Fiddly-day-dee-dar, it’s nearly St Patrick’s day. So it is. Me fah-vorite goup is T’in Lizzy. So it is.

That’s enough of that. The song Kilgary Mountain is a traditional Irish song that has been picked up by acts from the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary and Roger Whittaker to Thin Lizzy and Metallica (usually under its more modern name Whiskey in the Jar)

I’ve tabbed out the tune in a couple of different ways. The first run through of the tune is a sober, steady fingerpicking version. For the most part, the first beat of the bar includes the chord with the melody being picked out for the rest of the bar. The chords are played as a ‘fake strum’ (one finger for each string, played on after the other to sound like a strum). For the melody, I’m using my thumb for the notes on the G string and my ring and index fingers for the other notes.

The second version is a wild, drunken strum through the tune. Be sure to emphasise the melody notes and play the non-melody supporting strums more quietly. There are also fingerpicked notes in this section. It can be quite tricky to switch from strumming to fingerpicking. I had to practice bar 23 in particular to get it right. One more note: don’t do what I did in the last bar. I’ve tabbed out what I’ve played but in the first two notes of the bar (0403) but you’re much better off just playing a C chord (0003). I intended to emphasise the melody note (E) but actually just fluffed it unnecessarily. So, do as I say, not as I do.

This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Advanced Repeats

There are a vast array of Italian scribblings and scrawlings, and Heroes style symbols that can be used to indicate repeats. Here are the most common.

Whereas the other form of repeats is fairly intuitive, this type is pretty indecipherable (unless you happen to be fluent in Italian).

The first time round, you can breeze past the symbols until you reach D.S. al Coda (short for da signo al coda). It means you have to go back to the strange looking squiggle (at the beginning of bar two) then you play through until you reach Da Coda. At this point you go to the little target symbol.

In this example you’ll play bars:

1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 6.

It is possible to get all sorts of double signos and double codas, but you’ll probably never see these in ukulele tab. The only variation you might find is D.C. al Coda rather than D.S. al Coda. This means you go back to the start rather than going back to the sign.

Don’t worry if you didn’t get all of that. I still have to double check when I come up against this sort of repeat.

Accents

You accent notes by giving them an extra little oomph. This might be strumming harder to accentuate a beat or picking a note harder to emphasise the melody.

Accents are shown in tab with an arrow above the note or chord.

This snippet shows an exaggerated example:

Dead Notes

Dead notes are clicks produced by strumming the uke while damping all the strings with your fretting hand. Lay your fingers gently across the strings. You should touch the strings just enough to stop them ringing but not enough to fret the note.

Trills

Trills are produced by repeatedly hammering-on and pulling-off the same two notes. They are shown by the letters tr followed by a wavy line.

In this example, the A string is played at the fourth fret then you hammer-on and pull off at the fifth fret repeatedly.

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

Nantes (Chords)

Other than faffing about with a capo, it’s dead easy. Dm – C – F all the way through.

A Sunday Smile (Chords)

There’s a really great uke-heavy version of Sunday Smile on flyclubcup.com. It has the same basic chords as the album version, but uses different inversions.

Guyamas Sonora

Another capo-at-the-first-fret tune. I think this happens a lot in Beirut tunes as trumpets and other brass instruments are easier to play in flat keys (Bb and Eb in particular).

La Banlieue

Em – A – F# – B

Cliquot (Chords)

My favourite non-uke song on the album. Like a lot of Beirut songs, there’s a shift in chords and lyrical perspective in the middle of the song and it works particularly well here.

The song is, apparently, written from the perspective of Nicole Clicquot. She married into a wine making family but became widowed in her twenties. She went on to pioneer a method of producing clear champagne and established the famous Veuve Clicquot.

In the first verse of the song, she’s pleading for her husband to recover. In the second, he has died and she’s given up all hope – wants to burn the winery down. Then the music shifts from B minor to D major as discovers her purpose and vows to make her husband’s name famous.

The Penalty (Chords)

Forks And Knives (La Fête)

In The Mausoleum

I um-ed and ah-ed over this one. The chords I’ve written up are the ones that sound best to me, but there a few options. You could play the A6 chord like this. And you could play the C#m chord with the Bm shape moved up two frets.

Un Dernier Verre (Pour la Route)

Time to reach for the capo again.

Cherbourg

Another song in two halves.

St Apollonia (Chords)

The Flying Club Cup

Two ticks in the I-Spy book of Beirut chord progressions: capo first fret, new chord progression for the second half.

Next week, I should have Lon Gisland and a few other miscellaneous bits and bobs figured out. They’ll be up on the Beirut Chords and Tabs page at some point.

