When Sophie Madeleine gets as famous as she’s obviously going to be, I fully intend to take all the glory for discovering her. Seeing as how I get none of the credit (or blame if you’re so inclined) for discovering Julia Nunes.

I’ll try to resist the temptation to dork-out on the chord progression as much as I did for The Ukulele Song*. But there are plenty of moments worth looking at. Like the flamenco like D – Eb-5 in the intro. And the extensive use of the IVm chord (C minor rather than the more common C major). And when they do the IV-IVm (which is pretty standard) they put the chord change between phrases rather than in the middle of it (where it’s usually used by lesser songwriters such as The Beatles).

And then, of course, it’s the Jim’ll Fix It style ba-ba-baa chorus.

Buy Sophie Madeleine’s stuff on BandCamp.

* I failed to resist.

More Sophie Madeleine

Sophie Madeleine interview
Beard Song (Chords)
The Stars (Chords)
Take Your Love With Me (The Ukulele Song)(Chords)

I wasn’t going to write a review of the Mahalo Flying V. My brother got me one for Christmas. It was a nice thought and he wasn’t to know it’s the WORST UKULELE IN THE WORLD.

The Good Stuff

The Look: It does look good. Even close up. The way the neck attaches to the body is a little inelegant, but nevertheless.

… erm… The intonation isn’t too bad for the price.

The Bad Stuff

The Sound: The sound is awful. Weak and flat.

Playability: It’s very hard to play without buzzes and scratches. The neck feels nasty. It’s almost impossible to find a comfortable strumming or picking position. Which brings me on to…

The Shape: The shape makes it impossible to hold and strum comfortably.

When you’re sitting down it’s hard to avoid getting spiked in the groin. Which isn’t an experience I enjoy (and anyone who tells you I do enjoy it and that I regularly pay for exactly that experience is lying).

The only way I’ve found to play it standing up is to stick my arm through the middle of the V. Which makes strumming tricky, picking impossible and you look like a divot.

Tuning Pegs: Argh! Cheap friction pegs.

Tests

Strumming Test

MP3

Picking Test

MP3

Intonation Test

MP3

Overall

If you are thinking of getting a Mahalo Flying V as your first ukulele please, please, please don’t. I can’t think of a worse ukulele to learn on. If you must have a ukulele that looks like a guitar, get a Mahalo Les Paul instead. They’re a much better instrument.

If you have a decent uke or two already, get one for the novelty value. But buy one of these while you’re at it.

Listen on her website.

For her latest album, Wax Works, Madame Pamita eschewed modern recording techniques like Auto-Tune, digital manipulation and, erm, electricity. Instead she sang and played down tin horns on to wax cylinders. Then, like the old-timey musicians of yore, released the album for digital download.

Suggested Strumming

d – d – – u d u

Madame Pamita is currently bringing her brand of prognostication and rural blues to the UK. You can find the dates here and you can buy her songs on madamepamita.com on a ‘pay whatever you please’ basis.

I’ve only been here a few months, but I’m already starting to hate Derby. For one thing, there are only ten people in the entire city with good taste in music. I can say that with some authority because that’s how many turned out to see Peggy Sue recently. But those of us who did turn up were treated with some excellent uke action from the Peggys themeselves and from Charlot Webster. Who was kind enough to answer a few questions.

You play a wide variety of instruments. Why have you settled on ukulele as your main one?

I sort of settled by accident I suppose. I used to mostly play keyboards at my shows and I bought a uke to have something more portable and then slowly my ukes have taken over the set!

It seems like there are a lot of ukulele acts in Brighton. What’s the scene like there?

The Brighton scene is weird because there is just SO much music in such a small space.. & Brighton is known for being “kooky” which is a category that the ukulele unfortunately falls into quite alot, so I tend to steer clear of that.. But when I first started playing uke I went to a night run by the Bobby McGees which was a ukulele open mic and that was such a friendly night – they are awesome.

What’s the idea behind the Mixtape Exchange? And what makes for a great mixtape?

It’s something I run at my shows and by post, you put a tape in the box and take one out at shows, and by post you send one to the address and i send one back. Basically it’s just a good way to spread the art of the mixtape! It’s not soley to share music.. That’s what the internet and filesharing is for. It’s to spend a lot of time crafting a tape of songs that excite you. A lot more time, effort, and usually thought goes in it that way. Often I prefer making the tape to recieving them simply because it involves a night of listening to my awesome record collection. For me a great mixtape has a range of music, and a pretty sleeve note.

What’s in your ukulele collection?

Betty is my acoustic made by Mele. I got her from Duke of Uke in London and she is so beautiful. Buddy is my electric, he is pretty fucking cool. I don’t know what make he is, he was a gift from my father.. I swapped my first Stag uke with my dad because he had one that was much nicer, and i put a pick up in it and named him Eric, but at the moment i’ve leant him to the band Peggy Sue ’til they get round to buying their own. & my dad still has my stag.. but don’t tell him Peggy Sue have Eric or he will be jealous! I am glad they do, though.. Eric got to go to New York and be on their album which is nice for him.

