Stairway to Heaven is undoubtedly the worst Led Zeppelin song there is and a strong contender for worst song of all time. “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow don’t be alarmed/It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen.” Nevertheless, everyone has to learn to play the intro. I think it’s in the Bible. Or maybe the Bhagavita. Something like that.

There are a few low-G versions of the tab around like this version on ukulele tabs. That version works pretty well on re-entrant and has the advantage of being in the original key. The downside is that playing it on a high-G ukulele shifts some of the notes up an octave – it still sounds OK but Stairway is so well known, it’s difficult to get away with. For my version, I’ve transposed the tune up three frets (from Am to Cm) to accommodate the notes.

I assume you only want to play the intro, but you can pick up the chords for the song on Ukulele Boogaloo. Those chords are in the original key of Am. If you want them in the same key as the tab, a quick auto transpose and you have the Stairway chords in Cm.

I’ve been bashing away at this blog for 11 months now. In that time I’ve amassed around 350 posts. That’s way too many for people to sift through, so here’s a quick list of my most popular posts (and after that some posts for people who are new to the uke as well as to the site). For long term readers, I’d love to hear what you think people should read when they first pitch up here so I can add it to the list.

Posts for First Timer Visitors

About page

Get up to speed on the blog. I’m completely OCD on posting the same thing on each day of the week. The about page will let you know what to expect when.

Tab & Chords pages.

This is what most people come here for. The chords start on this page and the tabs start on this page. Whatever your tastes, you’ll probably find something that takes your fancy.

Perennial favourites include Beirut (whose entire back catalogue I’ve put up), While My Guitar Gently Weeps (my entirely ineffectual plea for people to come up with their own version rather than parroting Jake Shimabukuro), and Sweetafton23’s cover of Britney Spears’s Toxic (YouTube classic). More recent hits include Yael Naim’s New Soul, Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger and Antsy Pants’s Vampire (from the Juno soundtrack).

If you’re desperate for more, check out the Rag Bag for some works in progress (sometimes glacially slow progress).

Guitar Riffs for Ukulele

Rock out with the world’s greatest guitar riffs arranged for ukulele.

Once you’ve gorged yourself on the archives, you can be sure of getting new stuff by putting your email in the doo-hickey at the top right, subscribing to the RSS feed by clicking here, or getting the latest posts on my Twitter feed.

Posts for Beginners

There’s plenty of stuff on the blog that should be helpful to the noobiest of ukulele noobs.

There’s a whole section of ukulele songs suitable for beginners. These songs usually contain just a few of the basic chords. To go along with that, the Ukulele 101 category covers the sort of uke knowledge that beginners should find helpful.

If you haven’t even got your hands on your own uke yet, you might want to check out this post about buying your first ukulele. It has a Christmas emphasis, but it still applies.

One post to check out is Ten Tips for Ukulele Beginners and if you want more tips, try my Ukulele 101 ebook.

If you’ve yet to learn, there’s a post here on how to read ukulele chord charts. A lot of the pieces on the blog are written in ukulele tablature. There’s a guide on how to read ukulele tab here.

Anything that I’ve missed?

Portishead – Deep Water (Chords)

Portishead doing a song on the ukulele? Surely an April Fools joke? No. True fact. You won’t find any April Fools jokes on here. I find scheduled anarchy rather dispiriting. I prefer to parcel out misinformation all year round. What’s the April Fools version of Scrooge?

As Andy pointed out, the song is a blatant rip off of Tonight You Belong to Me (made famous by Steve Martin in The Jerk). The chords move in a very similar way. Both songs use the chorder I – I7 – I6 – Iaug – I – V – I in the verses and head for the IVm chord in the next section.

There are only two differences between the version in The Jerk and the Portishead song. First is in key (and that’s only one fret different). Deep Water is played in the F position but tuned up half a step (or capoed at the first fret). Second, the Portishead version isn’t so well played.

