Christmas Gifts for Ukulele Players: How To Play Ukulele eBooks

You’re still looking on the net for Christmas presents this late? You are screwed. Unless…

The big advantage with ebooks is that they’re delivered straight away (unless you pay be echeck – slogan: “Do you miss the hassle of real-world checks?”) and you can send them to anyone, anywhere instantly.

In my opinion, the best ukulele ebooks around are those available at How To Play Ukulele. Of course, I might be slightly biased in that opinion since I wrote them. If you want a more even handed view, here’s what other people are saying.

How To Play Ukulele Chord ProgressionsHow to Play Ukulele Chord Progressions

This is the first time someone’s explained basic chord formation and scales and transposition in a way that makes sense to me
Mike Dickison of Mike’s Ukulele Page

I started using the book – it’s great!!! This is really a helpful and friendly guide.
Jen Kwok

I am really glad I bought your chord progression theory book. You did just a great job! I am taking piano from my daughter’s classical teacher. He is great but somewhat hardcore classical. He tried to explain some of the theory to me, but I think that your book is way more accessible and directly applicable. And this comes from me, someone who has taken theory classes in the past!
Carol Seigal

Your ‘How to play ukulele chord progressions’ is excellent. It cleared up a number of things for me. I’m just getting into music theory and having something that relates directly to the ukulele was very useful.
Chris Double

The “How to Play Ukulele Chord Progressions” was great. I got a better sense of hamonized chords, and their fretboard relationship. The feelings the sounds generate for different chords, and how the tension is built and released really made sense.

This ebook is key to understanding chord relationships, and I can take my music to whole new levels.
Terry Truhart

christmascoverHow To Play Christmas Ukulele

An excellent selection of tabs and playing tips… I highly recommend picking it up.
Chris of The UkeCast.

Just have to say again that your “How to Play Christmas Ukulele” is really terrific. There is a fair amount of ukulele Christmas music out there but very little as good as your arrangements. All of your music is very easy to play as well a lot of fun to play.
Art Crocker

The selection of songs is great. There are popular favorites, along with some that I’d never heard of before. All are arranged for beginner to intermediate. I’m definitely in the beginner camp, but have been able to play a few bars of each… Priced at $7.00, this eBook is a bargain.
Ukulele Review

Seeso, Colbie Caillat, Bob Brozman

The week’s best ukulele videos after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

Friday Links

Friend of Uke Hunt, IanB has set up a new ukulele site Uke Thingy. There’s a pleasing variety of tab there already stretching from YES to The Road to Eldorado via Van Morrison and Frampton.

snowman ukulele weepop christmas cardWeePOP! are my new favourite record label after sending me a Christmas card with a ukulele-playing snowman. I wouldn’t have thought the entire back catalogue of Stax records could be overturned by a small card, but it just goes to show what a cheap date I am. I can heartily recommend The Darlings’ Photo EP which contains a ukulele cover of AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long – judging by the number I got, there’s less than 60 copies left – so get your skates on. Also, if you haven’t already, check out the Not Quite Rocket Science Ukulele Podcast I mentioned earlier in the year (done by the folks who run weePOP!).

Aldrine Guerrero, Danyo Cummings and pals will be doing a live web performance on Sunday 23rd at 10pm (I think that’s 8am Christmas Eve in the UK). You can watch it here.

GUGUG have recorded a CD: This is the Ukulele New Wave.

Ukulele Tonya has an impressively in depth article on humidity and your ukulele.

banjo ukulele sanshinGoogle Patent Search (still in beta) has some weird and wonderful ukulele inventions. It has the original patent for the Swagerty Treholipee as well as less successful inventions such as the world’s most overcomplicated ukulele tuner (requiring three dense pages of expositional text) and a sort of banjo-ukulele-sanshin concoction.

How do you make the most special day of your life that little more special? Ukulele duet – obviously.