How can people get hold of your music?

The best way is buy a record at a show. I am rubbish at internet money stuff so same as my mixtape exchange I sell merch through post. Selotaped coins in an envelope or a cheque. Perhaps soon I will update…

You can listen to Charlot’s music on MySpace and visit her mixtape exchange here.

Jayne left a comment on the original chords for Sesame Street suggesting an easy version of the chords. And, since it’s a song the kiddies might be interested in playing, I thought I’d go for it.

Suggested Strumming

For the first part you can use:

d – d u d – d u

For each chord until you get to G7. Then do just down strums for that. Back to the pattern for F7. Then just one down strum for the G7, Bb and F. After that you’re back to the pattern.

It looks like Soko has retired from music making. Judging from her MySpace you’d think she’s given up on everything. But before that Shoot the Player recorded a session with her. Fittingly enough in a graveyard. If you need cheering up after that, check out StP’s session with the adorable Ben Lee and Tallest Man on Earth’s incredible version of Stepstone.

This week’s videos also include Tripping Lily (whose new album looks like it’s going to be a treat), Bruce Springsteen, Ukulele Ike (in a very strange clip) and Sarah Kinlaw continuing to be an astonishing songwriter. Read the rest of this entry »

Ukulele Friend has this interesting Martin 2M from way back in 1916. It’s interesting to see the things that aren’t set in place yet: such as the sideways stamp in the soundhole and the bright white binding. You can see the differences against this later Martin 2M.

Dolphins seem to be the sea creature of choice for ukuleles, but this French piranha styled ukulele is more my speed.

Wailing resonator ukulele.

Ukulele photo of the week.

Ukulele kitsch: Uke lamp.

GoChords is a new web app for making your own chord sheets (for ukulele, baritone and guitar). If you’re going to the New York Uke Fest, you’ll be able to chat with them there.

New classical ukulele tabs site.

Armelle’s round the world trip of ukulele languages continues with Asia, the British Isles and Latin America.

Coldplay’s Yellow on Uker Tabs.

Fense Post has an MP3 of Tafra’s Oh, Daniel.

No idea what this site is, but it has a couple of useful pdfs.

Amy Worthen is giving away some Mad Tea Party goodies on her blog.

Warren Buffett’s ukulele lessons.

Even guitars have to get their hands on a ukulele.

From the Urban Dictionary:

Nunes: (v) Messing around (usually on a ukulele) when you should be doing something important such as an essay.

Playing the rusty ukulele: you don’t want to know what it means (besides, I think ‘playing the rusty Jews Harp‘ would be more apt).

I do like a good bit of shounting so I couldn’t resist writing up the ukulele version of Black Kids’ I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend To Write Songs With Really Long Song Titles That Go Off the End of the Line and Makes the Blog Look Messy.

Suggested Strumming

This strumming pattern should see you all the way through the song:

d – (d) (u) d – (d) u – u d u d – d u

The strums in brackets are muted with the fretting hand.

Twiddly Bits

The guitar solo from the full band version works pretty well on the uke with a bit of jiggling and poking.

The blog officially became two years old yesterday, so it’s time for my annual self-indulgent, navel-gazing, rambling post. It’s very long, quite personal, occasionally pretentious and I won’t hate you for skipping it.

Last Year’s Goals

In last year’s post I set a few goals for the blog that I thought were impossible. So let’s see how I did.

1) Stay number 1 on the Top 50 Ukulele Sites

Result: Success.

I’m still pretty firmly in the top spot.

2) Number one on Google.com for:

It should be pointed out the results vary according to where you are. So what I see may be different to what you see. In particular, Google.co.uk seems to hate me.

a) Ukulele Tabs

Result: Success

I’ve been number one for a while and don’t seem to move from there. When I said I thought this was impossible, I lied.

b) Ukulele Chords

Result: Failure

This is the one I’ve put most work into. A few months ago I was around position 5 and really worked at it. But at the moment I’m hovering around between 2 and 3. With the benefit of hindsight, it was stupid of me to put the chords and tabs on one page. I also lied about thinking this one was impossible. I still think it’s possible.

c) Ukulele

Result: Failure

I seem to spend most of my time at position 2. But occasionally that Ukulele Gently Weeps guy goes ahead of me.

I told the truth when I said I thought this one was impossible. Wikipedia is next to impossible to beat. Even Google CEO Eric Schmidt can’t beat Wikipedia for his own name in his own search engine. So I didn’t stand much chance.

3) 1 Million Visits

Result: Success.

I’ve had over one and a quarter million hits in the last year with over six and a quarter million page views. When I think about those sort of numbers my head starts to hurt.

4) 1,500 Subscribers

Result: Success.

1,000 people subscribe by email, 700ish by RSS feed and 200 and some by Twitter.

This one scares me even more than the last one. There are 2,000 people out there who want to be informed of what I have to say every single day. What are you people? Stalkers?

Overall

There might be a few near misses in there, but I’m delighted the way the last year has gone. I owe a huge thanks to everyone who has commented, talk about the site, pruf red my stuff, been interviewed, offered their advice, subscribed and said nice things to and about me.

