Not a Fall song. But there is a very tenuous connection.

I was very joyed when I stumbled across this video. Not just because it’s my favourite Hefner song played on the ukulele. But also because it was put up by Spoilt Victorian Child which was, back in the day, the best MP3 blog around. Without it I wouldn’t have started my first MP3 blog. And without that, I wouldn’t be blogging here.

Spoilt Victorian Child was named after a Fall song. But you knew that.

Jemsite has been doing a series called 10 Things I Wish I’d Known About Guitars (Before I Bought One) and I know a good idea when I steal one. The concept: if you could hop into your DeLorean, whack it up to 88 mph and visit yourself when you were buying your first instrument, what advice would you give?

In about 50 years’ time I imagine myself sitting in a comfy chair and my grandkids scurrying up to me in their space-pyjamas and asking, “Granddad, what was life like before the internet?” And I’ll say, “Put down your hoverboards, jump up on my knee and I’ll tell you.” Then I’ll twirl my mustachios wistfully and reply, “It was FUCKIN’ AWFUL!”

Back when I got my first ukulele – during my teenage guitar obsession – there were no internets, YouTubes or blogs to teach a boy anything. I didn’t know anyone who played ukulele. I’d heard George Formby and one other song with a ukulele once. I didn’t have a clue. As a result, it took me many years to see the potential of the uke. So here’s what I’d tell the fat, ugly, stupid, teenage me as he wandered into Bakewell Music Shop to buy a ukulele.

1. The strings don’t go fattest to thinnest.

Just to prove how ignorant I was, I actually tried restringing it the ‘right’ way. It didn’t occur to me that the people who made it might have had a better idea of how to string it than I did. I did have a book. But it was a very slim, old one. I either didn’t read it or it failed to mention this fairly important detail.

2. Good ukuleles exist. Your local music shop doesn’t have one.

Bakewell is famous for it’s tarts (and they are exceeding good). It’s not famous as a centre of outstanding luthiery. The uke I bought was complete junk. I didn’t even know there were better ukes. I think this is the main reason I rarely played the uke for many years.

Message to me: buy a Martin ukulele or six. They might seem expensive now but you ain’t seen nothing yet.

3. Good ukulele strings exist. Your local music shop doesn’t have them.

The same goes for the strings. In fact, I don’t remember them selling strings at all. I don’t know where I would have been able buy good strings. God, I love you, internet. I’m going to miss you come the post-apocalyptic Mad-Max world.

4. Tighten the screws. It might stay in tune.

I think I did eventually work this one out myself. But only many months after giving up on ever getting it to stay in tune.

5. Ukuleles are not little guitars.

I started figuring this one out pretty quickly. After trying to strum it with a plectrum for 3 minutes I realised that clearly wasn’t the way to go. It took me much longer to figure out that the high-G string could be a help rather than a hindrance (partly because it took me a while to figure out it was a high-G string).

6. Eventually, you won’t want to play the guitar any more.

Actually, I might gloss over this fact lest it puts me off picking it up in the first place.

7. Fewer strings means harder, not easier.

Not entirely true, I know. But it is more of challenge to play difficult pieces on the uke. And more rewarding.

8. Don’t steal plutonium from the Libyans.

9. In about 15 years time ukuleles are going to be the coolest thing in the world and you’re going to be writing about them every day. You should practice more.

There’s no getting round the fact I’m a mediocre player. It might be the fact that I’m not naturally musically talented. But more practice certainly couldn’t harm.

10. You like her. She likes you. Just ask her out you useless, spotty idiot. And sell your sister to organ harvesters and put the money into Google and Microsoft.

No, it’s nothing to do with ukuleles. But if I’m time traveling here, I’m not going to spend all ten on ukuleles.

What do you wish you’d known about ukuleles before you bought one?

MP3

Man, those Indie Gods are vengeful. A few hours after the I’m Yours tabs went up, I was laying on the floor unconscious. Long story short: “Hmm, that hurt rather a lot.” – “Now, what am I doing on the floor?” – ambulance – hospital (I’m leaving out the details in the hope you’ll conclude I was doing something sexy and dangerous). In the end, the Indie Gods were merciful and I’m completely fine now. But they have spoken and I promise never again to post anything people might want to play. So here’s a bit of The Mighty Fall.

Intro

For the intro I’m picking the E string with my index finger and A string with my middle finger.

Verse

This bit doesn’t work too well – it’s a little too wimpy.

For this section I switch my thumb to the E string and index finger to the A string.

Chorus

This is the bit that has seen me wandering around the flat shouting, ” ‘ow I wrote Elastic Man, ‘ow I wrote Elastic Man…”

Can anyone answer me this: Did Frank Sidebottom play the ukulele or did the blow to the head cause some damage the doctors didn’t pick up on?

