All to often, the ukulele is dismissed as a toy instrument – not capable of real musicianship. So I was delighted to find out the Victoria College of Music (VCM) will be offering exams in the ukulele up to grade 5 from this summer. I tapped the man writing and arranging the ukulele exams, Colin Tribe, for more information.

What is the VCM?

VCM is the Victoria College of Music, the smallest of the music examining boards in the UK. Established in 1890 it did not join the Associated Boards of Music because it was keen to keep an individual identity that it has still got, offering exams in a wider range of instruments than other boards. It does Electronic Keyboard , Ocarina, Mandolin, Bass Guitar, Accordion and many others. You can find full details on their website.

What will the ukulele exam consist of?

The exam will be in presented in this first version as 9 grades A,B,C,D (suitable for younger beginners but not exclusively – I have examined an 80 year olds taking grade A on piano) Then 1,2,3,4,5 which are comparable with grades on any other instrument.

The speed which you can progress through these is not specified and you do not have take one grade before going to the next, for instance someone could take grade 5 as their first exam. Going beyond grade 5 is a distinct possibility including Medals and diplomas, but we wanted to get started with these grades.

Tablature is the simplest way to show where the notes are on the instrument, and by combining it with standard notation, a fairly common practice for modern guitarists, you get the mixed system I have used which I think is as clear and complete a guide to the music as is possible. All the music is arranged for the more common types of Ukulele (Soprano, Concert and Tenor) using high G,C,E,A tuning although other version will be available on request.

What techniques are required at each level of playing?

Any right hand playing techniques will be allowed, so long as the musical ideas are performed. Some pieces will work with just an old fashioned felt pick or a combination of thumb and first finger. Some of the higher grade pieces demand a 4 finger style aproach, but the variety of pieces gives a wide degree of choice.
Grade A and B mainly single string melodies within the first 3 frets
Grade C and D some easy rhythmic strummed sections with an embedded melody line. only occasionally above fret 5
Grade 1 Semi quavers added in more complex rhythms, some melodies above the 5th fret
Grade 2 Triplets and sustained notes
Grade 3 Up to the 12th fret
Grade 4 Opportunities for improvised sections
Grade 5 More complex musical ideas

Which pieces and theoretical knowledge will be required for each grade

Grade A First Steps: Dancing Pawns, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Uke.
Scales Arpeggios and Chords C major

Grade B Preliminary: Aunt Nancy, On top of Old Smoky
Scales Arpeggios and Chords C major, D major

Grade C Preparatory: John Brown’s Body, Little Brown Jug
Scales Arpeggios and Chords D major, D minor

Grade D Advanced Preparatory: Daisy, Daisy, The Seamaster Strum
Scales, Arpeggios and Chords C major, C minor

Grade 1: Three from- Auld Lang Syne, Rockin’ On!, Silent Night, Strum Along with Me,
Waltzing Matilda.
Scales Arpeggios and Chords G major, F major

Grade 2: Three from- 12 to the Bar, Au Claire de Lune, First Love, Greensleeves,
Those were the Days
Scales Arpeggios and Chords A major, E major, A harmonic minor, E harmonic minor

Grade 3: Three from- Pirates Medley, Prelude in G, Regency Quadrille, Saltash Blues, Yellow Bird
Scales Arpeggios and Chords A flat major, E Flat major, G harmonic minor, F harmonic minor

Grade 4: Three from- Ain’t She Sweet, Ajeeb dastan hain yeh, El Condor Pasa, Great Western Waltz, Irish Washerwoman
Scales Arpeggios and Chords F sharp major, F sharp harmonic minor,
Chords and Inversions C,C7, C diminished, A minor

Grade 5: Three from- Alphabeta, Chocolate Lime Juice, Dem Dry Bones, Sonatina in A, Sweet Georgia Brown
Scales Arpeggios and Chords D flat major, C Melodic minor,G major and G harmonic minor on strings 1 and 4.

All these pieces, composed or arranged by Colin R Tribe specifically for the exams, will be published in a VCM series I hope to call “Uniqulele” which also includes notes on the pieces and playing techniques.

At all grades it is also possible to substitute one piece with a song chosen from the VCM Self-Accompanied Singing syllabus for which

Grades A-D are published in a special “Self-Accompanied Singing” Ukulele version.

What do examiners look for in a performance?

