Beirut – Flying Club Cup

Beirut – Sunday Smile (mp3) via their website

Beirut are hugely popular with hipsters and college kids. Whichever record exec focus-grouped the idea and found out that brass band waltzes and ukuleles were what the youngsters wanted deserves a raise.

You can check out the songs at flyingclubcup.com where the all the songs are performed in various locations (in an abandoned house, on the river bank, on the street) to great advantage.

Beirut are responsible for turning loads of people on to the ukulele and my Beirut posts are some of the most popular on the blog. So if you buy this for your uke playing loved one, be sure to give them the url of this blog too.

Craig Robertson – That Dress

Higher Heels (mp3)
Leopard (mp3) via his website.

Whoever said, “They don’t write ’em like the used to,” obviously hasn’t heard Craig Robertson. His songs have a classic, timeless feel to them and could have been written yesterday or ninety years ago. They’re full of dark and sinister ne’er-do-wells.

If you’re not drinking whiskey and smoking when you start listening to this album, you will be by the end of it.

Craig has a huge pile of mp3s available for free download. You can find cover versions here and demos of his originals here.

Buy Now

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Precious Little

Theme from Shaft (clip)
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (clip)
God Gave Rock and Roll To You (clip) via their website.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain seem to be popular with just about everyone. They’re a viral YouTube smash; writer Howard Jacobson called them, “the best musical entertainment in the country”; George Harrison wanted to jam with them; they’ve appeared on kids TV a number of times and Brian Eno said that they, “may well turn out to be one of the turning points of 21st Century Art.” I think that’s a fair demographic reach.

Personally, I could happily go without the covers of Nirvana and the like that seem to have made them popular. I find them much more impressive when they’re being musical rather than ironic.

Buy Now.

More Christmas gifts for ukulele players

This is one of my all time favourite Christmas songs. A huge number of people have done this song but my favourites are Coldplay’s (in the video) and Patsy Monteleone’s version on MUD.

The chords in my version are loosely based on Patsy’s version – and, gosh, there are a lot of chords in it.

Some of the chord changes in this song are gorgeous. The change between C and Am7 is a fairly common one. You could play Am7 with all open strings but this one is much more effective. The chord is just the Gm shape moved up two frets (with the open G string giving the 7th note). It just goes to show what a huge difference the chord inversion you use can make.

The other stand-out chord changes come from very small changes in chords like the Em – Em maj7 – G progression. There’s only a difference between each chord of one fret of one note but it’s very effective.

When you’re giving someone a gift, you do want it to be that little bit more special. Ukuleles with an added design give that extra ‘wow factor’. You could commission yourself a painted uke. Or, if you’re a bit more strapped for cash and time, buy off-the-shelf.

Fluke Ukuleles

Flukes seem to be almost universally popular. Even more so when there’s a half naked dolly-bird holding one aloft.

Inspiration for Fluke designs ranges from Hollywood to Dollywood (with their cowboy fluke). Flukes sell for between $200 and $300. You’ll pay a bit of a premium for the design and also if you want a rosewood fretboard (rather than the standard plastic).

Find Fluke ukuleles.

Black Bear Christmas Bell

At the other end of the price spectrum is the beauty.

Duane Heilman of fantastical ukuleles. This one’s more down-to-earth and based on the old Lyon and Healy bell ukulele designs.

The auction eBay auction for this one has finished now but it didn’t sell so it may return. If you’ve got a loved one worth $2,000 to you, keep your eyes peeled.

See Black Bear ukuleles

Pahu Kani

Another heftily priced ukulele. I have no idea how these sound but ooooh pretty, pretty, pretty. And, at the end of the day, isn’t it what’s on the outside that really counts?

More Christmas gifts for ukulele players

If you can’t stand the sound of your loved one strumming incessantly, it might seem a little counter-intuitive to buy them an electric ukulele. Were it not for one word: headphones.

Ovation Applause

With their round backs and distinctive sound-holes, Ovation Applause tenor ukuleles are heavily based on their guitar big brother. In my opinion, they have a slightly dated look – there’s a definite whiff of Bon Jovi unplugged about them. But recently, Kaki King came along and rescued the Applause image.

Buy for: the hair-rocker in your life.

Find Applause ukuleles

Bugsgear Eleuke

Bugsgear’s Eleuke has a much more modern look. They come in a sparkling blue or a more understated natural wood.

They now have one you can plug headphones straight into, so no excuse for waking up family members with midnight strummings.

Find Bugsgear EleUkes

Kala Archtop

The Kala Archtop Tenor has a more classic look with jazzy f-holes and an archtop.

Buy for: midnight jazzers, those who find the term ‘f-hole’ endlessly amusing.

Find Kala ukuleles

What’s your electric uke recommendation?

More Christmas gifts for ukulele players

Aldrine Guerrero and his team are in the process of setting up a new site Ukulele Underground. Until it’s up and running, join up to the forum.

Speaking of Aldrine, his track Bandito Tyler is one of Dominator’s new tabs.

Wilfried Welti’s Christmas ukulele tab book (with explanations in German). More German ukulele tab on Ukulele lernen.