Share – Bluebird (mp3)
Share – Shangri-La (mp3)
Download the whole album free from Forward Music

When I tell you Share are from Halifax, Nova Scotia, you’d be forgiven for assuming they’re J. Chalmers Doane alumni making virtuoso instrumental uke tracks. You’d be completely wrong.

Share started out as the solo project of Andrew Sisk. After traveling around, he settled in Halifax and hooked up with soundsmith A.A. Wallace and started work on Ukulele Tragic; an album of, mostly uke-led, lo-fi indie-folk. He’s recently made the whole album available for download free of charge on the Forward Music website. If you’re a fan of that sort of thing, it’s definitely worth a download.

Since Ukulele Tragic, Share have moved away from the ukulele/acoustic sound. They added a couple of members and moved in a more electric and electronic album, Can Can Missile. With their latest album Pedestrian they’re attempting to meld the sound of the two previous albums. Still no uke, but some fine songs.

Share have got me thinking. I wonder what Cher would sound like on the ukulele.

Share’s MySpace

Yael Naim‘s New Soul is best known as the music accompanying the MacBook Air ad, but the first time I came across it was on Le Soir’s ukulele sessions. That part of the session has since been replaced by the second half, but you can still enjoy the ukulele version of New Soul thanks to Dailymotion.

In the ukulele version, she seems to be playing tuned down half a step (one fret) with the chords half a step higher than the original. To keep things simple, I’ve written up the original version.

I do get paranoid sometimes when I’m writing up chords. What I’ll usually do is find the lyrics, work out the chords, then have a look online to see what other people reckon the chords are. I almost always disagree with them. In the other versions online, no one else makes any mention of an Ebmaj7 but just play a C chord in its place. Try it both ways and see which you think is correct.

One difference I’m sure I’m right on is the chords at the end of the middle section. Even though the lyrics and melody of the, “I’m a new soul…” are the same as before, the chords are different. It creates an interesting effect and it’d be a shame to miss it out.

For the strumming, I like to use down, down, up, down, up, down, up for most of the chords. But for the shorter chords (Am and G), I go with just down, down, up for each. It sounds like this slow:

And this up to speed:

This weeks best vids include Elvis Costello, Ernie the Cockroach and two from my latest ukulele crush Kate Micucci Read the rest of this entry »

Jake Shimabukuro and his haircut appear on Conan O’Brien. Is Conan gargantuan or is Jake the size of an Action Man?

The Paris Uke Fest will be taking place on the 30th and 31st May. The lineup includes Victoria Vox and Michael Wagner.

You already know that weePop! is my favourite record label, but now they’ve become my even favouriter. They’ve got new releases from Jacob Borshard and One Happy Island. I’m sure you’ve already downloaded and fallen in love with Jacob Borshard’s two albums. You can check out a track from One Happy Island on Logical Logic.

An excellent piece on the ukulele in The Guardian. Which is what you’d expect as it’s written by Rock That Uke director William Preston Robertson. “Yes, there are other instruments with greater range, but none that can exist so innocently, so vulnerably, so fearlessly and precisely in that duality of time and space that is both joy and sorrow as can the ukulele.”

New chords on Uker Tabs including Fields of Gold, Theme from Fall Guy and Uptown Top Ranking. Thanks to zymeck and exoticorn for their efforts. Go here if you want to upload your own.

The Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson plays the ukulele to Paul McCartney at the Brit Awards.

More from Trixie Tangway the ukulele sweetheart (a.k.a. Kristen Schaal off of Flight of the Conchords). She even picks up a ukulele this time.

Can you guess what the hell Shaun Keaveny off of BBC 6 Music’s Breakfast Show is playing on his flying V ukulele? Beats me.

Judging by recent reviews, ukulele tracks crop up on forthcoming albums by Van Morrison and, rather unexpectedly, Portishead.

iWantUkeTunes. I stumbled upon this this site today and I’m not quite sure what to make of this site yet. It lets you search for free ukulele mp3s, but it seems to spit out the same few songs whatever you search for. I’m guessing it’s in early stages of development. My advice: do a blank search and pick up any mp3s that take your fancy.

I’ve been working my way through the archives of Amoeba Music’s in-store perfomances. There are some rollockingly good videos (and there’s a live webcast with Kimya Dawson tonight). On the uke front, they have Uni and Her Ukulele.

Message from Stephin Merritt: Don’t play the ukulele, it’s too dangerous.

Uke Hunt is worth $27,662.46. That seems fantastically unlikely.