They look for a combination of skill, knowledge and understanding. Questions are asked in a manner which assesses the candidate’ depth of understanding, not merely the ability to repeat definitions (this applies to understanding the notation they are using and any technical terms in either tablature or stave). Ingenuity, variety, musicianship and a sense of style are rewarded as well as technical skill and musical accuracy. The examiners will rarely be ukulele players but they are all highly experienced musicians, players and teachers who understand the musicality being displayed.

How do you apply for and enter Ukulele grades?

The Victoria College of Music has a website and Robin Wood the Chief Executive can give details of secretaries and centres where exams are conducted nationwide and indeed as far afield as Ireland, Sri Lanka, Malta and the Isle of Wight! The address for letters is

52 Bedford Row, London, WC1 4 LR
Tel./Fax: (020) 7405 6483
Email: Click here

A big thanks to Colin for answering the questions. He was also kind enough to let me post the tab for his arrangement of Spinning Wheel:

Colin Tribe – Spinning Wheel (Tab)
Midi

Wayne Federman – Electric Ukulele Medley (Tab)

Wayne Federman, for those of you not in the know, is a stand-up comedian and comedy actor. He was in Curb Your Enthusiasm, 40 Year Old Virgin, the uke-featuring 50 First Dates and a whole pot load of other stuff you can find out about on his website. He’s also a multi-instrumentalist and back in the 80’s closed out his sets with a medley of rock songs played on the ukulele. Wayne sent me an email asking me to tab it out and I was very pleased to have a go at it.

The way Wayne uses the riffs is the way I intended the Guitar Riffs for Ukulele to be used – for a bit of fun and to throw in something the audience will recognise but not expect to hear coming from an electric ukulele.

The Federman medley (or Feder-ley, if you will) kicks off with Hendrix’s Purple Haze. The riff jumps up and down the neck quite a bit and includes bends – which you don’t often get on the uke. Mostly, the bends are just slightly sharp rather than heading for an exact note. Next up is Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida which is much more straight-forward and uke friendly. That’s followed by Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. I’ve tabbed Whole Lotta Love myself, but Wayne’s version is quite different. Since he’s playing it for laughs, he makes the riff sound as wimpy as possible by playing it with just single notes on the A string. The medley ends up with a take off of the breakdown solo from Zep’s Heartbreaker. It’s the funniest part and also the hardest to transcribe. The timing towards the end is more comedic than musical. It’s a hilarious parody of the sort of pomposity Jimmy Page was guilty of regular occasions.

On the subject of parodies of pompous guitarists, StSanders has had his channel banned by YouTube after complaints from someone whose name may or may not rhyme with Yngwie Balmsteen. So enjoy the Feder-ley while you can.

All these riffs have got me in the mood to do another set of Guitar Riffs for the Ukulele. So expect that soon.

Visit WayneFederman.com.

Jake Shimabukuro is touring the US at the moment. Uke Hunt’s roving reporters Shawn and Lonna B filed this review from Chicago.

Jake Shimabukuro

Old Town School of Folk Music
Chicago, IL
4/26/08
Early show

Set List
Let’s Dance
Dragon
Me and Shirley T
In My Life
Sakura, Sakura
Going to California
Blue Roses Falling
Orange World
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Ave Maria

Saturday, April 26th, renowned ukulele slinger Jake Shimabukuro made his second appearance at the school’s Gary & Laura Maurer Concert Hall at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music. Old Town is the largest independent community arts school in the United States, offering not less than eight courses relating to the ukulele as well as a music store fairly crammed with ukuleles and other instruments.

We’d never seen Jake before, and we’d never been to the Old Town School either. We live three hours away in Indianapolis, Indiana. But if you play the ukulele and have the chance to see a performer of Jake’s caliber, you drop the kids at mom’s, gas up the car, pack up some smokes and a change of booze and off you go.

The venue exceeded expectations. As a community run venture, the vibe was very positive – none of that Clear Channel taint at all. Excellent beers were available and availed of. The hall itself featured sparkling acoustics and 250 seats, each of which was within 45 feet of the stage. We sat front row center in the balcony.

Alas, there was an opening act. Terrifically, it turned out to be husband and wife team Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion. Sarah Lee (she of Arlo and Woody descent) and Johnny charmed the crowd for an hour with their spare, acoustic numbers and witty (if obligatory) folk stage patter.

After a chance to replace our empty beers with full ones, it was finally Jakulele time. Jake Shimabukuro is easily the best known and most recognized face of modern ukulele and it’s not for nothing. Throughout the evening, he embellished his already intricate arrangements, lifting many songs stratospherically higher than their written form.

