The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain have been rocking the New Zealand Arts Festival this week and you can catch the news report here. Hobknobbing with them and the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra was Mike of Mike’s Ukulele Page. Mike will releasing New Zealand’s first ukulele book in July Kete Ukulele: The Kiwi Ukulele Companion. The book contains all the essential beginner’s info and songs Kiwi songs young and old. You can read more about it in this pdf and there will be a website here in the near future.

Bosko and Honey have kicked off their worldwide Ukulele Safari by knocking out The Cure’s Love Song with Max the Ukulele Punkrocker.

tabBasket is a website that lets you upload all your tabs online for future reference. You can put plain text tab there or upload pdfs, Guitar Pro PowerTab files etc. The site will be really useful for people who want to access their tab on different computers. It also makes searching your tab by genre, instrument, artist much easier than on your computer. Also you can search for lyrics and YouTube songs automatically one the page. Anyone who has knocked around the guitar tabs and lyrics sites will know it’s a nightmare of buzzing ads and pop-ups, but this site is very clean, ad free and easy to use. And it has a ukulele tag. I’m giving it a try.

This week’s Uker Tabs: Jimmy Buffett, St James Infirmary Blues and The Smiths. Thanks to Molechaser, Elijah and Zym for those.

Dan (who you may know as thedanarchist if you follow the comments) recently adapted a Spider-man toy guitar to create this fine electric ukulele with built in amp. Nice work, Dan.

Stephin Merritt at his deadpan best being interviewed, sitting through uncomfortable silences and performing This Little Ukulele.

Ukulele for Sale is having a clear out sale. A good time to pick up a bargain, particularly if you’ve been eying up Kalas or Lanikai LU-21 standard ukulele.

I had a debate with Rayan from Ukulele Underground about this a few weeks ago, it now looks like the ukulele playing Warren Buffett is the richest man in the world.

Uke Thingy lists 10 songs made for the ukulele.

ShadowFlare has tab of game songs including a number of tunes from Final Fantasy and Zelda.

Two guys, one cup uke.

Kamaka ukuleles are one of the longest standing ukulele manufactures around. The original Mr Kamaka (Samuel K. Kamaka) started out as an apprentice for Manuel Nunes (one of the original ukulele makers). They were the only Hawaiian uke makers that survived the war years and are increasingly popular today thanks in no small part to Jake Shimabukuro’s endorsement. The latest and earliest Kamakas are pricey, but, if you hunt around, it’s possible to find a real bargain in Kamaka ukes made in the 1950s and 60s.The early Kamakas are very sought after and command a high price tag. Kamaka invented the pineapple shape of ukulele. You can even buy a reproduction of the original patent (or you could just download it from Google Patent and print it out yourself). The 0s/30s koa Kamaka ukuleles demand a very high price (usually a four figure sum).

The Kamakas from the 50s and 60s don’t reach anything like that amount. These are usually referred to as Gold label Kamakas after the label in their soundhole. You’ll often find a few Gold Label Kamaka ukes on eBay, both Pinapple shaped ukuleles and more standard shaped ukes.

They’re not the flashiest uke around, but they do, by all accounts, have a good sound, are very playable and their reputation is increasing all the time. With all that, it’s quite possible that the Gold Label ukes could be a wise investment.

Carl Ray Villaverde – Tears in Heaven (Tab)

When I first saw Carl Ray Villaverde’s ukulele cover of Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven, I knew I had to work it out. Once I made that decision, I noticed two problems:

1) He uses a low-G ukulele and I don’t have one.
2) He’s a million times better at playing the ukulele than I am. There’s one part of the song that’s not only faster than I can play, it’s faster than I can hear.

So, equipped with a classical guitar capoed at the fifth fret and the certain knowledge I wouldn’t get it note perfect, I’ve given it my best shot.

As always, the main consideration is making sure the melody stands out against the the accompaniment. Carl Ray Villaverde provides a masterclass on it in this video. In the fingerpicking sections, the melody notes are pushed forward and the gaps between are filled with very softly played notes from the chords. The exception to this is the bass notes – usually those on the low-G string – which are often plucked more forcefully.

The job of bringing out the melody gets even tougher once the strumming starts. Luckily, he’s done some of the work for you. The chords in this section change more often than in the fingerpicked section – often changing each time the melody note changes – with the melody note on the A string. This makes it more like a harmonized melody than a chord accompaniment. You still have to make sure that the melody strums have more umph to them than the supporting chords. Villaverde’s main way of doing this is using a roll strum (or ‘rasguedo’ if you want to be fancy about it).

