It takes a fair bit of gumption to invited comparison to one of the heroes of the ukulele. Luckily for me, Mike was willing to send me a CD so I could check it out.
Mike’s been playing ukulele for 35 years and had a knack for it from the start. As a lad, he toured with J. Chalmers Doane – the man responsible for Canada’s peerless ukulele program which produced James Hill – as part of the Halifax Adult Ukulele Ensemble (read more about them here). He’s been strumming away since, but has only just put out his debut solo album.
The album is bookended with a couple of rollockin’ ukulele instrumental kicking off with Molly Brown Medley (featuring Freight Train and 12th Street Rag) and ending with Homesick Medley (which you can hear in the above video). In between Mike turns in vocal performances of songs such as Crocodile Rock, Leaning On a Lamppost and I’ll See You In My Dreams along with plenty instrumental versions of popular songs.
The Good Stuff
– The Playing: Mike is an incredibly accomplished ukulelist. He produces a crystal clear sound and manages to keep his playing articulately even at great speed. His picking and strumming on a spirited version of, the bossa nova tune, Brazil is breathtaking. If you want you ukulele playing to sound fluid and natural, you need to listen to this track and pay close attention.
– Singin’ In the Rain: Mike’s version of this song is insanely infectious. As soon as it can on I had to grab my uke and play this along to it.
The Not So Good Stuff
– Song Choices: I’d love to hear Mike make more adventurous song choices. Some of the songs on the CD (Over the Rainbow, Aloha Oe, Yesterday) have been done to death and these are my least favourite songs on the album.
– Production: Nothing wrong with the production if you like crisp and clean, but I prefer a bit of grit occasionally. It’d be great to hear what he can do when he really lets loose.
Overall
There’s some exceptional playing on this CD and any ukulele player would be well advised to sit up and take notice. You can buy the CD at CD Baby or individual tracks for download at PayPlay. Whichever option you chose, your life is not complete without these…
Essential tracks: Molly Brown Medley, Brazil, Polka Medley, Singin’ In the Rain, Homesick Medley.
If you’ve been following Uke Hunt a while, you’ll know I have a loveofthemetunes. I’ve also had quite a few requests for theme tunes. So, for the near future at least, Sunday is going to be theme tune day (TV, movies, games).
First off is a theme tune I’ve done already. It was pointed out to me that my first attempt at The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was a steaming pile of Federline, and I have to agree. It was early days.
Anyhoo, the new version is much better. You can grab it up there and read more about it and get a variation on the original post.
Vote for your favourite using this form (if you’re reading this via email or a feed you’ll have to come to the site). You only get one vote – use it wisely. Voting closes midnight Friday 18th January (Hawaii time). The winners gets fame, glory and absolutely no prizes with any monetary value whatsoever.
If you’ve tried to sign up for the mailing list in the last couple of weeks and encountered problems, it should all be back up and working. If you’re still having problems, let me know and I’ll cry some more then try to sort them out.
<tangent>I haven’t been entirely happy with the people I’m using to deliver the list, so I tried out Aweber. I’ve had nothing but problems since I started with them. I’m tempted to go on a rant, but I won’t bore with that. I’ll just say: if you’re ever setting up an email list and want the benefit of my experience, avoid Aweber.</tangent>
If your new year’s resolutions included both getting fit and improving your ukulele playing then this is the way to do it. And make sure you check out the rest of his videos (once you’re in a fit state to carry on).
Clarks shoes will always be associated in my mind with the ugly school shoes I was stuck with while all my cooler friends were wearing DMs. In an attempt to change this, they hooked up with Tokyo Ukulele Afternoon and gave away their version of Tequila to London’s hipnoscenti. You can take a listen yourself at Innersounds and grab some more mp3s here. I’m still not going to voluntarily wear the shoes. (Via Ukulele & All That Jazz)
Sometimes you choose a job, and sometimes a job chooses you. I’m guessing when it came time for the BBC to get a correspondent to follow Greenpeace’s attempts to stop Japanese whale hunting – Jonah found himself in the latter position.
