I’m a huge fan of John King’s Classical Ukulele book (in an, “OMG!!!1! It changed the way I think about the ukulele,” way). So it was only a matter of time before I picked up his Famous Solos and Duets for ‘Ukulele as well.

The book contains tab and standard notation for 22 tunes (18 solo pieces, 2 ukulele duets and 2 ukulele/guitar duets) and comes with a CD of the tunes faultlessly performed. Most of them are Hawaiian tunes and, despite the cover proclaiming ‘arranged by John King’, many of the arrangements are by the original ukulele arrangers such as Ernest Ka’ai and N. B. Bailey

The full tab list is:

Loke Lani by Ernest Ka’ai Arr. by John King
Haele by Ernest Ka’ai
Hone A Ka Wai by Ernest Ka’ai
Polka-Mazurka by Ernest Ka’ai Arr. by Henry Kailimai
Ka Wehi by Ernest Ka’ai
Funiculi-Funicula by Luigi Denza Arr. by N. B. Bailey
Hene by Henry Kailimai
Ahi Wela by Arr. by Keoki E. Awai
Spanish Fandango by Henry Worrall Arr. by N. B. Bailey
The Blue Bells Of Scotland by Arr. by T. H. Rollinson
Leilani by Ernest Ka’ai
Banjo Schottische by Ernest K. Ka’ai
Lauia by Henry Kailimai Arr. by Ernest Ka’ai
Wailana by Malie Kaleikoa Arr. by Keoki E. Awai

The Good Stuff

Lovely Tunes: For the most part, the pieces are beautiful, lilting Hawaiian tunes. They’re pleasurable to play and repay attention to dynamics and touch – something that I’m definitely guilty of neglecting.

Strummed and Picked: There are quite a few strummed tunes in the book. And the strummed arrangements are just as much of a challenge as the picked tunes. They involve a whole load of tricky techniques which are explained in the introduction.

Range of Difficulty: While it’s not for beginners, there’s a good mix of difficultly in the tabs. Some, like Hene, you can have a reasonable stab at playing on sight. Others are very challenging.

Introduction: John King is probably the best writer on the history of the ukulele there’s ever been. The lack of his writing in Classical Ukulele is one of my few complaints I have about it. It’s not a complaint that could be made about this book. There’s a big chunk of ukulele history and ukulele tab history (a delight for me, but I’m the world’s biggest uke tab nerd) at the beginning and it’s a great read.

The Not So Good Stuff

Famous?: Despite spending a lot of time playing tunes from the book, there is a noticeable lack of people saying, “Hey, was that Hone A Ka Wai you were playing just then?” I must admit that before getting the book you could count the number of tunes in the book I could confidently hum on the fingers of one finger.

Duets: It’s a little light on the duets, if that’s what you’re looking for. As it happens, there are more duets in the Classical Ukulele book. Luckily, I have no friends anyway.

Tuning: The notation is for a C-tuned ukulele, yet the ukuleles on the recording switch between D-tuning and D#-tuning.

No Campanella – The arrangements are excellent. They sound great and are very playable. But the don’t have the distinctive harp-like sound of the arrangements in Classical Ukulele.

Overall

It’s probably not fair of me to keep comparing this to Classical Ukulele. I regard those arrangements as a work of genius.

This book is really a tribute to the original ukulele arrangers – Ernest Ka’ai in particular – and it has given me a whole new appreciation for those musicians who took the instrument and created new techniques and a new repertoire for it. Playing the pieces the way they played them gives me a more direct connection with its history than any amount of reading. Well worth the price of admission.

If you’ve got the book, let me know what you think in the comments.

Buy Famous Solos & Duets for the ‘Ukulele on Amazon

As well as being seven shades of adorable, U900 have excellent taste in covers. So I’ll be putting up tabs based on their two tunes along with my own arrangement of a Ventures tune.

It’s not often I say this, but you can use a pick on this one. The first part in particular is very tricky without one. Plus it’ll help the solo uke stand out against the chords.

Visit them on MySpace
Buy the CD on YesAsia.com
Buy the original.

It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of Beatles songs played on the ukulele. But even I am impressed by the Roger Greenawalt and David Barratt’s dedication to Beatles ukulele. Their first project was a performance of every Beatles song on the uke for 14 hours straight. Of course, it was all for a good cause. They gave all the money they raised to Warren Buffet.

Their current project, The Beatles Complete on Ukulele, sees them team up with a string of guest singers to record every Beatles song, posting one song a week until 2012 along with an always enlightening essay on the song. The reworkings often give the tunes new and unexpected contexts such as the Alan Cohen Experience chanting the story of Oedipus on Your Mother Should Know and Adam Green serenading the girlfriend he drugged into a coma with I Will.

I caught up with the pair to discuss ukulele persecution, ennobled actors and why everyone loves the Beatles on ukulele.

How did the idea of playing the entire back catalogue of the Beatles in one day on ukulele come about?

Roger: Serendipity. I was uploading the Beatles catalog on iTunes and noticed it only took up 9.6 hours. I realized that you could perform every song in one day.