This post originally contained this: “Elastic Man has been covered by comedian ukulelists Frank Skinner and Frank Sidebottom. You know it was, it really was.” Which contains my favourite type of cultural reference i.e. one only about three people would get. In my mind’s eye I always see Sidebottom with a banjo-uke but there’s very scant evidence on the internets that he played one.

UPDATE: I wasn’t imagining it. Here’s a video of Frank Sidebottom with a banjolele.

Now I’m in Derby I officially have some hometown ukulele heroes. The Re-entrants are a ukulele cover duo who have been cause a stir with their live performances across the country and have recently released their debut album Uke Man versus The Strummer. I caught up with Phil and Ian for some routine interrogation.

You’re both songwriters, what made you decide to become a cover band? Are you ever going to do your own songs?

Phil:It was unintentional – we met on the ukulele cosmos forum, realised we lived close to each other and got together for a jam. We both picked some songs so we’d have something to play, and realised our lists were very similar. After one meeting we realised we had something. The Re-entrants are now reasonably well known for what we do, so it’s unlikely we’ll add originals to the set. It’s easy to be snobby about being an ‘artist’ and not demeaning yourself by doing covers, which is nonsense. A good song is a good song, whoever wrote it, and people like listening to people playing good songs. Ian has a brilliant line, “We play other peoples material on a small 4 stringed instrument, which is also the job description of the principle violinist of the Berlin Philharmonic”.

Plus doing covers has introduced us to the novel idea of getting paid for playing, and we’re actually managing to make a meagre living playing uke!

Ian:Arranging cover versions takes a different set of skills to writing original material; there’s less room to say: ‘That’ll do,’ because people are already familiar with the song: I think a well-arranged cover is a creative challenge equal to writing original stuff. In many ways it’s more difficult, and certainly more rigidly structured. There’s nowhere to hide; everyone already knows how it’s supposed to sound.

I still write my own songs, and I would like to perform them at some point, but it isn’t appropriate for The Re-entrants. The audience has certain expectations, and you put so much of yourself into writing that a chant of ‘Britney! Motorhead!’ would be dispiriting. We’d all be disappointed then.

Phil and I both write, but our style is very different. We’ve never tried writing together, and I doubt we would; the emphasis on what we do is on fun, and I think we both like it that way.

How do you get the right balance between the humour in your music and the serious musicianship that goes into what you do?

Ian:The balance between fun and musicianship just seems to happen organically. We never go for comic effect; we try very hard to recreate the original track as thoroughly as we can within the limitations of the arrangement. Even the vocal ‘impersonations’ aren’t really comic impressions – sometimes the vocal style is part of the identity of the song, so you have to get it as right as you can. It isn’t just about the ukuleles – they are just one aspect of the overall thing.

Phil:There was never any humour intended, we simply wanted to play the songs well. I think more humour comes from the fact we are two bald men both rapidly approaching middle age, singing songs you wouldn’t expect, like Britney or Madonna. That’d be just as funny with guitars. There is also humour derived from the fact that people don’t expect us to do a good job because of the reputation of the uke as a comedy instrument. We often get told “I thought it was going to be rubbish, but…” People laugh when they hear us throw in the brass part or lead guitar part, or a rap, because they are surprised at the fact we’ve put in the details, and there is something inherently funny about a screaming, high, bent note played on a uke, complete with rock and roll grimace (or indeed a fat, white bloke rapping!).

We both like to have a laugh on stage, which is something we’ve always done even before the uke came along. We aim to be entertaining. As for musicianship, we rehearse every week and gig 5 to 10 times a month, and we are very comfortable on stage as we’ve both been performing for over 20 years. We always wanted to be gig-ready all the time and we’re at the point now where we can do a 2 hour show at the drop of a hat, all from memory, without a second thought. It’s a nice place to be, as you can actually concentrate on enjoying the gig rather than panicking about what you’re playing.

What makes for a good ukulele cover?

Ian:It’s all about that challenge for me. I deliberately go for songs that have some quality that is incredibly difficult to reproduce – whether they are massively long or complicated arrangements, have iconic hooks or solos that must be note-perfect or difficult, idiosyncratic vocals.

