh baby’ to the tune of Louie, Louie) here are my impressions.
Stats
Size: Concert Construction: Laminated Koa Fretboard: Rosewood Neck: Mahogany Frets: 20 (14 to the body) Tuners: Open, geared Grover 9N STA-TITE Finish: Matte List Price: $278
Construction: It’s a very nicely put together piece of kit. They obviously take a great deal of care with the construction because it’s faultless. The usual areas where things get a bit messy (when the fretboard meets the body, inside, around the soundhole) are perfect.
Playability: It’s a very easy uke to play. Well set up. The feel of it is very slick and the action is very low (lower than I prefer but right for most people’s preference).
It plays well all the way up the neck, there are no dead frets, the sustain is impressive and the intonation is spot on.
The Look: The wood looks beautiful and the design is appealing. I love the shape of the headstock and the little petroglyphs are cute.
The Not So Good Stuff
It’s Laminated: Compared to solid wood ukueles in the same price range, the sound of it is a little disappointing; slightly muddy. It doesn’t have the punch I like from my ukuleles. I do get a better sound from my Kala and Ohana than I do from the aNueNue. But neither of them are made with anything like the care and attention to detail that the aNueNue is (the Ohana looks positively slap-dash in comparison).
It’s an inevitable trade-off and you’ll have your own priorities.
Conclusion
The aNueNue Lani II is massively ahead of the usual laminated, beginner ukuleles. Easily the best I’ve ever tried. There’s absolutely no compromise on the quality of the construction and it plays beautifully. They’re obviously not willing to cut corners in quality for the sake of a lower price. It’s just a matter of whether you want to make that same judgement.
Blog Problems: You might have noticed that they blog looks bloody awful. I’ve been having major problems with it and have spent all day desperately trying to fix it whilst holding back the tears. So things might look and act a little strange (or not work at all) for a while. In fact, posting this might break all the internets. But let’s give it a go. If anyone is giving out hugs, I could really use one. Or, failing that, a bucket full of diazepam might do the trick.
I always like the challenge of trying to get everything that’s going on in a piece into a uke arrangement. Which means most of my arrangements end up being trickier than they need to be. So this week I’ll be taking some of the theme tunes I’ve tabbed before and simplifying them down to make them more accessible. Starting off with the Indiana Jones Theme.
It’s been quite a year for the ukulele, but nothing so far has signalled the uke’s arrival quite like its acceptance into the The Proms (the UK’s most famous annual series of classical music concerts). Who could have imagined that the Proms would include a performance of Teenage Dirtbag on the ukulele? The only group that could pull that off are the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.
The Ukes have a well deserved place at the forefront of the current uke revival and quarter of a century of playing has slowed them down. As well as the Prom (with a DVD due out before Christmas), this year has seen them providing music for silent films with Ukulelescope and for wartime dreams with Dreamspiel and releasing two live albums. The most recent is Live in London #2 displays their humour and talent perfectly. It features my UOGB favourites Shaft and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. If you don’t have any UOBG CDs in your collection, get the two live albums without delay.
I caught up with UOGB’s Will Grove-White to discuss this year and what’s ahead.
The live CDs seem to convey much more of what the UOGB are. What’s at the heart of what the UOGB are all about?
I agree, the live CDs do capture some of the real energy of a Ukes concert, with the roar of the crowd, the exuberant vim and the authentic bum notes that you get when we play to a live audience. The people that come to our concerts really do seem to have a good time, and I’d say that’s much of what lies at the heart of the Ukulele Orchestra making different kinds of music fun, interesting, accessible, and moving, through the lens of a ukulele. When we walk on a stage armed only with our ukuleles an audience can feel anything from baffled, sympathetic or amused, to totally horrified. It’s only once we start playing that they can relax and understand what it is we’re doing.
Which are your favourite songs to play live?
I’m really enjoying playing Danse Macabre, which we performed first at the Proms, partly because it’s a new one, but also because we’re just wrestling it into shape at the moment. As a rule I think we all enjoy playing new stuff, but there is a great comfort in playing the old set, Anarchy in the UK, Wuthering etc, and an audience can hoot along with it – some tunes have become people’s personal anthems, people feel very close to them.
How do you build up the arrangements?
Rehearsals these days have become a bit of a luxury as we’ve become busier and busier, but we are still managing to get new tunes together – as a group we’ve learnt how to develop new arrangements quite quickly. I think we all know when something isn’t going to work (the ukulele often does that by itself exposing a badly constructed tune within seconds), and we doggedly plug away with songs that have potential. As a rule one of us will bring a song in and the rest of us will pull it apart and play it again and again until it begins to work. Each person brings a particular element to the arrangements Dave’s tremelo, Peter’s fingerpicking etc etc. George is the musical director and is a real virtuoso musician – he has the uncanny ability to reduce a huge symphony (or pop epic) to a bunch of chords, melody and countermelody. Once you start with something like that, then the rest of us can bring our particular skills to bear on it. Playing as a group is very different to playing a tune on your own. In Miserlou, for example, I play only one note for most of the piece. This sounds great when we all play together but rubbish when I want to play it on my own around the campfire! Undoubtedly the best way to get a tune working properly is to play it in front of an audience, and not getting put off if it doesn’t work first time. America, for example, took a while to get right, but is working really well now.
How on earth did the idea of a ukulele prom come about?
It’s funny because it’s something we’ve always talked about but wondered if it would ever be possible to pull off. If anyone is really responsible it’s Roger Wright, the head of Radio 3 – so any complaints on a postcard to himŠ He saw us playing at a festival a few years ago, really liked us, and thought it would be a bit of wheeze to get us on at the Proms. He gave us a very open brief do your thing and we got some new tunes together to give it all a Proms flavour.
What sort of reaction did you get from the traditional Proms audience?
It was hard to see where the traditional Proms audience were amongst all the ukulele players, but the response was so overwhelmingly positive that they must have enjoyed themselves. Apparently we were the first ever late-night Prom to sell out, and I hear we sold out before even the Last Night of Proms (a great example of the growing power of the humble ukulele)! We were all really overwhelmed by the experience something like 7000 people came, and about 1000 brought their ukuleles with them for the Beethoven play-along which was a great moment. I think any Doubting Thomases there were touched by that moment, even if they didn’t appreciate Danse Macabre being reduced to nylon and plywood.
Ukulelescope and Dreamspiel both contain original material. Are we going to see more original tunes from the Ukes?
That’s the plan. I think I can say there’ll be an ‘originals’ album out within the next year or so. We’ve always had a few original pieces on the studio albums, but we’d all like to do a dedicated album there are plenty of ideas around. But that’s not to say we’ve finished playing other people’s music, we’re an Orchestra after all.
Are there any plans for a DVD of Dreamspiel?
Not at the moment, but we’re talking about doing a CD, hopefully we can start recording that later this year. It’s a ukulele opera written by George with Michelle Carter, an American playwright, which we’ve only performed once at the Grimebourne alternative opera festival in London. It’s a fantastic piece, about people’s dreams in Germany during WWII, with beautiful music. And when we’ve cleared our desks we can get on with thinking about the DVD! At present most of our energy is going into planning 2010, which is the 25th (!) anniversary of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. We’ll be doing our ‘Silver Jubilee’ tour across Britain all next year, as well as releasing some new DVDs, re-releasing some of the old back catalogue, and I’m busy starting to assemble Live in London #3 at the moment.
