How often do you get the chance to get some kickass ukulele tabs and do your bit for world peace at the same time?

You may well have heard of Ukuleles for Peace already. The charity is based in Israel and run by Paul Moore who teaches ukulele to Jewish and Arab kids and brings them together in a ukulele orchestra. The goal is to create friendships and links between otherwise entirely separate communities.

Ukuleles for Peace works in two towns – Tira and Hod Hasharon – where it has been hugely successful. There are even discussions about the group performing at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

But they do need money to keep up the good work and, hopefully, expand into other towns in the region. To that end, I’ve got together with the the glittering elite of online ukulele tabbers and put together and ebook of tunes from around the world arranged for ukulele. It features tabs/arrangements from Brian Hefferan, Dominator, James Hill, Ken Middleton, Mark Kailana Nelson, Wilfried Welti and me. You can find out more about it, read the contents, listen to tracks and buy it here. And the money goes directly to Ukuleles for Peace.

And you really should buy it. Look at their little faces (and in this video). Not giving these kids ukuleles is exactly the same as going round strangling puppies.

If you can’t afford it, you can help even more by spreading the word about Ukuleles for Peace and the ebook by talking about it on blogs, forums, MySpace, Facebook, Live Journal and anywhere you can find people who might listen.

Go buy How to Play Ukuleles for Peace.

This week’s vidoes include some hip hop ukulele, Jake playing Jackson, Jodi and Amber playing Jackson, another hit from Toy Horses, and Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome putting their acting chops to good use. But the song I’ve listened to most this week has been Sarah Kinlaw’s Guilty Love. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Santa,

I’ve been ever such a good boy this year and if your list says an different it must be an administrative error because the police station was on fire when I got there.

So here’s the stuff I want:

A tenor KoAloha Sceptre (or at least a concert koa ukulele).

Ukulele Hero T-Shirt – now gone forever. As an alternative, I’ll go for this one.

A Charango aka the Bolivian super-ukulele.

Whatever this is.

A re-up Anne’s video of her Lanikai ukulele review.

A chicken finger shaped like a rabbit.

A ukulele necklace.

An unplayable Ukelin.

The immediate arrest of everyone who inaccurately labels African MP3s ‘Reggae’.

A tacky ukulele Christmas ornament.

eBay to ban people using the words ‘Martin’ and ‘ukulele’ in the title of items that aren’t Martin ukuleles. I don’t care if it’s ‘like Martin’, ‘has Martin strings’ or is a Martin Rival.

Thanks, Dude.

Al

Gary at Ukulelia has put together a list of Christmas ukulele tabs and chords online and alerts us to the Fiesta Flea.

UkeToob interviews Merrill ‘tUnE-YaRdS’ Garbus.

Death Cab for Cutie to release ukulele song.

MP3 blogs: Muruch has eagleowl’s Sleeptide, Foggy Ruins of Time has the very big spider.

Another Christmas song with no reference to Christmas in it but I loved the version by keonepax with Bosko and Honey I had to write it up.

In the chord chart I’ve shown the chord inversions that keonepax is playing, but it’s great to mix them up with other inversions. Here are a few possibilities.

In the solo Bosko is using quite a few sixths:

And finishes of with a cool little variation on the Hawaiian turnaround. Here’s my take on the same idea:

MP3

keonepax’s YouTube Page
Bosko and Honey

As well as his classical and traditional tab book, Wilfried Welti has also put together an ebook of German Christmas carols. Some of these – such as O, Tannenbaum and Stille Nacht – are very familiar outside of Germany. Some of them are less recognisable – such as Ihr Kinderlein Kommet (O Come, Little Children). Others are entirely new to me but have great tunes such as Lieb Nachtigall. All of them are beautifully and simply arranged for the uke.

UPDATE: Wilfried has a new Christmas ebook available Christmas Music with the Ukulele. It’s even better than this one!

Visit Wilfried Welti’s YouTube channel.

Incredibly irritating to song to go through sober, but the big advantage of it is that all the numbers from 12 to 6 just require one strum of a D chord.

The best bit, obviously, is the ‘FIVE GOLDEN RIIIIIIIINGS’. I like to beef that part up a bit with these chords:

I also like to add bits of the melody into the chord accompaniment as well. And a solo version in this key is, handily enough, in my How to Play Christmas Ukulele ebook.

There are two different versions of the D chord in the chart: one with an open A string and one with the A string at the fifth fret. But you can use just one of them the whole way through if you’re not comfortable with either. I’m going to have to come up with a better way of referring to different inversions of a chord than calling it ‘alt’, let me know because there must be one. Perhaps calling it D, D’, D”. Let me know your suggestions.

Requested by Annie

This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I find most Christmas songs unbearably bad. The only type of Christmas songs I love are the old Pagan ones that have had a thin layer of Christianity papered on top (much like Christmas itself) and one of the best, Down in Yon Forest, crops up on the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s new Christmas album. A quick lyric sample: “In the bed there lays a knight / Whose wounds do bleed by day and night / Under that bed there runs a flood / The one half runs water the other runs blood.” … and a Happy New Year.

But there’s plenty of jollity on the album as well along with a bunch of lyric changing that I’m dying to quote here and entirely ruin for you. These humorous, singalongs are enhanced by being recorded live while the more intricate songs are recorded in the studio.

But the highlight of the album for me is – as you might expect – the top notch uke playing. Their instrumental version of Wassail is a masterclass in arranging for a ukulele group – everywhere you look there’s something interesting going on and it still works as a whole – and Christmas Rose is a beautifully played waltz. They use the uke in some interesting ways; the album opens with sleigh bells imitated by playing the strings behind the nut. The uke playing highlight of the album is the album closer: a funky-ass version of Good King Wenceslas. The intro is incredible. I don’t know how they manage to build those up.

You can buy Christmas with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and listen to extracts here.
And The Ukes will be turning up on Colin Murray‘s Christmas Show on Radio 1 on the 22nd December (who has some mad ukulele skillz himself).

Let It Snow (Chords)

Does this count as a Christmas song? No mention of Christmas, but it seems to have become one anyway. It’s been covered by hundreds – most notably Frank Sinatra – but the chords for this one are heavily based on my new favourite version by Jodi Matthews and Dan Sargraves.

I’m a bit slow off the mark with Florence and the Machine. The song isn’t particularly uke heavy (and I’m still not 100% convinced that it even is a uke) but I love the song, so it’s here. Also this week is a duet between Seeso and Ukulelezo bursting with sexual tension, Ken Middleton covering a song from my favourite EP of the year and plenty more.

Florence and the Machine – Dog Days are Over

Read the rest of this entry »