Craig Robertson talks about and demonstrates the dark side of the ukulele.

Acoustic Guitar magazine has a player profile of Jake Shimabukuro (thanks Hughy).

UAS sufferers now have their own support group: the UAS Society.

Gary at Ukulelia on how he designed Warren Buffett’s ukulele.

Another chance to win a ukulele. This time by creating a logo for Ukulele Review.

Ukulele mp3s: Another uke playing Coulton fan Donna Maciocia (thanks to Graeme), weePOP has an mp3 from their latest signing Wonder for All (and many others), The Driftwood Singers Present Lyle Ritz.

Ukulele Mothers Day Card.

Steampunk ukulele.

The world was not ready for a ukulele/bassoon duo.

Robot wars.

I was a little underwhelmed by The Raconteurs first album. But their new one has some cracking tracks on it. I think it’s probably impossible to come up with anything but a brilliant riff when you rip off AD/DC as blatantly as they do on Salute Your Solution.

The original is in the dreaded uke key of E, so I’ve kicked it up a notch to F. Being a chord based riff, it works quite well on the ukulele. The only problem is that it’s quite sparse in the first bar. You might want to add a few percussive clicks to keep it moving along.

Strumming: Down for the F5 chords. All the other strums are on the off-beat, so strum those upwards.

The first chord in the riff, F5, is a power chord – it only has two notes: the first and the fifth (no third). Guitarists use these all the time (because they’re lazy buggers) but they can sound a little thin on the ukulele. That’s why I’ve tabbed the rest of the chords in the riff with full chords.

Unlike the major scale, there are a whole bunch of minor scales. For this post, I’m going to stick with the natural minor scale. The big advantage is that if you know your major scales on the ukulele, you don’t have to learn anything new. The notes in the A minor scale are exactly the same as C major, B minor is the same as D major. The minor scale has the same notes as the major scale three frets above it.

When you are improvising with these scales, make sure you emphasize the root note (A for A minor etc.).

As with the major scales, find patterns that start and end with the root note that can be moved up and down depending on which key you’re playing in.

A Minor

A# (Bb) Minor

B Minor

C Minor

C# (Db) Minor

D Minor

D# (Eb) Minor

E Minor

F Minor

F# (Gb) Minor

G Minor

G# (Ab) Minor

This is the first Uke Hunt/Ukulala collaboration. So I’ll shut up and let Laz’s video do the explaining:

If you want to use fancier chords, you can take your cue from the piano and replace C and D with Cmaj7 and D6 which means there a B note ringing through all the chords.

I thought the Ukulele Muxtape, deserved some liner notes. There were only two rules to it: uke featuring and no cover versions. Here’s a quick rundown of the tracks with places to visit to hear more from the performers.

1. The Cedar Tavern Singers AKA The Phonorealists – Artistic Statement

One band, two names. The Cedar Tavern Singers are a pair of artists who sing songs about art history in a shop window. How could that be anything but brilliant? You can hear more of their songs here and you can buy their stuff here.

2. David Ivar Herman Dune – Take Me To Your Country

As well as fronting up Herman Dune (check out chords for I Wish That I Could See You Soon), David Ivar Herman Dune puts out plenty of ukulele stuff: a ukulele covers project Yayahoni, a solo album Ya-Ya (from which this track comes) and playing uke with Kimya Dawson on Hidden Vagenda.

3. James Hill – One Small Suite For ‘Ukulele: I. Allegro Con Brio

James Hill is my favourite ukulele instrumentalist around today. By a long way. His technique is unmatched and he can write a catchy tune. This piece is the first segment of his Small Suite for Ukulele from the album A Flying Leap.

4. Jacob Borshard – Brains, Brains

Have I mentioned Jacob Borshard enough yet? His songs are irresistibly charming and so are his videos. As far as I’m aware, his only commercial release is Cocktail on the equally wonderful WeePOP! but you can download two of his albums free on his website.

5. MJ Hibbett – Chips and Cheese, Pint of Wine.

I interviewed MJ Hibbett not long ago. This is another song of his solo album A Million Ukeleles.

6. Shelley Short – The Sunny Side

I discovered this song by Shelley Short (not to be confused with the glamour model of the same name) while perusing eMusic. I love coming across unexpected ukuleles. It happened this morning when I was listening to Ryan Adams. The track comes from her album Captain Wild Horse

7. The Darlings – Emily

Another top notch release from WeePOP! The EP has sold out, but you can still download this track here and you can listen to the rest of it here.

