Given how hip I am now it might be hard for you to believe, but I wasn’t the coolest kid at school. During the grunge era, the cool kids like Nirvana. But I always preferred Pearl Jam (and Eddie Vedder’s later ukulele conversion proved me right).

The riff to Jeremy is very minimal. It’s surprisingly similar to Come Together – using the same notes. I originally tabbed it in the same way (using notes on the C-string at the fifth and seventh frets) but it’s so sparse it needs the C note running through. It’s even worth adding extra picks of the C string to fill out the gaps.

Featured videos from Julia Nunes, Clara Belle, George Formby and plenty of others.

Julia Nunes and Danny Tieger – Sunburnt Hand Read the rest of this entry »

I think working on Buy a Ukulele has started to drive me stir crazy. I set up a section on Ukuleliana and, gosh, there’s a lot of ukulele-shaped tat out there. A ukulele shaped sushi set? Lighter? Recipe holder? Or an inflatable ukulele?

Also, a lot of plastic ukuleles seem to turn up in the Collectibles section rather than the Musical Instruments section (which means there might be less competition for them). There’s this this Lisa ukulele (as used by Gus) with no bids, a few hours left and only $15 starting bid, a Carnival with its original packaging, and this Maccaferri currently at $10. Out-kitsching them all is this plastic uke which must be overpriced at $200. Back in the musical instruments section is a Baritone Maccaferri Islander. I love that the baritone has the same shape as the Maccaferri guitars (as made famous by Django Reinhardt).

For those of you who prefer the more refined tone of koa ukuleles, there’s a delicious Martin 3K currently attracting plenty of bids. If you’re on some sort of Brewster’s Millions type mission, you could always buy this Martin 5K and this 5K for firewood.

This Swagerty Trehopipee has got me wondering. How do you find strings for a Treholipee? The Worth double length strings might do the job.

I’m only guessing, but could the scratches on the back of this Gibson Uke-3 be caused by storing it in a pine tree?

The Ukulele for Sale is slowly winding up and is selling off his stock as cheap as he’s allowed to. Jason has also announced a competition to win a Kala Brand Mahogany Tenor (or a Lehua Soprano if you prefer). You can find out how to enter right here. He himself wins the prize of first person to bribe me. He’s offered me some stuff from his site which I’ll be giving away (if I can bear to jump on the bandwagon). Stay tuned for details.

Another ukulele competition. GX9901 of Ukulele Ghetto is giving away his Pono. You can find details on the Ukulele Underground forum.

James Hill is launching a new e-zine called Ukulele, Yes!. You can sign up for it on Ukulele in the Classroom (although I haven’t been able to get it to work or get any reply to email).

I’m not much of a festival goer, but I’m in serious danger of going to this year’s IndieTracks festival. It features a bunch of my favourite uke acts: The Bobby McGees (download one of their tracks here), ‘Allo Darlin’ (formerly The Darlings), Darren Hayman and MJ Hibbett (who seems to have been barred from the festival itself but has found a work around). Also on are The Wedding Present, Ballboy, Los Campesinos and a whole mess of bands I’m nowhere near hip enough to have heard of.

Bob, the world’s most punk ukulele player, now has his own site: Uke Rock.

John Mayer’s Heart of Life on Uker Tabs. Thanks to Nelson.

Guess which song is being played on the uke by The Wikimen on Spicks and Specks.

Article on Ukuleles for Peace.

Other festival news: Latitude has Learn to Play Ukulele in Under an Hour. It’s a comedy sketch show/ukulele lesson with Sam Brown (not Sam Brown daughter of Joe Brown), Donal Coonan (This Is A Knife) and Sally Phillips (Green Wing, Smack the Pony). Ukuleles will be provided.

Ukulele mp3s: The Richwoods have a bunch of top ukulele mp3s on their listen page, a ukulele protest song over newsreader Wendy Chioji, Dr Forrest has the Rutles’ My Little Ukulele and Ivor Biggun’s Formby take off (click the dancing cheese).

KoAloha’s blog. Not much there as yet. And I have no idea why they went with blogspot.

Ukulele in Waking Life (thanks to Minamin).

Dominic Howard from Muse with uke.

Ukulele quiz… erm… in Norwegian.

The UK’s answer to Jason Castro.

A couple of non-uke links: Soviet b-boys and full album covers revealed.

I’m breaking my ‘no Beatles’ rule once again for this post. There’s no denying that they came up with some great riffs and these are a pair of humdingers.

Come Together

Seeso did a top version of this song. That’s a great example of how to fill out a riff to make it work as a full song on the ukulele. But for our purposes, I’ve stuck with the simpler single note version.

Day Tripper

For this tab, I’ve taken advantage of the re-entrant string and barred my first finger across the third fret after the first note. I use my thumb to pick the G and C strings, my index finger on the E string and middle finger on the A string.

To go along with the ukulele songs list, I’ve put together a list of the instrumental ukulele tunes that are most associated with the ukulele here:

Ukulele Music

The list was a bit harder to get together than the ukulele song list, but I think it gives a good overview of the instrumental side of the ukulele. I’ve included links to tab where possible: I don’t think anyone has used a sentence more often than I’ve used ‘Dominator has the tab’ on that page. Dom’s tabs are all very high standard, difficult to play tabs. So, there’s a good chance I might put together arrangements aimed at mere mortals.

