This song has been a theme tune twice over. It was used in the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange and, more recently, featured in a Marks and Spencer’s ad. The ad features some of the world’s most beautiful women and Myleene Klass (Heather: I’m doing it just to wind you up now) doing what supermodels do: watering plants in unusual positions, playing golf in their undies and ensuring the smooth passage of sea-going vessels.

If there’s not enough uke in this version for you, the song was covered to great advantage by Shorty Long (the ukulele heroes rather than the R&B guy).

The chorder is a classic retro-20s/30s chord progression. It’s definitely worth setting the sound of this one to memory. You’ll hear the turnaround section (“I’ll polish his lamp…”) all over the place.

Three performances from the Ukulele Caravan Tour (Alan Drogin, Craig Robertson and John Kavanagh) along with plenty more.

Alan Drogin – Classical Ukulele Read the rest of this entry »

Some very nice ukes on eBay at the moment. The first one I was tempted not to mention so I could try to snaffle it myself. It’s what appears to be a Dias ukulele. I’d love to have one of these things. They’re the perfect ukulele shape.

The price tag is crazy, but this 1920s National steel resonator ukulele would be welcome in my collection. I’m sure I could adjust that monogrammed bridge cover to read AW. A more modern and more affordable (but still pricey) National Reso-Phonic style 3 is also up for sale.

No bids so far on this very sweet Gibson UKE-1. Scratched it maybe, but it’s cute. And I can’t be doing with the Gibsons that have that horrible scrawl on them.

This Zemaitis ZUK3 describes itself as being, “George Harrison style.” I know he had a Zemaitis guitar or three in his collection, but I’m not aware of a Zemaitis uke. It’s certainly not the first thing I think of when I see a Zemaitis (that would be, “I couldn’t be seen with a ukulele that looks like that.”)

MGM has got a tenor KoAloha Sceptre up for sale.

Ukulele Muxtape.

eMusic has a Friday afternoon time waster quiz. Apparently, I’m a Mix-Tape Master (123/180). And I’m still cursing myself about a couple I got wrong.

The Ukulele Project draws our attention to ‘Little Bill’ Cosby’s ukulele.

Almost certainly the coolest cushions you will ever see.

Pssst. You didn’t hear about this secret page of Jacob Borshard mp3s from me.

Yet more naked ukulele art from Amy Crehore and MiniKim.

March was quite a month for albums with unexpected ukulele tracks. As well as Portishead’s Deep Water and Van Morrison’s Keep It Simple, there was Panic at the Disco’s I Have Friends in Holy Spaces from the album Pretty. Odd. Needless to say, it’s a trend I heartily support.

I’ve lost track of whether I should be calling them Panic! at the Disco or Panic at the Disco (I’m sure one of my younger, hipper readers knows the score). They seemed to have dropped the ! recently, which is a shame. I like bands with punctuation. !!! in particular.

Like Deep Water, PATD go with a retro sound for the song. But the chord shapes aren’t as traditional as those in Deep Water. They jump up and down the fretboard in a much more guitar-like way. There are also a few little embellishments such as the F#7 – F#sus4 – F# move.

Requested by Brian, Mike and Gary.

There are two types of boys at school. Those that want to grow up to be footballers and those who want to be Rock Gods. I was firmly in the second group performing wailing guitar to a stadium full of adoring fans, but I ended up strumming my ukulele in my bedroom.

Guitar Gods it turns out – for all their Marshall stacks, packed stadiums and hordes of groupies – envy me playing my ukulele in my bedroom. So, I’ve put together a few videos of guitar superheroes forsaking their wailing Lescasters and Stratopauls for the joys of the humble ukulele.

There are, of course, many who got started with the ukulele: Jimi Hendrix, Dick Dale and that to your right is a picture of wee Eric Clapton with his ukulele. But, there are also those who continue with their uke or come to it later in life. Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone who’s been following the blog for a while will know I’m a big fan of Brian Hefferan‘s playing and this tune is certainly no exception.

Unlike a lot of Brian’s ukulele pieces, this is a strummed song – which makes it much easier to play. There are a ton of interesting chord shapes in the tune. The trickiest part for me was working out what the chords were best referred to as (Brian steered me right on a number of them).

The trickiest part of The Mama Bear Bounce, particularly if you’ve never tried it before, is the string bending section. It’s not a technique you come across often on the ukulele – the nylon strings and short scale length are suited to it – but Brian uses it very effectively to add an extra moan to the chords. You play these by holding down the chord shape, grabbing the note that is to be bent, strumming the chord, then pushing the C-string up towards your head. This sharpens the note. Ideally, you should bend the string so it’s one fret higher than played. For example, when you’re holding down the C7 chord, the note bent on the C-string at the third fret should have the same pitch as the open E-string.

This tune is huge fun to play. It’s now one of those tunes I play whenever I pick up the uke ‘just for a quick strum’ before I do whatever I’m supposed to be doing.

Visit heftone.com.

I love Google. It’s about the most fantastically useful product there is and it’s free. And it sends me more people than anyone else. AND it keeps coming up with little gadgets that I can’t help but test out. The latest one I’ve taken advantage of is Google Custom Search to create this:

Google Ukulele Tab and Chord Search

You type in the band or song you want to play on the uke and it searches the trusted ukulele sites for tabs and chords for that song. I haven’t decided whether it’s useful or not. But, it’s there if you want to test it out.

Other Interesting Google Stuff

Google Books has free previews of a number of books. Most exciting is Jim Beloff’s The Ukulele: A Visual History.

Google Patents has plenty of weird and wonderful ukulele inventions such as Maccaferri’s button press chord doohicky and a ukulele on one side/mandolin on the other mashup.

Google Sets is a strange one. You type in a few words and it spits out more words in the same group. I tested it out out with “tenor, soprano, concert” and it came up with the right answer.

Google Experimental Search lets you search ukulele history by date or find places of ukulele interest wherever you are.

It might be possible to use these for non-uke related purposes. Although I’m fairly sure that’s the original intention behind them.

Jonathan Coulton has already put up the chords for the tune he wrote for the game Portal. But the J-Dog don’t roll with tabs. So I thought I’d have a stab the fingerpicking bit in the first part of the song.

The song is played on a low-G ukulele and the picking pattern is T, I, M, I (thumb, index, middle, index). This pattern makes up the majority of the first section of the song:

Then moves on to this pattern for the turnaround:

Far be it from me to tell Jonathan Coulton how he plays his own songs, but I’m fairly sure there’s a 7th note in that A chord. He has it as a plain A chord on his write up of the chords, so I may be completely wrong.

The second time around, the series finishes off with a sweep of a Bbmaj7 chord.

If you don’t have a low-G uke, you can play it the sweetafton way. She uses the same chords but the picking pattern is slightly different.

Buy all of Jonathan Coulton’s song here.

Videos from two quite sickeningly talented 12 year olds this week along with more gnarled and creased performers such as the New England Ukulele Orchestra, Aaron Keim, Victoria Vox and a bunch more.

Maddi J* – My Light Read the rest of this entry »