8. Jens Lekman – Arms Around Me

Disappointingly, there was no ukulele on Jens Lekman’s most recent album Night Falls Over Kortedala. Fortunately, this solo ukulele version cropped up on the intertubes and blew the album version out of the water. I wrote up the chords for Your Arms Around Me here.

9. Mirah – Engine Heart

As she’s gone on, Mirah’s sound has got increasingly epic. But on her debut album You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This there were a couple of stripped down ukulele songs. There’s tab for Mirah’s A Million Miles here.

10. Noah & The Whale – Five Years Time

I wrote about Noah & the Whale ealier and I love this song even more now. There’s a very healthy posh singer-songwriter scene in London at the moment. Check out Welcome to our TV Show for some class acts.

11. P:ano – Trouble Ahead

P:ano have officially called it a day, but their final act was to release an album packed with ukulele ditties Ghost Pirates Without Heads.

12. Craig Robertson – She Just Needs Her Head

You must know Craig Robertson by now. You can download this song and many more here and buy his albums here.

I’ve written up a page about Ukulele Songs: songs that are heavily associated with the ukulele. They’re the ones that people who know nothing about the ukulele will ask you to play, the ones you’ll see hundreds of ukulele versions of on YouTube.

It’s quite interesting to note that most of the songs are from the ukulele heyday of the mid-20s but weren’t primarily associated with the uke until picked up decades later.

As well as including the definitive versions of those songs, there are links to less well known but equally good (and often better) than the better known songs and also links to tab, chords and instructional videos.

Before any Jake fans get up in arms, this page is just for songs. I’ll be doing a ‘Ukulele Music’ page at some point.

If you think I’ve missed anything or you’ve got any suggestions for ukulele music page (and I need help on that one – I’ve only got three so far) leave a comment and let me, and everyone else, know.

Videos this week from Michael Wagner, Sam and Max (the ukulele punk rocker) Tripping Lily and plenty of others.

Michael Wagner – A Love Song Read the rest of this entry »

Genius or preposterous? Either way, after watching that video, I want a double-necked Mele ukulele. As luck would have it, this very uke is for sale on eBay. Now I just have to find a Russian oligarch in need of a kidney.

At the other end of the spectrum is this Gold Tone GU-100 soprano. Gold Tone are mostly known for their banjos – their wooden ukuleles had completely passed me by until recently. This one, sold by ukulele4u, hasn’t been finished correctly – but it’s only a slight flaw. At the time of writing, bidding is at $58 with 15 hours to go. Solid mahogany, hard case thrown in. Worth keeping an eye on, I’d say.

Curly Koa Martin Taropatch: There’ll be a few people after that one.

If you’re going to ask $6,000 for a ukulele, try focusing your camera: Wayne Henderson ukulele.

Ukulele Tonya reports on the Northern Californian Ukulele Festival including Dominator who has a new tab of James Hill’s take on One Note Samba.

Sweetafton23 joins Jonathan Coulton on stage.

Two Italian ukulele sites: The Italian Ukulele Committee and UKEit.

Listen to a George Formby documentary including his contribution to the anti-apartheid movement. I hope Kelso folk club were listening.

Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up In Blue on Uker Tabs.

Ukulele in the movies: Faye Dunaway helps Stanley achieve his dream of playing the ukulele on a Hawaiian Cruise ship (Part 1, Part 2 – most of the uke action is in part 2). “You’re fully fledged, certified, officialized ukesters now. Members of that glorious musical elite.”

Michael Leviton talks about the romance of the ukulele.

A sopranano?

How to fix a guitar.

There are plenty of chord charts out there. But this one you can sort by beauty.

A visit to the Kamaka factory.

Every so often, I like to do a series of ten Guitar Riffs for Ukulele. The idea with them isn’t to cover the original song, but to throw them in as a little comic relief. Throwing out a quick snatch of a riff people recognise but never expected to hear coming out of a ukulele is a great way to catch people’s attention.

For the first riff, it’s back to Ozzy. He has already cropped up twice in this series of posts with Paranoid and Iron Man, but this time it’s Randy Rhodes knocking out the riff.

This one seems to be quite popular with uke players. Check out the versions by Gio Gaynor and Seeso. My version is in the same key as Seeso’s, but played slightly differently. You can find his version of the tab here.

For the picking on this, I use my thumb for the C string and alternate picking (alternating between index and middle finger picks) for the other notes.