Whether or not their name came from a biblical mix-up, Noah and the Whale are part of the ultra-hip London folk scene and compatriots like Laura Marling (who crops up in this video) and Emmy the Great float in and out of the line-up.
Noah and the Whale’s Five Years Time wins the 2007 ZZ Top Award for Best Three Chord song. It’s dead simple to play. It’s just C – F – G – F all the way through.
By the looks of the Wes Anderson inspired video, they play the G-chord in a slightly more difficult way:
But there’s nothing wrong with playing it the easier way.
Tabs vary with how much information they give about rhythm. Some tab you’ll see won’t have any rhythm indicated at all and will expect you to get the rhythm by listening to a recording. Some will have a vague indication of rhythm given by the distance between notes. Some will have tab and standard notation with the standard notation giving the rhythm. And some will have rhythm lines on the tab.
Rhythm in Standard Notation
Quite often you’ll see ukulele tab accompanied by standard notation. In these, cases the rhythm will be shown on the standard notation.
When you listen to a piece of music, you’ll feel the pulse of the music. Clap along with any song and you’ll be clapping out its beat. Each of these beats is known as a ‘crotchet‘ or ‘quarter note‘ and is written like this:
Example 1
The lines going up in this example can also go down. It makes no difference to how the note is played.
In the examples, there is a click in the background for each beat (quarter note). You can count along with these in your head (or out loud) as 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Half notes (or minims) last twice as long as and are shown as a line with a hollow circle at the bottom (the first half of the example 2). When you’re counting these, only play every other number. In this example you’d play on the 1 and the 3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4).
Whole notes (or semibreves) last twice as long as half notes. They are indicated by a hollow circle without any lines at all (the second half of Example 2). These notes are only played on the 1 ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4)
Example 2
Going in the other direction, notes that are shorter than half notes look like this:
Example 3
The first part of example 3 is quarter notes.
This is followed by a set of eighth notes (or quavers). These last half as long as quarter notes and look like two eighth notes connected by a horizontal line. These are usually counted ‘1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and’.
Eighth notes aren’t always in pairs and you’ll see single eighth notes singly where they are shown like this:
The final set of notes in example 3 shows sixteenth notes (or semi-quavers). These last half as long as eighth notes and are shown with a double horizontal line. These are usually counted ‘1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a 4 e and a’.
Again, these can be shown singly like this:
If you listen to the last example, you’ll hear a click for each quarter note. There are two eighth notes for each quarter note and four sixteenth notes per quarter note. Get used to counting out the eighth and sixteenth notes in your head or tapping out the rhythm before you try to play them.
You can keep halving the length of notes (adding an extra horizontal line each time) but it’s rare you’ll see anything shorter than a sixteenth note in ukulele tab.
Rhythm in Tab
Sometimes standard notation isn’t shown along with the tab. In these cases, the rhythm is usually indicated on the tab itself. This method isn’t quite so standardised. The system shown here is the one I use on Uke Hunt. Other systems may differ but will probably have similarities.
In tab, quarter notes are indicated by a line going down from the bottom. Example 1 would look like this when written in tab.
Half notes are shown with a shorter line under the tab and whole notes are shown with no line at all. Example 2 looks like this when written in tab.
Eighth and sixteenth notes are written in a very similar way as they are in standard notation. Example 3 would be written like this.
Bars/Measures
You might have noticed in that vertical lines (known as bar lines) in the tabs dividing the music into sections. Each of these sections is called a bar or measure. This makes it easier to follow and easier to reference a particular part of the tab.
The length of the bars is determined by the two numbers at the beginning of the tab (known as the time signature). In every case so far, this has been 4/4. That means there is the equivalent of four quarter notes in each bar. This could mean a half note and four eighth notes; or a quarter note, four sixteenth notes and four eighth notes; or any combination that adds up to four quarter notes.