The introduction is very similar in that it involves the sus4. Deep Water adds the sus four by moving from the second to the third fret on the G string. He uses this same move with other chords in the sequence later in the song. To keep the chord sheet simple, I haven’t written all these out.

Like Tonight…, there are a few little fills in the song. This one, or something like it, crops up after, “…self doubting again.”

And this little twiddle at the end:

If you’re reading this by email or feedreader, you might want to haul ass to the website and check out the brand spanking new look.

The front page of the site is now a lot less bloggy. But if you prefer the old layout, you can still read it as a blog here.

Take a look around and let me know what you think of it.

I’ve spent the last god-knows-how-long ankle deep in CSS code, but there are probably some parts that don’t work as they should. If you find something, leave me a comment. Unless the comments aren’t working. In which case, shot me an email.

If you tried to get on to the blog earlier, you might have been turned away at the door. I was up to some back stage technically jiggery-pokery (if you notice any strange goings on, let me know). I didn’t break the entire internet, so it went better than expected. So well, I’ve decided to tempt fate and spruce up the front of house as well. That might mean the blog will be down occasionally over the next few days. Or it might mean I click the wrong thing and send Western capitalism spiraling into turmoil.

Anyhoo, on to this Sunday’s theme tune. The Batman theme is an absolute classic. It was a bit hit amongst the surf crowd and was covered by The Ventures and Link Wray along with many others.

When I decided to have a go at this tune, I was a bit surprised not to find any versions of it for uke. A YouTube search only came up with Jacob Borshard’s hilarious Bryan Adams parody. The tune fits nicely on the uke.

The basis of the song is a simple I – IV – V progression; G – C – D. Each bar starts with a fifth chord. Then the fifth note shifts down and back up again. The strumming is just up, down, up, down the whole way through.

There are a couple of tricky parts. Firstly, moving from G to D. Secondly, the high chord at the end. I wasn’t quite sure what to use for the final chord. In the end I just went with something high and fairly discordant. If you don’t want to mess with that, a G5 chord at the end works just fine.

This version is half a step lower than the original. So if you want to play it in the original key, use a capo on the first fret.

My favourite ukulele videos of the week from Taimane, GUGUG, Ema and the Ghosts and plenty of others. Read the rest of this entry »

Having got my hands on my new ukulele (I went with the Sandalwood Bugsgear EleUke), my UAS has temporarily abated – I give it about six minutes. However, thanks to Heather sending me a scan of her copy the sheet music to Play A Little Low-Down Tune, my eye has turned towards ukulele song sheets.

A particular favourite theme of mine is sultry 1920s girls with great hair. Most are stylish and simple drawings like those featured on I’ll See You In My Dreams and I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle. Some are more realistic such as Swanee Butterfly. And a few have real life flappers on (looking a little more dumpy and a little less glamorous than their fantasized counterparts) such as Roll ‘Em Girls.

Ukuleles and grass skirts abound on hapa haole sheet music: My Waikiki Ukulele Girl.

If you’ve ever wondered where the striking picture on Richard Gillman’s page came from, take a look at the cover of Crazy Words, Crazy Tune Vo-Do-De-O. You can also see it peeking through in this job lot of sheet music (which has got a few other gems in).

You can also pickup vintage ukulele instruction books such as Hawaiian Songs and Hulas from the 50’s and Rapid Ukulele Method from the 60’s. But the real gem is The Kamiki Ukulele Method from 1917. You can read the whole book on ezFolk.

My UAS has just returned. The culprit is the Arthur Godfrey Flamingo plastic ukulele.

A batch of ukulele albums at various stages of release:

– Jacob Borshard has just started recording his third album A Glow in the Dark, which should be available before the end of the year. To keep you happy until then, you can download four tracks that didnt’ make the cut on his MySpace. He also has a range of rather fetching t-shirts available.

– Janet Klein‘s latest album Ready for You will be released next week.

– The UkuLady has released her debut album Banned From Canters.

