I’ve been mentioning that I’m working on a Blues Ukulele ebook for a while now and had a bunch of people asking me when it would be out. Well, it’s finally here.

It’s taken so long because I wanted to make absolutely sure you’d be blown away by it and I think you will be.

If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you’ll have noticed that I’m on a bit of a mission to change how people think about the ukulele. What music it’s capable of playing and, more importantly, what it’s capable of expressing. The reputation of the uke is pretty high right now, but there are still far too many people out there who don’t have a clue what it can do. By the time you’ve mastered everything in this ebook, you’ll have the chops to leave people in no doubt that the you can play the blues on the ukulele.

It’s going to give you the skills to jam along with ukers and non-ukers and cut heads Karate Kid style.

The book covers blues chord progressions, intros, outros, turnarounds, riffs and solos. To give you some idea, here’s an mp3 of little tune that’s tabbed out at the end of the book containing many of the ideas and techniques in it.

Blues Ukulele Example (MP3)

You can read more about it here: How to Play Blues Ukulele

Or, if you can’t stand to wait a moment longer, you can buy it here:

Buy it here

Cover photo: e-uke by R.W.W. under Creative Commons licence.

Having done one of Vedder’s mandolin songs, it’s about time I had a go at one of his uke songs, Goodbye from the soundtrack to A Brokedown Melody (pleasingly from Woodshed Films).

The tuning is a bit of a nightmare. Vedder has his uke tuned down about three quarters of a step. If you want to play along with the original, you’ll have to tune your uke to the song itself. The chord names are written up in their standard tuning names to avoid confusion (hopefully).

It has to be said, the playing is a little shoddy in places. But there are some interesting chord moves in the song, particularly how he plays around with the Bb chord. And where did that B9 chord come from?

Requested by Patrick

Yoyoyo Acapulco – Kamasutra Tsunami (MP3)
Yoyoyo Acapulco – Mexican Wolfgasket (MP3)
Yoyoyo Acapulco – The Fund Rug National Anthem (MP3) via NRK

I’ve been much enamored with Norwegian ukuleles since NRK was very nice about ukuleles and about Uke Hunt. I need to learn Norwegian as Google offers no translation of ‘oppgangstid’ and translates part of it as, “Here he publishes medical personnel, ukulele videos as well as notes and tabs to be a virtuoso.” (I’m pretty sure Dr Sparkles isn’t an actual doctor).

So, it’s time to pay it back and give some love to Norway’s greatest ukulele act. Again my translation skills have let me down, but here’s what I’ve been able to gather about Yoyoyo Acapulco:

– They’re not from Acapulco but Vestre Gausdal, Norway.
– They’re being harassed by an unfriendly UK record label.
– They make some lovely indie pop songs with ukuleles, cheap keyboards and kazoos.

Give me a few years to learn Norwegian and I’ll get back to you.

If you’ve got some spare Krone knocking around, you can buy their singles on their MySpace and you can download more tracks on NRK.

This will probably be another post entirely lost on my friends across the ocean, unfortunately. It’s a comedian you’ve never heard of at the Secret Policeman’s Ball doing a pastiche of someone who was never famous over there packed with references you won’t get (and even if I explained Michael Barrymore to you, you wouldn’t believe me). So apologies for that. You might want to busy yourselves with this clip of Kristen ‘Ukulele Sweetheart/Mel’ Schaal from the same event.

For the rest of you, it’s a dead easy song to play. Only three chords: F, C7 and Bb and that’s it.

Help Amnesty International.

There seems to be a Bushman/pirate theme developing: Krabbers and Jonathan Elder. In non-pirate videos this week: Victoria Vox, Old Blind Mole Orkestra, another killer from Toy Horses and the Ukulele Safari hits the UK. Read the rest of this entry »

Nice Ukuleles has to be one of the worst brand name of ukuleles out there. It makes the sound cheap and tacky when it looks like they’re a long way from being that. There are a bunch of them for sale here along with a handsome 6 string Kamaka.