Another common signature is 3/4 – known as waltz time. This means there are three quarter notes in each bar. It’s very rare that you’ll come across a time signature other than these..
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Read the rest of the series here: How to Read Ukulele Tab.
As well as winning the always fiercely contested ‘French Girl I’ve Got The Biggest Crush On of the Year’ award, her debut release Not Sokute was the best EP of the year. The lead song from the EP I’ll Kill Her should have been massive everywhere. As it happens, it was only a hit in Denmark and Australia.
Rather than write up I’ll Kill Her, I’ve gone with The Dandy Cowboys which suits the ukulele much more. The chords are fairly simple and it’s a fun track to play (and to listen to). So much fun it makes up for her choosing music over making films full of girl-on-girl snogging.
The only slight problem is that everything is tuned slightly sharp (about a quarter of a fret). So, if you want to play along with the record, you’ll have to tune to the song itself. The best way to do that is tune up the C string while listening to the song (since the song is in the key of C, it’ll sound right most of the time when it’s in tune). When it’s in tune, stop listening to the record and tune the rest of the strings from the C string: the G string is the same as the C string played at the 7th fret, the E string is the same as the C string played at the 4th fret and the A string is the same as the G string played at the 2nd fret.
Female Hawaiian singers are something of an acquired taste. The traditional yodelling and vocal ululations aren’t the most commercial sounds in the world. But Paula Fuga has a voice that is set to do for female Hawaiian performers what Israel Kamakawiwo’ole did for the guys.
Rather than the traditional style, her voice is deep, rich and soulful voice similar to the likes of Erykah Badu and Jill Scott.
After a thankfully unsuccessful shot at American Idol, she joined up with Hawaiian reggae band Dubkonscious before releasing her debut solo album Lilikoi. She’s attracted the attention of some big hitters; collaborating with Jack Johnson (you can hear the song on her MySpace) and has impressed the likes of India.Arie and Jason Mraz.
The album gets a bit too Jawaiian for my tastes, but this acoustic session for KTUH blew me away. She blends her Southern Soul vocals with Hawaiian and Jamaican sounds without sounding like self-conscious fusion. She slips between singing in English and Hawaiian so naturally you’d barely notice. And the minimal accompaniment showcases her magnificent voice.
The standout track of both the album and session is Lilikoi (named after a type of passion fruit)). The song throws a little flamenco into the mix with this nifty little intro:
Flight of the Conchords – Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros (Chords)
I thought I’d kick of 2008 with a series of posts on a random selection of my favourite things and notable events from 2007.
My viewing habits would suggest that Heroes was my favourite TV show of last year. I got insanely addicted to it; I became a Heroes junkie. As soon as the first series finished over here, I had to start torrenting the second series to get my fix. Since the writers strike killed off the second series and left me with nothing to watch but dead babies crawling across the ceiling, I’ve found myself in the worrying position of agreeing with Margaret Thatcher’s opinions on strike breaking. But I’m not sure I even like the show. It’s overacted, the dialogue is overblown (and often hilariously expositional) and there are gaping plot-holes all over the place. Still, can’t wait for Volume 3.
Next Saturday I’ll be launching a vote for the best online ukulele video. Here’s your chance to nominate up to five for consideration for the final vote. The ones with the most nominations will go forward to the big vote (if there are no clear leaders, I’ll make an arbitrary decision).
Rules:
– Only videos recorded specifically for online viewing are eligible. No DVD/TV rips. No live gigs.
– The ukulele must be the primary instrument.
– Videos must have been recorded and uploaded in 2007.
– Videos must be publicly available online.
– Maximum of five nominations per person.
– Post your nominations in the comments.
– Nominations close midnight Friday 11th January (Hawaii time).
Mike’s been playing ukulele for 35 years and had a knack for it from the start. As a lad, he toured with J. Chalmers Doane – the man responsible for Canada’s peerless ukulele program which produced James Hill – as part of the Halifax Adult Ukulele Ensemble (read more about them here). He’s been strumming away since, but has only just put out his debut solo album.