Phil:We don’t really think in terms of ‘ukulele cover’. If it’s a good song, well played, it’ll work. That said we do have a few ‘rules’. Firstly it has to be a song recognisable to anyone in our audience. Most of the people we play to are not uke aficionados; they are people out for a good night’s entertainment and expect to be able to sing along! Secondly, if a song on the radio screams out ‘uke cover’ to us, we probably won’t do it. If we think ‘how the hell could we do that?’, then we’ll try and find a way of doing it. The arranging is at least 50% of the act. It’s fun to find songs that have lots of parts, potential for vocal harmonies, etc. We endeavour to make our covers as true to the original as possible – part of the experience is that, as the screaming guitar solo or whatever approaches, the audience will start to think ‘hang on, I know what’s comes next on the record’ (you can actually see it on there faces!), ‘are they going to try and pull that off? Blimey, they have!’

What’s in your uke collection?

Phil: I have a Pete Howlett concert Uklectic (a solid body electric), a Pono mahogany concert with a pickup, a Rob Collins triangle soprano uke in walnut with a pickup (the twin of Ian’s), a Ken Timms mahogany soprano, and two ukes by Simon Bush, an ash soprano and a cherry concert. I’m very much on a UK builders trip at the moment!

We don’t have loads, because, as a working band we feel our instruments should earn their keep. However, we also allow ourselves the luxury of a new uke we want, rather than need, every so often! Since we got together two years ago we’ve had a ridiculous amount of instruments pass through our hands, more than 50 between us.

Ian:I love sopranos, and part of the appeal is the extra difficulties they bring into it; all my ukes are sopranos. On stage, I play a matching pair of Applauses; acoustically, I have a Kiwaya KTS-7 that I adore. I also have a Fin-der plastic uke which has a lovely plunky sound, as well as an old no-name banjo uke with my face painted on the skin! How vain is that? Recently I’ve acquired a couple of handmade UK luthier-built instruments, both of which are lovely: I have the Simon Bush Sopramericano, which I was initially loaned to review, and which I couldn’t part with; I’ve also just got one of a pair of Rob Collins triangle ukes which were built specifically for the Re-entrants. That was a fantastic experience, adding our own specifications to a build. They are great ukes.

What advice would you give to new uke players?

Ian:To new ukers, my main piece of advice is not to worry too much about the fingers – the most important body part to a player is the ear. Listen, listen, listen, play, play, play.

Phil: Have fun. Work hard at it, and you’ll get more out of it. Play with other people. Get the best uke you can afford. Oh, and the secret is in the right hand, not the left…

You’re appearing at the London Uke Festival. What can we expect to hear from you?

Ah, that would be telling! We never introduce songs, so that the audience can have a bit of a ‘pop quiz’ and try and guess from the intro. We’ve done nearly 100 gigs and always played ‘…Hit Me Baby One More Time’, so it’s unlikely we’ll break that tradition! We don’t do many gigs to uke players, maybe only 3 or 4 a year, so we’ll probably try and pick songs unlikely to be played by anyone else there. Sadly, we won’t be around for the record attempt, as we have another gig 150 miles away in the evening!

Any closing remarks?

Phil: I also think it’s worth mentioning that you can over-intellectualise this sort of thing. People do it with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain all the time. The’ irony’ angle (we hate that. There’s never been anything ironic about what we do), the ‘reflection of / reaction to popular culture’ angle, the ‘cute/ quirky/ twee’ angle. Most of it is nonsense and related much more to the media’s inability to avoid cliché and pigeon-holing. We love what we do, we enjoy playing and we’re getting lots of great gigs and even being asked for autographs (!), but we never forget that we are just a couple of blokes playing the ukulele. We mentioned ‘rules’ earlier on, but rule number one when we first got together was ‘no egos’ and it’s served us well!

You can buy The Re-Entrants’ debut album Uke Man Vs The Strummer on their website or on iTunes.

Here it is. Due to popular demand (i.e. to stop people requesting it). And also due to the fact that the other versions on line keep it in the original key of B. It makes more sense, for beginners in particular, to move all the chords up a fret so it’s in the more uke-friendly key of C. So if you want to play along with the original, tune down half a step.

I’ve based the chords and tabs on the version in the video (which seems to have survived the cull). It’s very similar to the album version but there are some differences in the intro (and the lyrics but it’s not like they were the world’s ‘bestest’ to begin with).

Suggested Strumming

The strumming in this version (and Aldrine’s version) goes like this:

(d) (u) d – (d) (u) d –

With the strums in brackets being muted strums.

But that’s a little sparse if you are playing the uke by itself. So you could go with.

d u d u d u d u

Emphasizing the second and fourth beats.

Twiddly Bits

Here’s the intro as it’s played

But if you’re doing a solo version it’s easy to fill in the chords in between these parts.

I’m Yours

A very tough job sticking to my 10 video maximum this week. Those that the survived the ruthless cull include The Bobby McGee’s, a couple of performances from the NY Uke Fest, Sara Watkins and Tom Allalone.