He opened with Let’s Dance, and soon rendered his forearm and hand a flesh-colored blur. He introduced his next song, Dragon, as having been inspired by Bruce Lee and Eddie Van Halen, and the ensuing fretboard fireworks did more than justice to those two worthies. Me and Shirley T and In My Life, the Lennon/McCartney song which serves as the title track on Jake’s latest cd, followed.

As he was introducing Sakura, Jake recalled the experience of hearing this traditional Japanese song played on a thirteen stringed instrument, the koto. He admitted to locking himself in his room for days at a time trying to turn his four strings into 13. Jake’s next choice in song was Going To California, which he proclaimed to be one of his favorite Jimmy Page songs. The mood mellowed out a bit as Jake played Blue Roses Falling, only to pick back up with a slamming version of Orange World. Confessing a predilection for such behavior, Jake admitted to having again locked himself in his room, this time after sharing the stage with banjo legend Bela Fleck. He joked that playing a bluegrass tune was a good way to ‘get it all out of your system’, and then did just that, peeling off finger rolls at a blinding clip while remembering to quote “Dueling Banjos” as a capper. Before hitting us with Gently Weeps, Jake told the story of making that now web famous video in Central Park, an event Jake believes changed his life.

As there was a second performance scheduled, there wasn’t time for a proper version of the encore ritual, so Jake simply remained onstage until the applause died down long enough for him to introduce the final number as having been written by a friend of his from Hawaii, Franz Schubert. A crystalline version of Ave Maria closed the show.

Afterwards, Jake made himself available for photos and autographs, which, being utterly shameless in every way we were pleased to take advantage of. Any hopes we’d had about being the coolest members of the audience were devastatingly crushed when we had the good fortune to meet up with the Australian couple Bosko and Honey (on their Ukulele Safari), as well as YouTube ukemeister and Chicago native, Seeso. They’d stopped selling beer at the concessions stand, so we returned to our hotel, congratulated ourselves on having the great sense to make the trip, and, well, you know.

Shawn and LonnaB

You can find Jake’s remaining tour dates here.

Every time I’ve turned on the TV the last few weeks it seems like this ad featuring Broadcast 2000 has been on (you can listen to the full song here). I didn’t really have much choice but to tab out its ukulele riff.

The time signature for this piece is a little strange. The first bar is in 3/4 time (the notes are counted 1 & 2 & £ &) and the second bar is in 4/4 time. It’s made to seem even more unusual by three against four phrase in the second bar (there are four notes to each beat but the repeated phrase is three notes long).

And the time signature changes don’t stop there. When the lyrics kick in, the second bar of the riff is shortened to 3/4 before going back to 4/4 for the rest of the verse. The chorus is three bars of 3/4 then one 4/4 followed by four of 3/4 (the second chorus is different again with the last bar in 4/4). I hope you’re taking notes.

Pre-order Get Up and Go on their website.

Lots of precipitation this week; two songs about rain and one about snow. And, of course, plenty of other great stuff including Roy Smeck, Ledward Kaapana and Shorty Long.

Meaghan Farrell – Sombrero Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had this one written up and been intending to post it since the Ukulele Video of the Year (I think it was my favourite, still can’t decide), but I finally got a kick up the arse when it was featured on Boing Boing yesterday.

The chords to the song are very simple – there are only four of them – and this would make a great uke group song.

GUGUG are, as usual, tuned up half a step to G#C#FA#. If you want to play along with them, you’ll have to do likewise or put a capo on the first fret. If you’re just playing by yourself, there’s no need.

Chords for GUGUG’s version of Ruby here.

Visit GUGUG’s YouTube Channel

Watching Mike DaSilva’s video, is very inspiring. Unfortunately, after a rather spectacular woodwork lesson at school where my clumsiness left a number of class mates significantly short on limbs, I have an ASBO barring me from moving within 6 feet of tools. The solution offered to people like me is ukulele kits which require nothing more than gluing and decorating.

It has to be said, they’re not particularly inspiring. This soprano ukulele kit looks like it’s aimed at kids who want something to paint. This mahogany soprano kit is a bit more advanced with some binding to tackle. The next step up is a kit which requires a great deal more work. At the moment there’s mahogany baritone ukulele kit and a tenor ukulele kit up for sale. Rather ambitiously, they both come with full scale blue-prints of a vintage Martin ukuleles.

