Neutral Milk Hotel – Holland, 1945 (Chords)
This song is the latest colloboration between Uke Hunt and Ukulala. So here’s Laz’s video tutorial:
I’m sure you all know who Bosko and Honey are. Their Ukulele Safari has been the uke highlight of the year so far. What you might not know is that they have just released an album Just Quietly.
The album features six of Bosko and Honey’s original instrumental tracks including the blistering Black Mountain Breakdown. If you sign up as a member you can download an mp3 of the track Samidare.
Go here to buy the album and support them in their Ukulele Safari. My copy is on its way right now.
Eddie Vedder – Rise (Complicated Chords)
Eddie Vedder – Rise (Basic Chords)
I was all ready to write up Pearl Jam’s ukulele song Soon Forget, until I started getting harassed for Rise from the soundtrack of Into the Wild. And why not? It’s a magnificent song.
Rise is played on the mandolin. The mandolin is tuned in fifths (GDAE) which makes it quite tricky to transfer to the uke, so I’ve done two versions of the chords. One of them is just the very basic chords (G, C and D).
In the other I’ve done my best to recreate what he’s playing on the mandolin and make it a bit more uke friendly. The basic chords remain the same but there are notes added on to give it extra flavour (and also to match the melody in parts).
The best thing to do is take a look at both versions and come up with your own favourite way to play it. I think using the Cadd9 is pretty much essential (and easy) and the C C-5 C5 C6 rising bit sounds great.
Uke Gal Carol has done an excellent version of Rise which you can listen to here.
Requested by Andrew, Rilrod and Whitney
Isn’t it strange how many ukulele players were christened ‘Ukulele’. Videos this week from Ukuleles Ike, Bartt, Igor and Zaza along with plenty of people who aren’t called ‘Ukulele’ but play it all the same.
Ukulele Bartt and Oscar J Valdez – Blue Suede Shoes Read the rest of this entry »
And the winner is *Trumpets Blaze*:
Bill Weigel for his review of the Ohana CK-50G Concert Ukulele.
It was a really tough decision. There were a load of great entires – I wanted at least six people to win the uke. I have to give special mention to Roberto Katigbak and Ken Middleton for their reviews.
I don’t think I can ever do another competition because I’m hopeless at deciding who wins – I can’t take the stress of all that responsibility. That’s why I’ve ended up with double the number of runners up that I’d intended.
Runners Up
Shelley Rickey, Mike Via, Todd Baio, David Massop, Ken Middleton, Jimmy McGee, Alan Brandt, Jimmy (dinoshaur), Garry Copeland, Cary Corse, Linda Wilson, Lonna Brockway, Emily Reeve, Martin Smith, Roberto Katigbak.
Additional Winners
There were a few videos that deserved a prize for bringing a huge grin to my face. Henceforth to be known as The Ventriclemouse Award for All Round Fantasticness in honour of Anne’s review of the Lanikai soprano LU-21P which is about the only work of poetry I’ve ever enjoyed. Even the comments are good (plus she got a comment from Jacob Borshard which makes me insanely jealous).
Jack33’s guide to getting a good sound out of a Mahalo
Paulina Sinaga’s Ohana review (the only person to work out that ‘Waa-waa-wee-waa’ was the instant ‘win a prize’ code word).
Michelle Flaherty’s news report.
Lee Robertson’s Fluke review.
If your name is here and you haven’t seen an email from me, let me know in the comments and I’ll get it to you.
A big thanks to Jason of ukulele for sale for providing the big prize. He’s still got a few ukes left in his closing down sale, so if you missed out on the Pineapple, you can still grab Kala Soprano or a Lanikai LU-21T.
Some dizzyingly expensive instruments from MGM this week: a pair of Lyon and Healy 5k ukuleles $22,000 the pair, and a John D’Angelico Tiple at $30,000.
On the subject of tiples, there’s a Kamaka Tiple up for sale.
The cavalcade of oddly shaped Lyon and Healy ukuleles continues this week with a Lyon and Healy bell shaped uke. As I write, bidding is lower than the price of one of Oscar Schmidt‘s bell ukulele modern copies.
Six Reasons I Wouldn’t Buy a Santini/Morelli Ukulele
1) “Hand Built by a Master Luthier” – really?
3) What the hell happened at the bottom of the fretboard? That’s the picture they use to advertise it? This is the work of a ‘Master Luthier’?
3) I could only find them for sale via one distributor.
4) This looks very photoshopped to me.
5) ‘Teacher Approved’ Thank God for that.
6) They don’t seem to have any ideas of their own.
Friend of Uke Hunt, Todd’s new blog Ukulele Evangelist is off to a cracking start with posts on mid-priced ukuleles and an interview with the world’s handsomest ukulele blogger.
Mike debates the graphical representation of ukulele chords.
Langley Ukulele Ensemble visit Hawaii.
Amber ‘Ukebucket‘ Nash was featured in two newspaper articles this week. This is press intrusion of the worst kind. Let her have a life.
Ukulele MP3s: Linguistic Banter on Foggy ruins of Time.
Life on Mars on Uker Tabs.
Get ukulele chords on your Blackberry.
Bishop Allen – Butterfly Nets (Chords)
There are a couple of great ukulele tunes on Bishop Allen’s The Broken String album: Click, Click, Click, Click (which you can download on their website) and Butterfly Net.
Of the two, Butterfly Nets is by far the easiest to play – all baby’s first ukulele chords.
The version in the record is slightly different from the one in the video. As well as being longer, the album version is tuned slightly sharp and includes this little fingerpicking bit in the intro:
Strumming
A good, basic strumming pattern for this song would be down, down, up, up, down, up. Like this:
Suggested by Sam
The Blues Scale is very similar to the minor pentatonic scale. There’s only one new note: the flattened fifth (also known as the devil’s interval).
C Blues Scale
The extra note fits in to the minor pentatonic like this:
Looks like this in tab:
And sounds like this:
Here’s me having a little mess around with it.
D Blues Scale
Like the minor pentatonic, you can change the key of the blues scale just by moving the same pattern up the fretboard. The lowest note on the scale is the key that it’s in. For example, the D blues scale starts on the second fret of the C string like this:
And this in tab:
F Blues Scale
The same deal with F. Starting on the fifth fret of the C string.
If you want tab for the ‘blues mess around’ – and plenty of other ukulele blues – check out my How to Play Blues Ukulele ebook.
When Amber requested this one, my first thought was, “More Beatles ukulele? There must be chords up for this somewhere.” I had a search around and didn’t much much like what I found. Besides, who could say no to that face?
It might be a little redundant to say, but The Beatles really knew how to write a chord progression. That Ab between the Fm in the middle section and the Eb in the chorus is just perfect. Ab is in the Fm chord (C is in both chords also) and Eb is in the Ab chord, so it creates a bridge between Fm and Eb which don’t have any notes in common at all.
You might notice I’ve used a slightly different version of G7 to the standard one. It really needs that high D note in there and the ‘…going to listen…’ parts. But feel free to use the standard G7 for the ‘…stay‘ bits.
I couldn’t resist tabbing out the little instrumental break for two ukes as well:
With the exception of one note, it is possible to play this on one uke with a bit of fiddling around.
