Daydream Believer by The Monkees is fairly straightforward to play. The biggest challenges are a few quick hops up the neck. The trickiest one coming in the shift between bars 8 and 9. Other than that, it’s all familiar chord shapes and a simple but insanely catchy melody.
The original is in the key of G and that fits very nicely on the uke so I’ve kept it for this arrangement. The little piano riff in the intro works particularly well.
In tribute to Taylor Hawkins: My Hero by Foo Fighters.
The song starts off with a bit of dissonance between the Ab on the E-string and the open A string. The Ab also provides dissonance as the first note in the chorus melody (bar 16).
My first arrangement contained strumming almost all the way through. So in the intro I was strumming the second half of bars 1 and 2. And also strumming in the gaps at the end of every other bar in the verse. If you want to do it that way, go for it. But I decided to create a bit more of a contrast been the sections by picking adding picking to the quieter sections.
For the “solo” section of the tab is more in keeping with the spirit of that section rather than the actual notes. It’s really just a breakdown cooling things off before bringing the rock back. So as long as you build up at the end, you’re free to do whatever you like with this section.
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Smells Like Teen Spirit tab
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Tracklist
Elisabeth Pfeiffer – Dance of the Mountain Sage
Ronya-Lee and the Light Factory – Light
BoyWithUke ft. blackbear – IDGAF
Gracie Terzian ft. Vinicius Vivas and Rotem Sivan – Waiting for a Train
4stringboy – Ain’t Nobody
Belinda Underwood – Thinkin’ Dirty
Del Rey – Sitting On Top of The World
CocoCapitainePoulet – Le Club de l’Apocalypse
Herman Vandecauter – Canario
Gerald Ross – How Sweet It Is
Here’s a selection of quick pieces from movies nominated for this year’s Best Picture Oscar. I haven’t seen King Richard or Belfast. So it’s possible these tunes have an exceptionally minor part in those movies. But they’re great riffs. And Cissy Strut can sneak in via its use in last year’s Best International Picture winner: Another Round.
Tabs: Radetzky March (PDF)
After The Man Who Sold the World’s starts off with that iconic riff playing over changing chords. It works nicely on uke and is well worth learning on its own.
At the end of the intro, there’s an awkward bar of 2/4. I considered extending it to a bar of 4/4 (as Nirvana did in their Unplugged version). It certainly feels more natural that way. Even Bowie messed up and came in late sometimes. I’d recommend going with a bar of 4/4 if that feels more comfortable to you. There’s another bar of 2/4 in bar 20, but that one feels much more natural.
The verse is a simple chord and melody affair. But things get a little tricky in the chorus where you’re playing the riff and the melody. Make sure you keep them as distinct as you can by giving extra emphasis to the melody notes and sustaining them as much as you can over the riff.
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Spandau Ballet’s True is a real new romantic cheese-fest. Despite (or maybe because of) that, I had a lot of fun playing this. There are some tasty chords and runs in there.
Cheesiest and funnest of all is the sax solo. I’ve kept this as close to the original as I could manage. The chord progression switches to a simple Eb – Ab vamp. So there’s plenty of scope to throw your own ideas in there. The trickiest part of the whole song comes in bar 60 with a quick descending run at the climax.
Ukulele sculpture by “Philadelphia Dumpster Diver” Linda Lou Horn.
Seattle Police are searching for an armed robber who stole $100 and a Billie Eilish ukulele.
Window Shopping
– A Hess Juka ukulele from 1938 with a device that seems to be the forerunner of the Chordmaster. (Thanks to @hermanvdc.)
– Ohana Vintage Line 390 and a custom painted Ohana.
– Flight Aqua A10QM.
– Kala Blue Bottle.
New Releases
– Craig Robertson has a new album: scratched out. And he’s giving away his first 27 albums for free including he one I make an appearance on. If you’re not sure where to start, get his Greatest Hats Vol. 1 or, my favourite, DeChirico Street.
– Tyrone and Leslie are crowdfunding their latest album on Pozible.
– Phredd has a new album out Ukulele Bundle of Joy. You can find links to it on your service of choice here.
Patreon
A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:
– Arthur Foley
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dan
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Fi Keane
– Izzy Gensel
– Jeff K
– Kelby Green
– Kie77
– Leia-lee Doran
– Lisa Johnson
– Nevylle Carroll
– Nick Parsons
– Olga deSanctis
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– T S
– Thorsten Neff
If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including March’s: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins/Nina Simone’s I Put a Spell on You.
I’m still tied to the 90s but for once it’s not a one hit wonder but Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Teen Spirit has Nirvana’s traditional quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamics. In this arrangement, the loud bits are done with strumming and the quiet bits are fingerpicked.
I’ve shortened a couple of sections to stop things getting too repetitive. The strumming part of the intro is halved. As is the pre-chorus. If you want to make it even tighter, you could also drop four bars of the chorus.
In case you’re not familiar, the arrows above the notes in bars 5 and 7 are telling you to emphasise those notes. Those are intended to be the “bow-now” notes on the guitar in the quiet bit.
Following on from No Rain with another 90s one-hit wonder: Marcy Playgraound’s Sex and Candy.
The song only has verses and choruses but they still manage to sneak in three key changes. The verses are in G and the choruses in Bb.
The key change from the verse to the chorus is very smooth. Although the Bb note (A-string, 1st fret) isn’t in the key of G, we’ve heard it a lot in the Eb chord and the melody. So the transition that occurs during the “I smell sex and…” part is seamless.
The key change back at the end of the chorus calls attention to itself though. In bar 20 the chords shift down half a step to D to set up the key of G. A bit of theory: the most common way to change key is to play the V chord of the key you’re changing to. This sets up the new key rather than diving straight into it. In this case, D is the V chord of G.
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