How did you physically manage to do it?

Roger: In reality it took 14 hours, there were 67 guest musicians and about 40 singers. Just moving that many people around wasted a lot of time. There were several bands carrying the songs behind me, because just uke would be too boring. And I took lots of breaks. We’re doing the gig again this year on December 5/6 at Spike Hill in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This time we’ll have a tough Sharon Osbourne-like stage manager to whip me in to shape and keep the show on schedule. And also this year, unlike last year, we will have about 50 original uke arrangements which to do, which you can hear at: The Beatles Complete on Ukulele

Beatles covers are very popular on the ukulele. Why do you think that is?

Roger: The Beatles can’t help but make sense on ukulele. Because the Beatles began in John Lennon’s mind. And his first instrument was a ukulele. He continued to use ukulele voicings on guitar for his entire career. His songs, and George’s in particular, are completely idiomatic and always work on uke.

McCartney’s writing is as logical as Mozart, and also translates to uke easily.

The big kick of playing their songs on uke is that it gives you a clear insight into their compositional thinking. A lot of what they did was just put their fingers on the most natural, loudest place on each instrument they used. This is good thinking. You see the logic of what they are doing, and admire how they are always sailing with, not against, the natural forces.

Which songs are you most looking forward to tackling? Are there any songs you’re dreading having to tackle?

Dave: The really bad ones are the most fun to do. We saved the embarrassing Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by recording it much slower, in minor, as a non-ironic murder song. Revolution No. 9 is improved as a heavy metal sing along.

The really good ones are more difficult. How do you better Hey Jude or Something? To improve Let It Be we would have to get Barack Obama in to do the vocal. Do you have his number?

Which guest singers have you got lined up?

Dave: We cannot be completely candid about this, as there are many stars who have said yes, but not recorded yet. We can disclose that Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Ian MacKellen are reworking Oh Bla Di Oh Bla Da in the style of Samuel Beckett. Ben Kweller is somewhere in Texas recording She’s A Woman. Ryan Miller of Guster is down for I’m Looking Through You.

Who would be your dream guest?

Roger: Paul McCartney singing and playing Something. I think it will actually happen.

Dave: My dream is Britney Spears and Morrissey doing A Day In The Life as a duet. Britney, of course, would be singing Paul’s part.

Lastly we would like Jane Asher to contact us directly at 347-529-6500.

Here’s a question you asked Warren: With a Hawaiian president, do you think the mindless persecution of the ukulele finally cease?

Dave: The mindless persecution of the ukulele will never cease until Roger and Dave have total political and spiritual power over every sentient being in the universe. This is what we stand for. That, and peace and love. Aloha.

Have you got any plans for the next project once this one is over in 2012?

Roger: I don’t anybody besides Dave and I who has the next three years planned out, so what’s next is not our biggest focus. The constant challenge is this self-imposed, long-term deadline every week. We will either pull it off or not. That will make or break us.

You can keep up to date with the project and download all the songs so far on The Beatles Complete on Ukulele

It’s really saying something when even I’m bored of the sound of ukuleles in adverts. I’ve been back and forth over whether this one actually is a uke. I think it sounds like a violin being played ukulele style.

The song is in the key of B. So I’ve moved everything up a fret to make it more uke-friendly. If you want to play in the original key tune down a semi-tone.

It’s all easy going up to the middle section when you have to start messing with a G# chord. I’ve put the usual chord shapes in the chart, but you might be better off keeping your ring finger on the G string (4th fret for the G chord and 5th fret for the Cm chord) as it makes the G# transition a little easier.

This week’s selection includes the Lancashire Hotpots decrying the emoization of youth, some fantastic off-kilter blues from Yan Yalego, Agathe and her buddies also doing their bit for the Lancashire dialect by dropping a few haitches, the Spoke Ensemble making a rather wonderful noise, George Stone doing a rocking tribute to the Small Faces, Gracie Allen trying to get her Flea right and plenty more. Read the rest of this entry »

Brunswick have jumped onto the ukuleles-that-look-like-guitars bandwagon with a couple of electric/acoustic ukuleles. It’s probably not a coincidence that they’ve gone for exactly the same models as Mahalo have: the Les Paul and a the Telecaster. Visually, they’re an improvement on the Mahalos. And the Southern Ukulele Store says they’re, “These are a step up in quality and playability from the Mahalo LP and Tele style ukes.” Must say, I’m very tempted by the Telecasters (although this is one of those rare occasions where I’d go for a blonde over a brunette).

I used to be a bit of a pineapple h8r but the quality of the models coming out now is turning me round. I creamed myself over a few last week. And this week the Pono Mango Pineapple and the Ko’olau SP-1 have caught my attention.

Some rather fine photos: ukulele girl pyramid, Poncie Ponce, flapper sailor girl.

I think everyone remembers where they were the day the Cheesecake Factory opened. Now you can have this wonderful souvenier of the day. A slice of history.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s performance at the Proms will be released on DVD and Live in London #2 will be out soon. This review of the ukulele prom by Howard Jacobson is fantastic. “Seid umschlungen, Millionen!” indeed.