I owe an even huger thanks to my family and Jenny who’ve been massively supportive since day one. Unbelievably, when announced that I’d quit my job in accounts and had decided to write about the ukulele instead none of those people tried to slap some sense into me. Which is just one reason why they’re my favourite people in the world.

Next Year’s Goals

This year’s goals are going to be very different to last year’s.

For one thing, the site is plenty big enough now. If it never gets any bigger than it is now, that’s fine with me.

For another, those goals were boring. They were very SMART. I think the SMART system is a great set of training wheels for people who, like me, have had all sense of ambition beaten out of them by education and work.

But since reading Chris Guillebeau’s Guide to World Domination, I’ve been thinking I should set my goals a little more on the way out side.

So my goal is to ensure that:

Everyone in the world who wants to play a musical instrument does play a musical instrument.

That goal isn’t specific, measurable, attainable, realistic or timely. I don’t have the first clue how to go about making it so. I’m not entirely sure what it even means. It’s vomit worthy in its ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ sentimentality. In short, it’s the stupidest goal ever set. But there you have it.

Almost all the TED Talks get me thinking. But this one by Larry Lessig particularly got my attention. He talks about Sousa’s prediction that ‘talking machines’ would stop people making their own music and become consumers of music. He was absolutely right about that (but less right about man de-evolving vocal cords). Lessig points out that the internet is reviving the amateur culture; people are making music (and videos, art, poetry, software, books and even businesses – if an amateur business isn’t a contradiction in terms) off their own backs. He goes on to talk about mash-ups and copyright law. But it’s equally obvious in the number of people recording ukulele videos and putting them up on YouTube, recording music and releasing it on the net or getting together to form uke groups. I think it would be a shame for people to miss out on it because making something is more fun and more rewarding than using something.

From the start, one of my – unstated for being too ridiculous – aims for the blog was to make sure everyone who started playing the ukulele didn’t stop. And this goal is widening it out a bit. I think one of the main reasons people want to make music but don’t is they don’t think they have any musical ability (often because they’ve been told that – often, unforgivably, by teachers). Which makes the ukulele the perfect place to start. No matter what the arguments over how easy it is to play, no-one is intimidated by the ukulele.

It’s also one of the reasons I was keen to do something for Ukuleles for Peace. There are plenty of other good reasons to support it as well. So if you haven’t bought that ebook yet – do it.

If you have any idea how to set about achieving it, do let me know. (Just don’t mention the word ‘school’.)

Coming Up (Or Not)

I get a lot of suggestions – many of them ending with the words, “off and die.” But some of them are very good. I even have my own ideas some times. Here are a selection of things that you can expect to see, some you might see, and some you won’t.

Will Happen

– Various people have told me I should be doing Uke Hunt t-shirts and they were absolutely right. But I didn’t want to do a boring shirt with just a logo on. So I searched and eventually found the right person to design them. The first set of shirts are being designed by Art Grootfontein. And here’s a glimpse at the first one and here’s the second.

– How to Play Ukulele Strums. By far the most requested ebook. It has been in the works for a long time. I’m finding it really difficult to write. Perhaps because so much of the stuff out there about strums misses the point entirely or is just plain rubbish. But it is slowly coming together and I think it will be really useful once it’s finished.

Might Happen

Feel free to voice your opinions on whether you want these.

– Captain Obvious Week. I get buckets of requests for songs like I’m Yours that have been done so many times on the ukulele they make me want to stab my ears with an icepick. Usually I just reply that I’m Yours would never work on the ukulele. But that just ends up in me being called a douche by the semi-literate. So I’m tempted to get this sort of thing out the way. Except I think my so-hip-it-hurts regular readers will – quite rightly – leave never to return.

– More videos.

– Some sort of membership area of the site that would be closed off to passers-by.

– Uke Hunt net-label. I like the idea and, with the record industry in such rude health, how could it fail? But orgainising things that involve more people than just me isn’t my strong suit. (This one probably belongs in the ‘Will Never Happen’ section).

– Retire the Fingerpicking mini-course.

– Regular Twittering. During my break recently my blog muscles started to atrophy. So I decided to start Twittering properly. It doesn’t appeal to me anywhere near as much as blogging. There’s not much long term benefit to it. After a few hours no one is ever going to see your tweet ever again. But it does have its uses.

Will Never Happen

– Uke Hunt festival. Suggested by James Hill and seconded by Jimmy.

I don’t have my shit together anywhere near enough to pull something like this off. My organisational skills are stretched to the full making sure I wear enough clothes to keep myself out of jail when I venture outside.

– Bosko and Honey style world trip of ukulele players. Suggested by Ukulelezo.

It worked for Bosko and Honey because they’re friendly, affable, talented and generally adorable. I, on the other hand, am a surly, anti-social douche. But the idea does appeal to me in theory. And if I could come up with a way to make it more interesting than just a poor-man’s Ukulele Safari it might move itself into the maybe category.