You might notice Zoe and Jodi wearing prototype Ukulele Hunt shirts. They’re still at the testing stage – I don’t even have them myself yet. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s ‘it’s so ridiculous I must have it’ is this Pono double neck ukulele (an eight string and a four string). Rather than being fully attached, they’re arranged as a Venn diagram of ukuleles.

It’s so rare to see a Kalaka ukulele that I – like Google – presume it’s a spelling mistake. As I understand it, Kalaka is the label slapped on by the importer. So I’m curious about who made them. The headstock and binding are very similar to the early Kamakas.

Whoever put together this turtle shell ukulele dohickey must have been inspired by the armadillo shell charangos. There’s some very fancy work on the back of that neck. Not sure I’d want to play it, though.

Ukulele kitsch: Hello Kitty cuddly toys.

Ukulele photo of the week: party girls.

Ken Middleton has released his first ukulele ebook: 12 Tunes for Bluegrass Ukulele. If you’ve been following his videos and his tabs, you’ll know he makes great arrangements and this ebook is definitely no exception.

Last chance to sign up for my How to Play Fingerpicking Ukulele mini-course – it’ll be taken down tomorrow (Saturday).

Jake Wildwood has a new album out and you can download it for free on his website.

The London Uke Festival people are keeping tight-lipped about who’s on the bill. They have a couple of acts listed here. My team of private investigators reveal the expected presence of The Bobby McGee’s, Joe Brown, The Re-Entrants, The Sugarsnap Sister (including Tricity Vogue and Cousin Alice) and a “smattering” of the UOGB. But the most interesting part for me is that I’ve always felt there’s a big disconnection between the London ukulele scene and the online ukulele scene. So it’d be nice to get together and be one big family. Or, failing that, have a Sharks-vs-Jets style dance-fight. If you’re feeling generous, you can sponsor my part in the festival here.

If you missed Dent May’s debut EP first time around, you’ve got a second chance to download it here. And you can watch a performance and interview from SXSW.

Armelle’s fascinating trip around the world of ukulele languages continues with Girls Aloud in Latin and a trip to Oceania. You can catch up with the full list here.

At the risk of starting a bidding war between Emily and Zoe, last week’s moustache ukulele is available to buy here.

This new uke website has popped up. Not much there yet but thought I better mention it before I forget.

Build your own ukulele speakerdog (via Ukulelia).

KDUS has animals doing people things – including playing the uke.

I usually only link to photos I can say something droll about. But I’m linking to these because they’re rather beautiful and they give me a light boner*: You might sleep, but you’ll never dream, Untitled, Ukulele.

*Yes, that link is safe for work. What’s going on in your head?

The second part of Captain Obvious Week and it’s Ben Gibbard again. A very different sound to last time but some very similar chords.

Suggested Strumming

For the verses you can go with:

d – d u

All the way through. But you have to hold some chords longer than others. For the verse you do it four times for F, Dm and Bb. Then twice for F and C.

The intro and choruses are a bit more tricky. Do it twice for Dm, F, Bb. Once each for F and F7M. Two for Dm and F again. Four for C. Two for Dm, F, A. One for Dm, Dm7. Two for Bb and Bbm. And four for F.

I hope you followed that. I never know how much detail to give for the strumming.

I’ve had to come up with my own method of writing up strums both for the blog and for the How To Play Ukulele Strums ebook I’m working on. I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible, and here’s what I’ve come up with:

d : indicates a down strum.

u : indicates an up strum.

– : indicates a pause or missed strum i.e. moving your hand either up or down but not hitting the strings.They are most useful to give you an indication of the timing of the strums.

x : indicates a chnk. Strumming down and following through so the underside of your hand lands on the strings creating a ‘chnk’ sound.

(d) or (u) : A muted down/up strum. Strumming as normal but with your fretting fingers resting on the strings to stop them ringing. It sounds like a chnk but you can do them with strums in either direction.

D or U : when in bold and/or capitalised that means the strum is emphasized (i.e. give it a bit more welly).

TTT : triplet strum. There are plenty of ways to do these. My personal favourite is down with middle and index fingers, up with index, up with middle. Here’s Jake discussing his preferred method. Or you could be a complete flash-Harry and use a fan stroke.

Ukulele Strumming in Tabs

You’ll also see strums written up in tab form. Here an up arrow indicates a down strum and a down arrow indicates an up strum. (Make sense? Good.)

So a down, up, down, up… strum looks like this.

A less common method – but quite a neat one – is to use guitar pick direction tab for strum directions.

A down strum looks like this:

And an up strum looks like this:

So a down, up, down, up… strum would look like this:

If you want to learn more about the subject, take a look at my ebook on Ukulele Strumming