Interview with Uke Jackson about the New York Ukulele Festival in the New York Times.

This week on Uker Tabs: A-Punk – Vampire Weekend, Tree Hugger – Kiyma Dawson and My Name is Monkey.

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain interview and performance.

Only a few days left to win a Flea and a bunch of other stuff in Ukulele Review’s Play it forward video contest.

Liz and Jim Beloff interviewed on Ukulele Spotlight (link to mp3).

Sixeyes has an mp3 of a Little Bird by Scott Matthew.

You’ll have to prise it out of my cold, dead hands.

Robo-lele.

Does anyone know the name of this song performed by Priscilla Ahn? Any idea where to get an mp3 or some sort of spinning disc of it?

I must admit, I’d never heard of Phosphorescent when Justin asked me about the chords to this song. It turns out they’re one of those downbeat-country bands There’s no uke in that video, but there’s plenty on the album version which you can stream on their MySpace or download on Stereogum.

The song is in C#, so it’s one of those ‘capo on the first fret’ jobs. Once that’s out the way, it’s a simple chord progression.

Strumming

The song is in Waltz time (3/4). Which means you count 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. You strum down on the first beat of the bar and hold it for a beat and a half before strumming up, down, up. At that point, you change the chord and strum down for a beat and a half and so on.

Requested by Justin

A couple of weeks ago Mike asked me for one or two tips for ukulele beginners. My brain went whiring into action (actually, is was more a nasty screetching and cracking of gears). I ended up with a big list of stuff. So here, in their original, un-rewritten and bloated form, are all of them.

1. Record yourself playing and listen back to it. It’s difficult to play and listen to yourself at the same time. Quite often just noticing what you’re doing wrong is enough to fix the problem. It also gets you used to playing infront of the mic – making it less of a big deal when you want to record yourself properly.

2. Much to the RIAA’s disgust, you can’t sue someone for stealing a chord progression. Although Metallica tried to sue the band Unfaith for changing from F to E. If you hear something you like, work it out and steal it.

3. Practice so slowly you can’t possibly make a mistake. If you make the same mistake over and over again, it’s incredibly hard to get rid of it. It’s much easier to start slow, get the tune under your fingers and gradually speed up. If you’re more consciencious than me, you’ll use a metronome while you’re doing this sort of thing.

4. Learn how to read ukulele tab. There are plenty of people around who can play the ukulele without learning to read tab. But there’s so much ukulele tab around on the net now that it’s really going to increase the speed that you can pick up new tunes.

5. Once you’ve decided you enjoy the ukulele, get a nice one. Almost everyone starts of playing on a very cheap ukulele. These ukes are fine for deciding if playing the ukulele is for you. But once you’re into it, get yourself a decent quality ukulele. It’ll be easier to play, sound better (so you’ll be more pleased with the way you sound), and will give you more impetus to practice.

6. The type of strings you use can make a big different to the sound of your ukulele. The strings you get with your ukulele are likely to be cheap and nasty. It’s worth replacing them with higher quality strings such as Worth or Aquila.

7. Don’t hold your ukulele too tightly. The ukulele is small and it’s very easy to smother the sound out of it. Don’t hold it too tightly or you’ll lose a lot of volume and tone. Watch how masters like Jake Shimabukuro and hold the uke.

8. Listen to lots of ukulele players. The more you listen, the more you’ll get a feel for the ukulele and the way it sounds. It will influence how you play subconsciously.

9. Take the time to tune up properly. The ukulele isn’t the easiest instrument to get in tune and keep in tune, but it has to be done. If your ukulele is out of tune, you WILL sound terrible. I’m looking at you, Mr Merritt.

10. Enjoy yourself. The big appeal of the ukulele is that it is the most fun instrument around. People try to denigrate the ukulele as a toy. I think calling the uke a toy is a huge compliment. Toys are fun to play with and so is the ukulele.

If you want more beginners’ tips, you can find 101 of them in my ebook Ukulele 101.