I’m sure these kits are instructive for people who are starting off with luthiery, but it does seem to take the fun out of it. What does excite me is the look of koa wood, but my technical expertise would limit me to nailing a lump of it to the wall.

So I’ll have to stick to ukuleles made by people who know what they’re doing. Speaking of which, the new Kala Translucent Red Mahogany Tenor Ukulele looks very nice indeed.

I’m embarking on a new mini-project on the blog. I’m going to list the definitive ukulele songs – the one’s most associated with the uke – and the definitive versions of those songs. If you’ve got any ideas about what should be included, leave a comment.

There’s a really great little feature of Mike DaSilva in his workshop. It’s fascinating to see how much care and attention he puts in to making the ukuleles and how fondly he talks about what he does. (A big thanks to Jeff for drawing my attention to it).

The latest episode of Ukulele Spotlight (mp3 link) is a killer with performances by Tippy Canoe and Uni and her Ukelele. There’s also a new Ukulele Spotlight website in development including instructional materials and backing tracks to jam along with (Thanks to Dave for that)

Performances from the Stockholm International Ukulele Festival

This week’s Uker Tabs: Paul Williams’ Give A Little Love (from the Coke ad) and Going to Resistencia.

Ukulala answers those burning uke questions from a urinal cake taste tester and an 18th Century English Lord among others.

Bill Tapia discusses his 100th Birthday gig.

Dubby Kirk and his ukulele get top marks on the Gong Show (it was like Pop/American Idol but the judges were forced to sit behind signs detailing what they like in bed).

Uke mp3s: Rock Insider has Ema and the Ghosts, What to Wear During an Orange Alert has Arms and ninebullets has the UkeJill endorsed O’Death.

ezFolk’s ukulele girl now flogging term papers.

You can listen to the statistically derived most wanted and most unwanted songs on UbuWeb. I was half expecting a ukulele to crop up on the most unwanted track but it’s edged out by the banjo. The most unwanted song is, predictably, brilliant and the most wanted is awful. Does nobody want humour in music? (Thanks to Dr J – you really should be reading his blog).

As far as I’m concerned, Mark Occhionero‘s arrangement of The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is the definitive ukulele version. You’d have to be crazy to want me to do a version. Which might explain why Heather requested just that.

My version of the chords is half way between Mark’s version and George Harrison’s version.

The intro is the chords that go over the, “You’ve got me in between…” section. One of the great things about Mark’s version is that he often changes the chords and picks out notes to follow the melody notes. For example, you could play these chords over, “De-vil and the deep blue sea,” With a chord or single note for each syllable of the lyrics.

It’s a very effective way of playing. It’s well worth checking out Mark’s arrangements for more ideas.

The chords for the verse can be fancied up or dumbed down according to taste. You can replace the F#dim with a Dm chord (as George does) or you can change the F to an Fmaj7 for a more jazzy sound. Have a play around with different chords and see if you can find your own variations.

With all the stuff on the net about the ukulele, there’s very little about how to play scales on the ukulele. It’s a bit strange as scales are the building blocks of music in general and chords in particular. I wrote an ebook about how ukulele chords are made up, so I won’t go into it now, but the more you understand scales, the more you be able to adapt chords and add single note runs to your playing to make it more effective and interesting.

A good knowledge of scales is essential for improvising. If the chords you are playing over are in C major, you can play any of the notes in the C major scale and they will work. Of course, some will work better than others in certain places.

The most important scale is the major scale. This is the most common scale you’ll hear. It crops up in all the most well known songs from nursery rhymes to national anthems. The sound of the scale is completely natural.

The major scale is made up of eight notes with a set distance between the notes. You start on the first note of the scale (the root) and move up two frets to the second note, then another two to the third, up one to the fourth, up two to the fifth, up two to the sixth, up two to the seventh and finally up one to the octave. The distances are: 2,2,1,2,2,2,1.

You don’t have to memorise all these scales individually. It is much more important to remember patterns on the fingerboard and where the root note occurs in these patterns.

Take the D scale for example. Start on the D note at the second fret and move up the scale like this to the next D:

If you play this same pattern up two frets (so the E is the first note you play), you’ll have an E major scale.

The same goes for any other pattern you can spot in these scale maps.

C Major

C# (Db) Major

D Major

D# (Eb) Major

E Major

F Major

F# (Gb) Major

G Major

G# (Ab) Major

A Major

A# (Bb) Major

B Major