Jim D’Ville has released a DVD called Play Ukulele by Ear and has set up a website to go along with it. You can read Ukulele Tonya’s review of it here.

The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra will be releasing a new EP, The Dreaming, on 28th September. Tracks include Africa, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man and Blue Smoke.

Bookulele – A Love Story (via Ukulelezo).

Garfunkel and Oates (Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome) release their debut album.

Download a bunch of tracks from Toy Horses in exchange for your email address.

Metallica’s Seek and Destroy and Seaside by The Kooks on Uker Tabs.

I’m amazed that no one has put the chords for this up already. It’s a ukulele classic. I suppose it is more than a little over shadowed on A Night at the Opera with it being followed by Bohemian Rhapsody.

It’s no surprise that Brian May learnt the ukulele before the guitar. This performance is definitely not one of someone who is playing the ukulele like a guitar. He’s throwing in a lot of Formby moves. There are a few triplets and, in the solo, a bunch of sort-of-split-strokes.

I think he must be tuned up half a step to G#C#FA#. They certainly seem to be the more natural chord shapes. And they match the chord shapes he’s using in this clip of him discussing the track (but the uke is tuned way down).

For the strumming, he’s doing mainly down strums with a few triplets thrown in to liven things up.

I bought myself a Kala lacewood soprano ukulele as a reward for finally finishing the How to Play Ukulele Strums ebook. So were the endless hours of sweet and tears worth it? Here’s my review:

The Lowdown

Wood: Kala seem to make a bigger deal of the lacewood but the part that matters, the top, is solid sitka spruce. Everything else (back, sides, body, neck) are all solid lacewood.
Fretboard: Rosewood. 12 frets.
Tuners: Sealed, Geared.
Made in: China

The Good Stuff

– The Strumming Sound: I love strumming out on this ukulele. It’s bright, loud and punchy. As you would expect from a uke with a spruce top. It has just the sort of tone I love. You don’t get the force of it on the MP3, but here it is anyway.

Strum Test (MP3) (Sister Kate chords)

– Looks: The leopard-spot grain of the lacewood is gorgeous. The uke is very cleanly put together. There are some fancy-Dan fret markers. And, as a well documented lover of pink, I’m a fan of the purfling.

– Construction: It’s sturdily built (handy when you’re as clumsy as I am) and well put together (no flaws worth mentioning). And the intonation is good.

– Smell: Oh, am I the only who likes to give the soundhole of a new uke a good sniff?

The Not So Good Stuff

– Fingerpicking: I knew when I bought that it would more suited to strumming than picking. I always find my fingers falling over each other when fingerpicking a soprano. And the uke loses a lot of its bite when picked (unless you really give it some hammer).

Judging by the video, David Beckingham does a much better job than me of picking this uke. But here’s my picking test.

Picking Test (MP3) (Larry O’Gaff tab

– Geared Tuners: I don’t have anything against geared tuners in general, but they always feel wrong on a soprano. They throw it off balance. I understand the need for them on cheap ukes, but on more expensive ukes a good set of friction tuners would be very nice.

Conclusion

This one is definitely a keeper. I have a lot of fun playing it. I bought it because I wanted a quality soprano (rather the el-cheapo bashers I had before) for strumming and it certainly fits that purpose. I’d certainly recommend it to anyone with similar requirements. I like the spruce/sexy wood combination so much I’ve now got my eye on an Ohana spruce/maple CK-70G.

Southern Ukulele Store Review

When I bought the ukulele I promised feedback on the UK’s new uke seller: The Southern Ukulele Store. I can tell you they certainly pass muster. They’re friendly and helpful, the uke arrived very quickly (although the strings I ordered at the same time took a few weeks) and everything was very well packaged.

The only downside was the ordering system. I went through their own site rather than eBay and the checkout looked very unprofessional. And once I’d paid I had an error message telling me I’d paid the wrong amount. A quick email to them sorted it all out.

But I’ll definitely be using them again in the future. I’ll be going through eBay, though.

That settles it, I am moving to Norway.

Judging by the new songs that are showing up, Katzenjammer’s next album is going to be a killer. I’ve been waiting for a decent recording of this song to show up for a while. Although the clarity hasn’t helped my lyric transcribing skills any. And it doesn’t help that my cherry pie cooking knowledge isn’t up to much either. So, as always when I work them out myself, the lyrics are incomplete and not to be trusted.

The song kicks off with a nice little chord trick which has chromatic ascending notes on the C string. Then it’s barre chords moving up the neck. At one point in the song she does use the open chord shapes for C and D. So you could do that if you prefer.

There’s a ukulele solo in this version of the song – but it’s too quite to figure out what’s actually going on.

I suppose it’s only appropriate that a song about food ends with a scat verse. The chords in brackets are passing chords (so just use one strum to play them).

They also did Ain’t No Thang in the session. Which is a song I can’t get enough of.

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