Good luck getting to grips with it. This arrangement would make a great basis for you to work out your own way of playing it. Particularly if you wanted to adapt it to re-entrant tuning.

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Vibrato

Vibrato gives the note a shaky quality. This is used particularly when playing melodies as it emulates the way notes tend to be sung. As the ukulele is relatively quiet and notes die away quickly, this technique is not used very often.

There are a couple of ways of producing vibrato. The classical technique is to slide your fretting finger back and forth within the fret you’re playing. This creates a subtle vibrato. The blues/rock vibrato technique involves bending and releasing the string repeatedly. This can be used to create a much wider vibrato.

Vibrato is tabbed by a wavy line. The bigger the waves, the wider the vibrato.

Grace Notes

Grace notes are very short notes played before the main note and connected by an arch. They can be slides, hammer-ons or pull offs.

The are indicated by a small number before the main note.

Bends

Bends are fairly rare in ukulele playing but they do crop up sometimes.

Bends are produced by plucking the string the pushing it up (towards your head) or down (towards the ground). This raises the pitch of the note.

Bends are tabbed with an arrow curved upwards

At the end of an arrow is a number. This shows how far upwards the bend should be. ½ means you bend the note up half a step (one fret), 1 means you bend it up one step (two frets). In this example, we bend the note up half a step so that, once it’s bent, it has the same pitch as a note played at the eighth fret.

This series was derived from my ebook Ukulele 101: 101 Things Every Ukulele Player Needs to Know.

Read the full series here: How To Read Ukulele Tab.

Lon Gisland

Elephant Gun (Post)

My Family’s Role in the World Revolution

Capo at the first fret Gm – Eb – F

Scenic World (Second Version) (PDF)

The same chords as the version on Gulag Orkestar.

The Lon Gisland Sound

Capo at the first fret Am – D7 – G – C – Cmaj7. Just the same as Elephant Gun.

Carousels

Gmaj7 and A all the way through.

Misc

Closing Song (Post)

Transatlantique (Post)

The White Whale

One of the tracks recorded under the name Real People. The chords are Ebm – Abm – Bb. But it makes more sense to play Dm – Gm – Bb with the capo on the first fret.

The Interior of a Dutch House

From a split single with Calexico. The first half starts off with a uke. It disappears halfway through, but the chords are the same: E – Bm – F#m – E

My Night With the Prostitute From Marseille

From Big Change: Songs for Finca. The chords are G – A – Bm – D. I prefer to slide the G shape up two frets for the A chord, but you can use the normal A chord if you prefer.

Brazil (PDF)

Cover of a song by Ary Barroso and a live favourite. Also done by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Antonio Carlos Jobim. The chords are simple enough, and there’s no way you can’t include this little riff:

Siki Siki Baba

Another regular live cover. I took the chords from this version with the Kocani Orkestar (the second half of the video). For the most part it’s G5. You can spice it up a little by adding in the bass line to the chord.

In the instrumental parts, there are C then D chords leading into the G5.

The LAAA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA section is Em, Bm, C, D, G.

You can find Gulag Orkestar and Flying Club Cup tabs and chords on this page, but that’s your lot.

Every once in a while, I get the overwhelming urge to write about non-uke playing acts and today I’ve given in. So, if you’re strictly a uke-only type, turn back now.

If, on the other hand, you love independent music and get a buzz from hearing people make music from their heart, opening handmade album covers and songs that haven’t been used to sell mobile phones, then hit ‘more’ and read about my favourite four acts that you’ve (probably) never heard of: Mary Epworth, The Hellbusters, Peggy Sue & the Pirates, and The Smoke Fairies. Read the rest of this entry »

Japanese singer, Ayano Tsuji (or Tsuji-Ayano as she seems to put it herself) has set herself up as the anti J-pop (the slick, fashionable pop music often sung in English) and playing the uke certainly sets her apart from the J-pop scene. Going against the grain didn’t do much for her career, but she did breakthrough when her song Kaze Ni Naru was used as the theme to the manga film The Cat Returns.

The version used in the film (and the one I’ve written up) is a more stripped down version. At least it is in comparison to the full version. The chords used in that version are, for the most part, the same. Just a few orchestral embellishments.

My Japanese isn’t quite good enough to provide a full chord sheet, so I’ve written up the chords (separated into bars).

The chords are straightforward. They’re simple enough for a five year old to play. The strumming is fairly constant through the song. In the intro, it’s just one strum per chord. For the rest of the song, she’s strums down, down, up, up, down, up. When you’re strumming a pattern like this, try to keep your hand moving in a steady down, up motion and miss the strings where there is no strum. This makes sure that the tempo is nice and even.