SpongeBob SquarePants ukuleles have been around for a while now, in the UK at least, but there are a couple of interesting developments this week. In the US, there’s this appropriately shaped but possibly trademark infringing painted uke. And in the UK, there are a number of Flying V Spongebob ukuleles.

D’oh. “I bought this Mele Soprano Uke a few months ago, and broke my hand the same day it was delivered.” If you feel sorry for him, you do a BIN on his Mele for over the asking price of a new one.

On eBay UK, there’s a Keech Banjolele signed by the man himself along with a couple of banjo ukes here and here that look like they’d scrub up nicely.

LoPrinzi Herb Ohta Model.

Ukulele photo of the week.

Some very diverting videos this week: Eddie Thomas & Carl Scott, Lego ukulele and KazooKeyLele.

On the subject of ukulele videos, UkeToob is a new blog and podcast showcasing the best ukulele videos.

Jumping Flea Market looks like it might be the recipient of a few of my hard earned Euros once the online store opens. Only two Euros for ‘Ukulele Huren’? (Except the sign is in Dutch)

A new, free and exceptionally good album from Minor Constellations.

Jonathan Coulton’s Just As Long As Me and The White Stripes’ Offend In Every Way.

Warren Buffett takes to the road with his uke, his son and Akon.

The KoAloha Ukulele Story: A film charting the rise of KoAloha.

Foggy Ruins of Time has an mp3 from and an interview with The Elated Sob Story (“Outta Me is my favourite song of yours…” “That’s a cover song.” Ouch.)

For everyone who was interested (Hi, Lonna) the tracks I quoted on Manha Manha were: While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Top Gun Theme, Top Hat by Woody Mann, Have Love, Will Travel, and The Stripper.

I covered the chords for Girl of My Dreams way back when, but this time it’s the tab for Michael ‘LStrachey‘ Madden’s version of the tune.

It’s a simple and elegant arrangement. There’s nothing too technically difficult to worry about.

Like the tab for Blue Skies, it shows you the chord changes and the melody and leaves the inbetweeny bits to your imagination.

Uke obsessive WLTM ukulele for long nights of making sweet music together.

Me: Has been playing the field with cheap and easy types and is looking for something more serious.

You: Tired of being left on the shelf.

Me: Handsome as the devil.

You: Petite, long neck and curvy body.

Me: Laid back.

You: Highly strung.

Me: Has to have it first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

You: Likes it rough sometimes.

Me: GSOH

You: GOTOH

Me: From a drab island of drizzle.

You: From an exotic, sun-kissed island.

Me: I promise to rub you down when we’ve got sweaty.

Colour and age not important so long as you’re in good shape.

If you know the right ukulele for me, leave a comment. And if you know any girls that fit that description, do likewise.

Blue Skies (Chords) – Blues Skies Intro (Tab)

After a few weeks of heavy duty rock riffs, I’m having a change this week and going with some old school stuff.

Blues Skies has been recorded by hundreds of people including Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Willie Nelson. But this tab is based heavily, very heavily, on Brian Hefferan‘s version because whenever I hear one of his arrangements, I can never think of a better way to play it.

The chords are fairly simple. Even when they get a bit jazzy in the ‘Blue skies…‘ section, all you’re doing is moving one string down a fret each time (although I’ve probably chosen completely the wrong chord names). There’s a nice variation on the B7 chord (2320) which replaces the B with a second seventh note – it makes for a very easy change from the G chord.

A slight change in naming policy might throw you though. I used to refer to major 7 chords as maj7, but from now on it’ll be 7M with a capital ‘M’ to distinguish it from a minor chord.

The intro is, obviously, a little trickier. I’ve tabbed it out quite sparsely with just the chords and melody notes so you’ll need to fill in with some supporting strums to keep things moving along.

UPDATE: LStrachey has posted his version of the tune. There are a few differences in his arrangement and it’s well worth checking out.

Requested by Rob