Martin ukuleles are probably the most sought after brand of ukulele around. It’s many ukers’ dream to come across a vintage Martin ukulele at a car boot sale for a tenner. You’ll often see the ukenoscenti throw around the names of different styles of ukulele, so I thought I’d knock together a quick and easy newbie’s guide to telling different styles of Martin apart so you can tell what’s what.

I’m certainly no expert on the subject. The values are just VERY vague guesses and meant as a loose guideline only. If you want full specs and a detailed history this site is a must read. I’d also recommend you take a look at the above video of ukulelezaza playing four different styles of Martin (0, 1, 2, 3).

Martin Style 0

The style 0 Martin is the simplest ukulele they made. The only bit of decoration is the simple ring around the sound hole. The 0 was made in mahogany only. A Style 0 ukulele in top condition might be worth around $800.

Martin Style 1

Style 1’s are very similar to style 0. The quickest way to tell them apart is to look at the fretboard. A Style 1 ukulele will have a double dot at the seventh fret, while a Style 0 will have only one. Also, Style 1 Martins were produced in koa known as (Style 1K) as well as in mahogany (sometimes called 1M but usually just referred to as 1). Koa wood is much lighter than mahogany.

A mahogany style 1 will be worth a little more than the style 0, but a 1k could be worth more than $1,000 in good condition. musicguymic has one for sale at the moment for $1,200.

Martin Style 2

The Style 2 is a little more fancy. You can recognise it immediately by the thick white binding around the body of the uke.

The Style 2 was available in mahogany and also in koa. A mahogany version will take you into four figures, and a 2K should see you well over $2,000 and closer to three if it’s in top notch condition.

Martin Style 3

Style 3 Martins were originally made for professional ukulele players and are, therefore, really fancy-schmancy. There are plenty of distinguishing features: a thick white binding around the soundhole, the distinctive design behind the bridge, the fretboard reaching up to the soundhole with a line down the middle. Value roughly $2,000 for the mahogany and $3,000 or over for an early 3K in top condition.

Martin Style 4

There is, apparently, no such thing. I have no idea why.

Martin Style 5k

If you find one of these in a junk shop, count yourself very lucky. They are the Mac-Daddy and, indeed, the Daddy-Mac of ukuleles. They have the fancy filigree on the headstock and no line down the centre of the fretboard to immediately distinguish them from the style 3. You can see a 5K in action in a number of Brian Hefferan’s videos.

The 5k is very sought after and valuable. There was one on eBay with the quite staggering asking price of $50,000. That strikes me as over-valued. If you find one, you’ll probably get five figures for it. The Antiques Roadshow recently valued one at $10,000 to $12,000. And who could disagree with David Bonsey?

Martin did briefly make a mahogany version of the Style 5. But they’re very rare.

Martin have recently started making Style 5’s again and you can find them for sale on Elderly. They have also made (in Mexico) other modern ukuleles such as the S-O and the HS-O. These tend to be not so highly regarded.

Happy hunting.

There’s no doubt about the highlight of last night’s Brit Awards; “You remember Kenzie? His little face beaming?” The Brit School love-in was getting a bit much. And it’s great to see one band willing to goad the powers that be into cutting their speech short.

Having said that, I don’t have anything against the Brit School. There are a few killer songs that have come out of it, which makes it worth putting up with The Feeling in my book. Foundations is one of the songs that makes it worth putting up with them (and maybe even The Kooks as well).

The chords are dead simple. The tricky part is working out how the hell the lyrics fit around them and adopting an unconvincing cockerney accent.

For the strumming at the start, you can just play each chord once. When it gets going, I like to use down, down, up, up, down. Which sounds like this slow:

And this up to speed:

Slides

Slides are another method of moving between notes without re-picking the string.

Slides are produced by picking one note then sliding along the string to the new note.

Example 1

Slides are tabbed in a similar way to hammer-ons and pull-offs. They are shown with an arch between the two notes but they also have a diagonal line between the notes (an upward sloping line for slides up the neck and a downward sloping line for sliding down).

Shift Slides

Shift slides are slightly different. As well as sliding up, the new note is re-picked. This is tab by removing the arch and just having the diagonal line.

Example 2

In plain text tab, no distinction is made between regular slides and shift slides. They all look like shift slides. You have to listen to the music to decide which is correct.

Slide In/Out

Some slides do not have a definite start point or end point. These are indicated by the same diagonal line but with a number at one end only.

Example 3

In this example, the note slides in ‘from nowhere’ up to the fifth fret. Then the fifth fret is played again and then slides off to nowhere.

Read the rest of the series here: How to Read Ukulele Tab.

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