The only place this pattern won’t work is in the bars that contain both F and G chords. Here, strumming each chord down twice will see you through.

Buy The Cat Returns

Rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit. Watch my favourite ukulele videos from the Hef, Ukulele Aya, Tripping Lily after the more Read the rest of this entry »

Des Cordes et du Bois is a French ukulele tab blog with some really good arrangements. Plenty of classical music and theme tunes.

This week’s Uker Tabs: Tom Dooley and Smokey & the Bandit.

John King is really pumping out the blog posts now. His latest covers the Hawaiian royal family and their ukes and is as fascinating as ever.

Thanks to the leap year, you have one last chance to win yourself a Kala KA-S by entering Ukulele Underground‘s contest. All you have to do is post a reply to this thread. Oh, and say, “I was referred by Uke Hunt,” or words to that effect.

Ukulazy is a new Tumblr blog linking to uke related webbery such as Last.fm’s ukulele tag radio and the ukulele vs. guitar debate on Hey, Monkeybrain!.

If you haven’t visited the German ukulele tab site for a while, get over there and see what’s new. My favourite is the tab of Roy Smeck’s Magic Ukulele Waltz.

If you missed it in the last post, you really must check out the latest latest Da Silva made Santo and Dias ukes.

The latest Magnetic Fields album is completely lacking in ukuleles, but Stephin Merritt performed a ukulele version of The Nun’s Litany on Fair Game (along with This Little Ukulele). You can pick up the mp3s here. Other uke songs around the mp3 blogs: Arms on i guess i’m floating (thanks to Humphrey for that), The King Blues on Mainstream Isn’t So Bad.

Can kittens and ukuleles make you happy? BankWest tests it out.

Amy Winehouse plays a ukulele at the Brit Awards (sort of).

Sally Phillips (Smack the Pony, Bridget Jones’s Diary) unveils her ukulele machine.

Eskimo ukulele snow statue.

Ukulele Hero III: a disappointment to chickens.

What do you think of ukuleles that look like guitars? apeing

Obviously, most ukuleles look somewhat like guitars. But some ukuleles consciously ape the look of certain guitars. The most obvious example is Kiwaya‘s K-Wave series. The series includes the Kiwaya K-Wave Telecaster and the Kiwaya K-Wave Gibson Les Paul. I’m not sure why they didn’t go with the more sexy and more famous Fender Stratocaster rather than the more workaday Telecaster. If you want a strat style ukulele, you’ll have to get to work on a 1/2 size guitar to produce one of these as friend of Uke Hunt Todd did.

Gibson guitars are some of the sexiest around, so it’s no surprise they’re the most imitated.

The latest addition to the Kiwaya’s K-Wave series (and the one that me thinking about the subject) is the Kiwaya K-Wave Gibson Gold. RISA seem to be getting in on the action with their new electric ukes with the Gibson Les Paul shape. They’re not available yet but one did make an appearance at NAMM. Also imitating the Gibson is the Mahalo Flying V ukulele. It’s strange that no one has taken on the Gibson SG devil-horns style (most famously used by Angus Young).

I find the Kala Archtop’s take on the much less famous Gibson ES the most visually appealing. They feel more true to the original – made a great deal easier by the fact that it is reproducing a semi-acoustic guitar so the pickups are not missed.

Ovation’s Applause ukes are slightly different in that they imitate their own guitars. The small, oddly placed soundholes and the soundboard design make it instantly recognisable.

They’re also very popular with many ukers, but I can’t stand the way they look. No amount of Kaki King can undo the damage of 80s attrocities like Yngwie Malmsteen (possibly the worst guitar solo I’ve ever heard), Toto and Judas Priest. The Ovation artist page even boasts of the support of UB40 and Motley Crue. As far as I’m concerned, playing an Applause ukulele is like walking around with a Nikki Sixx haircut.

I have mixed feelings about guitar-a-like ukes. I must admit, the Gibson mini-mes make me grin and they’re obviously a bit of fun. But I wouldn’t actually buy one. They never really capture the impact of the real thing. Guitars are designed to work as guitars. They’ll never match a uke designed to work as a uke.

It makes me wonder whether any company will mass produce reproductions of some of the classic early uke designs. Mike Da Silva’s Santo and Dias reproduction ukes are gorgeous. I just love that body shape. If some enterprising company started making cheap reproductions in the Dias style (maybe they already are and I’ve missed it – let me know) it wouldn’t surprise me if they sold very well. Of course, they wouldn’t be as nice as the Da Silvas, but they’d pique my interest.