If you think you think I’ve made a glaring omission (very likely), leave a comment on this post and let everyone know.

The next list I’ll be working on is the Ukul-A-List: a list of the world’s best and biggest ukulelists. But it won’t just be the shredders. I’ll probably be breaking it down into different sections. As ever, let me know if you’ve got any suggestions. Perhaps I should run a poll on who is the greatest ever ukulele player.

Ace of Spades has to be one of the most air-guitared riffs in history.

The riff isn’t too hard to play on the uke. The only problem is the speed. Because it’s fast, it’s much easier to play it by strumming rather than fingerpicking (even when you’re only playing one note). Make sure you have the other strings muted (the G-string with your thumb and the E and A strings with your fingers).

The strumming pattern is down, down, up, up, down for the single notes (and all downs for the double notes).

James Clem has been playing blues guitar since the 1960’s and his career includes backing up Chick Willis in his Stoop Down Baby heyday. More recently, he’s picked up the ukulele and will be appearing at this year’s Portland Uke Fest. I interrogated him to find out more.

How did you first get started as a musician?

I went to a car show when I was 15 years old with my father and heard Dick Dale playing guitar and right then I knew that was what I wanted to do. His playing was amazing to hear, especially live.

When did you start playing the ukulele?

I started playing the uke about four years ago when I found an old Kumalae koa ukulele at the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena, California for $20. I bought a songbook of 1920’s tunes and right off the bat I loved it. If you play guitar most of the techniques from that instrument (damping, strumming, etc) can be applied to the ukulele.

What made you pick the ukulele up?

I had seen the ukulele in many vintage films and always thought it looked like a lot of fun. Twenties jazz like the Boswell Sisters, Louis Armstrong and others has always been one of my favorite genres of music, but I was too lazy to learn that swing style jazz guitar and all the musicians I knew were into blues, so I couldn’t see much chance of playing it anyway. Actually, the last couple of years I have been studying the Django style swing guitar rhythm and adapting that to the ukulele. To me, the weak point of most uke players is not damping the strings enough (or at all). It can make or break a player.
The first really great ukulele player I heard live was Bob Brozman in the eighties. He really opened my eyes to what you can do on that instrument. He is a phenomenal musician and one of the best uke players.

When I lived in Los Angeles Janet Klein and Ian Whitcomb performed a lot together at a tiny club near my house and they both played ukulele and that got me into thinking “I need a ukulele!”. Janet Klein has a band of killer jazz musicians and she has this kind of wacky Gracie Allen personality that is a throwback to another era. You can’t help but love that group.

It’s quite unusual to play Delta blues on the uke. How do you go about making the songs work on the uke?

I really don’t play that many Delta Blues tunes on the uke as I try to do more twenties jazz on the ukulele with a lot of snappy chord changes that seem to fit the little instrument so well. I play a lot of slide guitar and regular guitar so when I dig out the uke it makes a nice change of mood for the audience. Audiences love the instrument. You just pick it up and they smile.

As far as playing blues on our little four string friend goes I have found that uptempo blues with a ragtime feel can be played on the ukulele and works great. I look for tunes that have a lot of right hand rhythm such Robert Johnson’s They’re Red Hot which he adapted from Blind Boy Fuller’s Keep On Truckin’. Be on the lookout for blues tunes with a lot of chord changes (think 1920’s and ’30’s) and a fast tempo and there are a lot of possibilities that will enable you to get away from the jazz standards that everyone does on the ukulele. Check out Blind Blake, Blind Willie McTell, Big Bill Broonzy and others from that era . You will be surprised how well some can sound on the ukulele.

Another tip I have for players is if there is a song that you really want to learn, you should search out different versions of the song and after learning the chords steal some horn or guitar parts from the recording and tweak it a bit to make it your own. That is how most musicians get good. Steal from the masters!

Can you tell us a little about your ukulele.

My uke is a newer National Reso-Phonic made of koa. It has rope binding, fancy inlays and an ivoroid headstock overlay. The resonator projects well into a microphone, so it doesn’t need any kind of a pickup.

How can people buy your music?

Right now they can’t as I have a very basic CD that I sell at my gigs , but right now I am recording a new CD that will have some really good musicians and should be available be the end of the year on CD Baby. I would like to get on a label with world wide distribution and play over in Europe. Playing live is where it’s at for me but every musician will tell that you are taken for granted in your hometown (oh him, he is always around!) My wife is from England and I consider it my home away from home as I have been over there a lot. It would be great to get established over there.

You can find out more on his website and download some of his guitar tracks on MySpace.

Most guitar riffs are based around single notes. There are only a few that use full chords. AC/DC have come up with plenty. But other than them, this is the only riff that comes to mind based entirely on chords.

Because it’s all chords, the riff works well on the uke. I’ve kept it in the original key of A. This means that the chord inversions are different – giving the riff a slightly different flavour on uke.

The strumming for bar three is down, up, up, down, down, up, up, down.

Loads of great videos this week including John King, Ohta San, Aaron Keim and the most charming version of Stormy Weather you’ll ever hear. The big surprise was Abbe May. Usually, she makes PJ Harvey-style alternative rock. She does a great job with a uke.

I haven’t been posting Bosko and Honey’s Ukulele Safari on here because I assume everyone is watching it anyway. You are watching it, right? Read the rest of this entry »