This is the first riff every guitarist learns to play. It’s the embodiment of the ‘less is more’ philosophy.
Deep Purple guitarist and writer of this riff, Ritchie Blackmore is currently writing madrigals and appearing at a renaissance fair near you.
Suggested by Stewart and weelie
Cream only lasted two years but they kicked out their fair share of great riffs in this time. The Sunshine of Your Love was written by bassist Jack Bruce after seeing Jimi Hendrix (who would later cover the song).
The first part of the riff is single notes and the second introduces 7th chords for some of the notes. You could just continue to use single notes as before if you prefer.
A few of the notes call for vibrato. You can create these in a couple of ways. You can bend the string (pull it down or push it up) and release the string a few times. Alternatively, you can wiggle your fretting finger along the neck (but staying within the fret). This is the method I prefer for the uke – it’s more subtle and easy to control.
Suggested by weelie
The big, exciting eMusic news is that Beirut’s new album The Flying Club Cup is available on eMusic ahead of its release on those funny round things people used to listen to. The downside is it’s not available to Brits (yet). You can read my review of The Flying Club Cup here. My must downloads are The Penalty, Cliquot and Forks and Knives.
Back to the task in hand. I’ve come up with a list of ukulele tracks on eMusic and have selected 25 for you to grab for free before they start charging you. Read more about it in part one.
15. Why Don’t Women Like Me?
16. Ain’t Nobody’s Biz’ness…/Goody Goody/I Like Bananas
I don’t mention George Formby very often on this blog. Not because I’m snooty about him or don’t like but because he’s well covered by many people who know his techniques much better than I do (I recommend all uke players check out Matt Richards’ split stroke lesson).
I have a high regard for Formby and his popularizing of the uke and there are many songs that still sound good today (and quite a few that haven’t). There are a number of compilations of Formby’s songs on eMusic, it’s worth picking and choosing carefully.
“If women like them like men like those, why don’t women like me?” A question I’ve asked myself many times.
17. Ukulele Bounce
The Wizard of the Strings. My ukulele hero.
18. Ukulele Spaghetti
Another musical hero of mine. His latest album Lumiare is a virtuoso tour de force. Each track started life on a ukulele or a similarly diminutive instrument (the charango seems to be his current favourite) and was built up with layers of other stringed instruments.
Ukulele Spaghetti is his real ukulele tour de force which he regularly breaks out at gigs.
19. Hawaiian Cowboy
There are plenty of Hawaiian ukulele albums on eMusic. Unfortunately, most of them are of the reggae-lite variety that drives me up the wall. There are some honourable exceptions: IZ, the legendary King Bennie Nawahi and the Ho’opi’i Brothers.
The Ho’opi’i Brothers are no relation of Sol Ho’opi’i as far as I can tell but they certainly embody his spirit. There’s plenty of the laid back Hawaiian sound on the album but I’ve chosen the speedy Hawaiian Cowboy for its unmissable Hawaiian yodeling.
20. Blue Like Nevermind
Kimya Dawson’s gravelly voice and ‘Tina Turner first thing in the morning’ hair style take a little getting used to but it’s well worth it. Her songs are absolutely fantastic. Particularly when she’s backed up by David-Ivar Herman Dune on ukulele as she is in this case. You can see the two of them together in this clip.
To check out clips of all these songs and more ukulele treats click here.
Moussu T Lei Jovents – A Que Calor (Chords)
A few weeks ago I got an email from Ritchie of the Ukulele Allstars. It was his birthday and one of his gifts was the url to this blog. If I’d got a url for my birthday I’d be doling out a beating, but he seemed pleased with it – it’s not the thought that counts, it’s the money. As my belated birthday present to him, I thought I’d fulfill his request for a tune from Moussu T Lei Jovents.
This song is in the uke-unfriendly key of Ab. But putting a capo on the first fret or tuning up to C# makes the chords a doddle, leaving plenty of practice to time focus on other sections.
The intro slide-guitar lick, which crops up throughout the song, is played loosely and is slightly different each time. This is the basic gist.
Here’s the simple phrase played in the chorus.
My favourite guitar line in the song is this one from the section after the second chorus (repeated towards the end). This is a nifty little blues lick that you could adapt to pretty much any blues song.