The Guardian Music Blog loves the ukulele and Pete Paphides in The Times reckons UOGB is, “the only ukulele-based covers band in Europe.”

Barak Obama Caucus Carol.

Great-great granddaughter of ukulele making legend Manuel Nunes posts a photo of him on Flickr.

“My ukulele has been signed by all four members of Motley Crue and Marky Ramone; I consider it to be an artifact because of this.”

The Pogues – Fairytale of New York

The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl – Fairytale of New York (Chords)

One of the joys of Christmas is that Shane MacGowan is on the radio and TV as often as he should be the whole year round. Since the BBC has decided that the words ‘faggot’ and ‘slut’ are perfectly fine and it looks like being Christmas number one, here’s Fairytale of New York.

I tried a bunch of different ways to play the intro and narrowed it down to two. This one:
Fairytale of New York Pogues intro ukulele tab

And this one:
Fairytale of New York Pogues intro ukulele tab

I prefer the second one because of all the open strings.

I had a tendency to get a little lost in the chords during the penny-whistle parts, so I had to start counting. For the first one, after ‘…dreams come true’ and the repeat of the intro:

D,2,3. D,2,3. D,2,3. A,2,3. D,2,3. G,2,3. A,2,3. D,2,3.

The second (after the first chorus) is even trickier to follow:

D,2,3. A,2,3. Bm,2,3. G,2,3. D,2,3. D,2,3. D,2,3. A,2,3.

D,2,3. Bm,2,3. D,2,3. G,2,3. D,2,3. D,2,3. A,2,3. D,2,3.

Links

Christmas Tab ebooks

Sarah Silverman – Give the Jew Girl Toys

Sarah Silverman – Give the Jew Girl Toys (Chords)

Like Mr Garrison, I’m very eager spread the love to all during the holiday season. So here are the chords for Sarah Silverman’s protest against Santa’s blatantly anti-semitic present giving policies.

I’ve written the song up in D-tuning as it makes the chords much easier to play. You can play the chords in C-tuning but they’re slightly more difficult:

Sarah Silverman Give the Jew Girl Toys ukulele chords

Alternatively, you could play the same chord shapes as the D-tuning. This will make the tune a whole step lower.

The Ramones – Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight)

The Ramones – Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) (Chords)

Helen Love’s cover of The Ramones’ Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) is the sound of Christmas as far as I’m concerned. You can download it at Filthy Little Angels. You’ll have to hunt for it on there but it’s well worth it.

For the most part, the chords are dead simple. I’ve put a C5 chord in because it’s more punk, but you can play a normal C chord there and it will sound fine.

The only tricky bit for beginners is the Fm. You can minimise the amount of finger changing between these chords by playing them this way:
F chord to Fm chord ukulele
Here, you’re keeping you second finger on the G-string and sliding it down to the first fret. It’s a little awkward but easier than completely changing your fingers around.

In the introduction to the original, the chords slide up from B to C a few times. The easiest way to recreate this on the uke is to play the C5 shape, move both fingers down a fret, play the chord and then slide your fingers up.


Monday Exposure: Ballard C Boyd

Christmas With U (mp3)
Christmas for Cowboys (mp3) via his website.

At this time of year a lot of us will be working up a few Christmas songs to entertain family and friends. Ballard C Boyd is no different. Each year he puts together a CD for family and friends and also puts it up on the net. I mention it because this year’s CD, Christmas With You, is bloody fantastic.

The standout tracks are Christmas for Cowboys (made famous by John Denver) and, an original song, Christmas With U. There’s also a secret track mashing-up Steve Harley’s The Joker and Weezer’s Undone (The Sweater Song).

You can download the whole thing here and the previous two years’ tracks here.

Christmas Gifts for Ukulele Players: CDs

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

Christmas Ukulele: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Chords)

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.

Christmas Gifts for Ukulele Players: Patterned Ukes

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 ukuleleBlack 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 custom ukulelePahu 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

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