Listening to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s CD, inspired me to do a little post on harmonizing on the ukulele.

When you’re soloing on the uke, playing just one note can sound a bit wimpy. A great way to beef it up is to harmonize the notes.

For an example, I’ll use the simplest tune I know: the Fall into the Gap jingle which goes like this:

MP3

Harmonizing with Fifths

The tune is in C major, so you can use notes from the C major scale to harmonize with it.

The easiest way to harmonize is using fifths i.e. the note five notches higher than it on the C major scale. The C major scale goes like this:

C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C

The first note of the tune is G which makes the fifth is D:

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5
G – A – B – C – D

The second note is F which makes the fifth C:

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5
F – G – A – B – C

Going through the whole tune creating fifths, you get this:

MP3

Those with razor sharp minds will have noticed that all you have to do to play fifths with the C string is add the G string at the same fret. The same is true of every note on the scale with the exception of the last one – in this case B – which is one fret lower. Easy as that.

Harmonizing with Thirds

Harmonizing with thirds works in the same way but is a little more tricky.

The first note of the tune is G which makes the third B (four frets higher):

1 – 2 – 3
G – A – B – C – D

The second note is F which makes the third A (four frets higher):

1 – 2 – 3
F – G – A – B – C

For E the third is G which is only three frets higher:

1 – 2 – 3
E – F – G – A – B

When there’s a gap of four frets, it’s know as a major third. When the gap is three frets, it’s a minor third. Think of a G chord; there you’re playing G and a B which is 4 frets higher making it a major third and a major chord. With a Gm chord you’re playing G and Bb, a distance of only three frets, which makes it a minor third and, therefore, a minor chord.

So the tune harmonized in thirds will be:

In the major scale the only major thirds are the first, fourth and fifth notes of the scale (C, F and G in the C major scale).

Harmonizing with Thirds and Fifths

You can combine the thirds and fifths to create a harmonized melody like this:

MP3

Using this idea, you can start to build up chord solos from the melody of the tune. And don’t feel restricted to just thirds and fifths. You can throw in any number of other notes.

If you want to learn more about harmony and harmonizing, check out my ebook How to Play Ukulele Chords Progressions.

I really should have included this one in one of my Guitar Riffs for Ukulele seasons, but it took hearing it on the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s album to make me get round to tabbing it.

If you’re playing along with the Dury version, this tab is for D-tuning. For the UOGB version, use C tuning.

With the ever increasing number of ukulele groups scattered around the globe, it’s difficult to remember that once upon a time the idea of a whole bunch of people playing only ukuleles seemed absolutely ridiculous. Despite all the ukulele orchestras and ensembles that have started up since their inception, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are still the best around. Their arrangements go far beyond just bashing out the chords. All the ukes add something musically and texturally. And that aspect of their playing is very much in evidence on their latest album Live in London #1.

And it’s about time they got round to making a live album because this is the best album they’ve ever made. As you’d expect from a group having spent the last 164 years touring together, the playing is tight as a Christmas waistband and the arrangements are more fully developed than their studio counterparts. Best of all, the recordings are packed with the energy that you can never really get from a studio album.

Live in London kicks of with that energy bursting out of the speakers on spirited versions of Running Wild and Born to be Wild. They then lean back into a sedate and elegant version of Misirlou, closer to the traditional version than Dick Dale’s. Listening to the musicianship on that track, they raise themselves way above the ‘novelty act’ tag they’re sometimes pinned with.

Not that there aren’t any gimmicky songs on there – Anarchy for the UK is too flimsy a song to be anything else. But on some of the tracks The Ukes give the song a whole new perspective as with their take on Sympathy for the Devil. It’s much easier to have sympathy for their introspective, world-weary satan than it is the preening knobhead of the original (making it a bit of a shame they’re singing half a dozen other songs at the same time on the track Melange). They even sound great when they put down their ukes for an unaccompanied rendition of Pinball Wizard which sounds like Blue Murder Sing The Who (which is an album that doesn’t exist but definitely should ).

But tongues never stray very far from cheeks and this is one of the most grin-tastic albums I have ever heard. If you don’t own a Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain album, then this album is absolutely essential. For everyone else, it’s the perfect stopgap until they next roll into town. Roll on Live in London #2.

Standout tracks: Running Wild, Misirlou, Hot Tamales, Pinball Wizard, Wuthering Heights, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll.