The phrase contains a bend – far more common in guitar playing than ukulele playing. You create these by fretting the note then pushing the string upwards (i.e. towards your head) until the note sounds on fret higher. So if you’re playing at the second fret the bend should reach the pitch of the third fret.
The song closes with a jam section. You can improvise along with this using the G minor pentatonic scale. For the uke, it’s worth beefing things up by playing more than one note at a time.
Buy Forever Polida US
Curiosities of the week are Italy’s answer to GUGUG and Kazootv‘s NSFW songs. Head over the fold for more of the week’s uke action.
In case you missed the link earlier in the week, Buke is a new website dedicated to the baritone ukulele with many tabs divided into elementary, intermediate and advanced.
Stefans Ukulele is a Swedish uke site (written in Swedish and English) has some handy hints and tips, chordcharts and a very interesting article about taking care of your ukulele.
New York Uke Fest 2008 announced April 3rd – 6th.
Louis A Gaspar ukulele dissected and remade.
Wigan’s Formby statue erected.
Tiki carvings and Tahitian ukuleles on Tiki Central forums. And some very detailed plans for creating a Tahitian ukulele (in French).
The banjo-lele blog I mentioned before is in Czech.
My latest tactic in combating UAS (ukulele acquisition syndrome) is to only look at ukuleles at the other side of at least 106.4 million square kilometres of water and which I couldn’t afford short of selling one of my uglier children into slavery. Here a few ukes currently causing me to dribble all over my keyboard.
If you’re on some sort of Brewster’s Millions quest, you might want to add this Lyon and Healy 5K style Koa Shrine ukulele to the fire wood pile for $26,000. But if all your assets are tied up in long-term debentures, you’ll have to settle for the Black Bear replica at a very reasonable $3,360
In a more recognisable shape, there are a couple of Martin tenors.
Or if you find the Lyon and Healy a little too conventional and mundane, you might like a Manta Ray Tahitian ukulele.
While some ukes go for head-turning craziness, this Laughlin 3k soprano modeled after a Martin 3k gets my vote as prettiest ukulele. The maker says it’s, “so close to the original that it is like being able to go back to 1928 and buy a brand new 3k.” Which has to be up there with ‘shoot lil baby Adolf’ on the list of things to do when you invent a time machine.
Not all the best riffs come from hairy rockers. This funky disco gem has to be included in any list of great riffs.
Put your curry-stained ‘Disco Sucks’ T-shirt away and grab a white suit. If Slash of Guns ‘n’ Roses can go for this song, so can you.
Note: This arrangement of the riff is in Dm rather than C.
Buy Le Freak
There was a brand new website launched on Monday dedicated to the big daddy of the ukulele world: the baritone uke. Buke already has a healthy collection of baritone ukulele tabs including classical pieces and Beatles tunes. As far as I’m aware, this is the first site solely for baritones.
The baritone seems to be a very hip choice of instrument at the moment and is a favourite of Michael Leviton, Rio En Medio, Josephine Foster and Madame Pamita. I’m looking forward to watching Buke develop.
Even if you’re bari-averse, it’s well worth a visit. It inspired me to make a lil-uke version of Fernando Carulli’s Andante (one of the tabs available on the site). Fernando Carulli was an early 19th Century composer and guitar virtuoso who wrote a large number of etudes (short musical studies). Many etudes for the classical guitar sound too like studies to be fun but I got a kick out of playing this one.
There are a few tricky sections in this arrangement. The first comes in bar 7. Here you need to barre across the fifth fret in order to reach the eighth fret easily but it still leaves a big jump down to the start of bar 8.
The other tricky section is in bars 11 and 12. My first instinct was to fret the pairs of notes using my index and middle or ring finger as in the rest of the piece. However, this makes for a very tricky move to fretting the C string at the second fret. So I’ve suggested different fingering in the tab.
This is repeated at the very end of the piece with a slight variation meaning you have to remove the bar earlier to accomodate the open C string.
This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
If you decide to cover (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, you’ll certainly be in good company. It seems like all the world’s coolest musicians have covered this song: Otis Redding, Devo, PJ Harvey and Bjork, Cat Power and Judah Bauer, Amanda Palmer and Stevie Wonder.
Receive the latest Uke Hunt posts in your inbox.