More tab news: Buke has entered the wonderful world of GCEA.

Beirut will be on tonight’s Later with Jools Holland. Head over the fold to see an interview with Zach Condon.

The winner of the Bushman Ukulele Contest?

foggy ruins of time has a rather fantastic mp3 from The Darlings. There’s also a cover of The Sugababes’ Push The Button on their MySpace that’s not to be missed. (I was so impressed I’ve bought their EP as a Christmas present to myself).

Wolves, Hawks and Kites have an mp3 from and review of The Burning Hell (very Stephin Merritt).

Carboard ukulele.

Uke players organise a piss-up in a brewery.
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Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (mp3)

As promised yesterday, here’s a solo version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

It’s a fairly simple arrangement. For the most part, the melody is fingerpicked and chords are strummed in between the melody notes. Apart from a couple of notes at the fifth fret, it’s all first position stuff. Easy.

For more of my solo arrangements of Christmas songs check out How To Play Christmas Ukulele.

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

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is the simplest Christmas song and ideal for kids.

I’ve tried to simplify the chords even further for this arrangement. For a fair chunk of the song, a C6 chord is being played (all strings open). I’ve written C6 every time but using a full C chord at the end would give it a proper ending. Other than that, there are only two other chords: F and G7.

If you’re after a more challenging version of the song I’ll be doing a solo, fingerpicking version tomorrow.

Until then, you can pass the time by heading over the fold and, since it’s the season to waste away the hours in the office playing games, shoot as many reindeer as you can.

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

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White Christmas (mp3)

I couldn’t let Christmas pass without working up a version of this tune. It’s a classic.

This arrangement keeps it fairly simple. It’s mostly just strummed chords. When you’re playing a chord based solo like this one, it’s important that you emphasise the melody notes. There are a couple of main ways to do this.

Firstly, by making the last note you hit in a strum the melody note.

Secondly, by giving a bit more omph to the chords on the melody beats. For example, in bar 6 the melody note is the first beat (the ‘I’m’), so play this chord stronger and the rest of the strums in the bar more softly.

If you like this style of arrangement, you can find more Christmas songs arranged like this in How To Play Christmas Ukulele.

If you’re in Hollywood this Friday, head over to the Egyptian Theater for their screening of White Christmas where Ukulele Davey will be leading a sing-along.

Bob Brozman’s Ukulele Tunes & Techniques (DVD)

Bob Brozman is one of my musical heroes. A quick check on YouTube will show you why. It’s not just his playing, it’s his musical philosophizing too. He’s always interesting and often highly quotable (the quote of him on my About page is from this DVD). All that meant that buying this DVD was a bit of a no-brainer for me.

The DVD has Brozman playing through different arrangements of a number of Hawaiian and American tunes tabbed out in the accompanying booklet. Towards the end, he is joined by Hawaiian guitarist and ukulelist Ledward Kaapana. Brozman’s tunes are arranged on D-tuned ukulele and Kaapana’s tunes for low-G ukulele.

The full tab list is:

Hi’ilawe, Meleana’E, The Beach at Waikiki, Ukulele Blues, Sweet Georgia Brown, I’ll See You In My Dreams and Spanish Eyes (Kaapana).

There are also untabbed performances of Ukulele Spaghetti, Tomi Tomi and L&D Slack Key (Kaapana).

The Good Stuff:

– Techniques. This DVD was a huge inspiration on my playing. Each time I watch it I’m itching to to try something new I’ve picked up from it.
– Some of the stuff Brozman pulls off is just fantastic to watch and hear.
– There’s a lot to be learnt here about how to use chord inversions and how to incorporate them into chord solos.
– Some very good examples of how to arrange the same song in different ways to keep it interesting.
– Ledward Kaapana. He’s a big teddy bear and probably the most adorable man in the world. He also pulls of tricks in L&D Slack Key that are worth the price of admission by themselves.

The Not So Good Stuff:

– Tunes. I haven’t learnt a single tune from the DVD. It’s sometimes hard to work out exactly which piece of tab is being played. Sometimes what is being played isn’t tabbed out at all. Brozman turns in a fantastic fingerpicked version of The Beach at Waikiki but all we get tab for is the strummed version. When I watch this DVD I promise myself I’m going to learn one of the songs but it never happens.
– Kaapana isn’t a natural teacher. Bob has to play both faux-naif “What ya doing there, Led?” role and the know-it-all teacher role.
– Tunings. Bob’s in D-tuning which makes chord names confusing for C-tuners (particularly if they’re a bit slow in the head like me). Led’s in low-G which isn’t really a ukulele.

Overall: Inspirational.

More Christmas gifts for ukulele players

I couldn’t imagine Christmas without this song. When I picture the nativity, I imagine Joseph screeching, “It’s KRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSS-MAAAAS.” But, I’m guessing, most people outside the UK will be completely baffled by it.

The song starts out with a series of ‘slash chords’ which need a little reworking on the uke (you can read about how to do it here) and is a little fiddly to play. But, other than that, it’s fairly plain sailing through the rest of the tune.