The Ukulele Orchestra Live in London #1 is out tomorrow and you can order it and listen to clips on their website.

I must have watched I Heart Huckabees ten times and I still don’t get it. Nevertheless, it’s an enjoyable film, not least because of Jon Brion’s contributions to the soundtrack. And he cropped up on the Late Late Show playing Knock Yourself Out on an 8-string uke.

Requested by David

Jake Wildwood – Orion’s Belt
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If you’re thinking of giving yourself an Applause ukulele for Christmas, Guitar Center are having a sale on the Applause UAE20. You can pick one up for $140, or $125 if you use the code ‘TENOFF’ (that code works for a lot of their other uke stuff as well, but not the Martin 5K).

BBC 6Music’s Shaun Keaveny is auctioning off his flying V ukulele in aid of Children in Need. It would be worth £200 to stop him playing it.

The vellum of a banjo ukulele must be an irresistable temptation to the artistic type. Walter might not have been much of an artist but, bless him, he was an old romantic. If you’re looking to pull the same trick, this May Bell needs a bit of vellum work done (but you might want to whisper the word ‘thumbnail’ into the seller’s ear).

No short of ukulele kitsch/tat at the moment including a ukulele mug and ukulele bottle opener.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain have got two new CDs coming out this month: Live in London #1 and Christmas with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. You can listen to extracts and pre-order them on their website.

The Jumping Flea Market is open for business and I’ve already bought myself some uke goodies. You can see their at the bottom of the post. (By the by, my username is ukulelehunt if you want to list me as the referrer).

New uke painting from Amy Crehore.

I’m a PC. And I’m Jonathan Coulton. John Hodgman rips it up on the uke.

The MP3 blogs have some great uke action this week: Look at me, I made a blog has, Strokes’ Fabrizio Moretti’s new band, Little Joy, linesthroughlines has Ingrid Michaelson’s Oh What a Day, Let Me Like It has Rachel Goodrich.

Who taught Queen Victoria to play the ukulele?

The Telegraph does a ho-hum, by-the-numbers article on the ukulele.

Friday time waste: Musipedia search for music by whistling into your computer. (Via Dr J.).

Writing up arrangements of songs has really shown me which songs are strong enough to stand up even when stripped down to four strings and which are just resting on gimmicks and production. I think all bands should be forced to do ukulele versions of their songs as The Little Ones have done with Tangerine Visions. The electric version is packed with plenty of bleeps and riffs, but the song works just as well as a four chord ukulele version.

As ever when I have to write up the lyrics myself, they’re almost certainly wrong to a comical extent. Their eyes open wide at the sight of golden ewes? Each one murdered a pet with another? They can’t possibly be right.

I’ve long been a fan of Wilfried Welti‘s arrangements of classical tunes for the ukulele. He brings a classical guitar like tone and clarity to it.

So I was very pleased that he’s allowing to spread round his tab book Solo Ukulele für Einsteiger. He insists I tell you it’s not finished, but seems pretty fantastic as it is to me.

The book contains a number of classical tunes along with folk songs from Germany and the rest of the world (such as Scarborough Fare, Kean O’Hara and Aloha Oe). You can hear a number of tunes from the book on his YouTube Channel.

Wilfried does also have a rather low-key physical book and CD of more arrangements for sale: Alte Musik mit der Ukulele. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to get your hands on. You can buy if from Wilfried at one of his performances or by reading up on it at the Deutscher Ukulelenclub. Hopefully, he be willing to make it more widely available because it’s also excellent.

Nowadays, Loudon Wainwright is most most famous for being Dad to Rufus and Martha and marrying Dame Edna Everage. Which is a shame as he’s a shining example of what a singer-songwriter should be. So many singer-songwriters just churn out dour dirges. But even when Loudon writes miserable songs, he makes sure they have a big singalong chorus (Unhappy Anniversary) and he really knows how to push the button and push it hard (White Winos). Plus, when they make a big Hollywood blockbuster of my life story, One Man Guy is going to be the theme song.

Loudon also has a few ukulele songs such as Things Should Be Getting Better, Passion Play and this ode to the uke itself.

It’s fairly simple to play. You can strum down, up, down, up pretty much the whole way through. The only tricky part is the, “…could be bright and breezy…” part. Just one down strum each for those quick chords.

Loudon Wainwright stuff