Continuing the list of ukulele tracks you can get for free on eMusic. You can read all about how to get them in part one.

Beirut

7. Elephant Gun
8. Postcards From Italy
Indie-uke darling Zach Condon’s first album Gulag Orkestra and the Elephant Gun EP are both available on eMusic. These two tracks are essential listening.Grab the tab for Elephant Gun and Postcards from Italy.

Beirut’s latest album, The Flying Club Cup, will probably show up on eMusic soon after it’s released. Until then, you can content yourselves with this track from their website

Beirut – A Sunday Smile (mp3) via beirutband.com

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

9. Somewhere Over The Rainbow/Wonderful World
10. You Don’t Know Me

Braddah IZ’s cover of Somewhere Over The Rainbow is by far his most popular song. The version on eMusic is the one from his debut album Ka ‘Ano’i – a more reggae-fied version than the most famous version. But my favourite track on the album is his cover of You Don’t Know Me (made famous by Ray Charles). You can pick up the chords for the song here.

John Lithgow

11. You Gotta Have Pep

I don’t think words have been invented that fully describe how much I love this song. Most actors when starting a career in music make morose songs in a desperate attempt to prove that they are 4real. Lithgow (Third Rock From The Sun, Shrek, The World According to Garp) goes in completely the opposite direction and makes outrageously theatrical music with a healthy dash of banjo-uke in the bargain.

Ralph Shaw

12. Puttin’ On The Ritz
It takes some gumption to crown yourself ‘King of the Ukulele’ but he hasn’t had too many people disagree with him.

The Magnetic Fields

13. Absolutely Cuckoo
Don’t listen to the haters, Stephin Merritt has a genius way with a tune. The triple album 69 Love Songs has plenty of uke and non-uke delights. You can pick up the chords and tab to both at Stephin Songs.

The Magnetic Fields tracks aren’t available on eMusic in the UK or, I’m guessing, many places outside the USA.

Stephin Merritt

14. This Little Ukulele
UK eMusers can console themselves with this ode to the ukulele from the soundtrack to Eban and Charley.

On Jen Kwok’s appearance on Midnight Ukulele Disco, she and Jason Tagg were discussing playing classical music on the ukulele. There has been quite a bit of classical music arranged for the uke. John King’s The Classical Ukulele and Wilfried Welti‘s arrangements (you can download his tab here) leap immediately to mind. But they were talking about playing classical music by strumming rather than fingerpicking and I couldn’t think of any. So I decided to take up the challenge myself.

My aim with this was to make the easiest strumming classical piece it’s possible to play on the ukulele. I’ve chosen a very simply tune: Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. There are only two basic chords in the it C and G and the strumming is just a steady up and down. The melody notes are put inside these chords.

You don’t have to do anything to make these notes stand out. Because these are the only notes that are moving the ear picks them out as a melody (particularly with a well known piece like this).

The first part of the tune is very simple. Here it is played slowly:

When the tune moves to G it is a little more difficult to play and requires a bit of fancy little-finger work. Good luck with it.

Apologies for all the hacking and wheezing in the background of these mp3s. I’ve been laid up in bed with a cold all weekend. And apologies to everyone I owe an email or a message to.

Another bumper crop this week. Jake Shimabukuro’s performance at the SF Ukulele Festival, new Taimane clips and a number of videos from a ukulele get together in Dortmund with a whole bunch of Uke Hunt favourites. Not to mention some ukulele juggling.

Watch more clips including Stephin Merritt reworking a kids’ classic and a GUGUG going solo over the fold.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a great couple of weeks for those of us who can’t get enough of the latest comedy ukulele sensation Jen Kwok and her sidekick Uke-icorn. She recorded a show on Midnight Ukulele Disco (check out the full show for the song Desert to the Sea, it’s incredible) and there’s a new edition of the Super Cute Sex Show (vaginas: “not just for tampons.”).

Duane Heilman’s latest Black Bear creation is this stunning soprano harp ukulele. There’s a great article about harp ukes that Ukulelia pointed up and you have to check out the Knutsens and their harp instruments. If you missed out on the harp uke, you could console yourself with a Martin 0 style uke he rebuilt which looks decidedly tasty.

Hot on the heels of the success of Night of 100 Ukes, comes the Sunset of 1000 Ukes: a flash mob singing of Waterloo Sunset in London. Check out their MySpace for more details.

Dirty Bronson have an mp3 of Bishop Allen’s Click Click Click.

In depth ukulele string analysis.

A recent thread on The Parlor Room has uncovered a few people who love the uke so much they feel the need to have one indelibly drawn on their flesh.

I don’t have any clue what’s going on with this page but it has some entertaining ukulele flashes.

I’m sure having a top ten list is going to kick off a bit of a debate. The fact is, I’m making the list up as I go along. So, if you want to influence what gets in there or if you just want to call me an empty headed, bat-faeces speckled dolt for my choices so far. Here’s your chance to let me know what your favourite guitar riffs are.

Warning: If you don’t manage to talk me out of it the list will include The Final Countdown and Girls Aloud.

If you want to be sure not to miss any of the list subscribe to Uke Hunt via RSS or receive updates by email

Gay Bar midi

Are Electric Six still going? Apparently, they released an album last year. I had no idea.

Back in 2003 they were the hottest band in the UK. The singles Danger! High Voltage and Gay Bar shot to the top of the UK chart. Danger! boasted backing vocals from Jack White but Gay Bar had the best guitar riff I’d heard in decades and one of the most disturbing videos I’ve ever seen.

Buy Gay Bar

One of the easiest ways to make an audience sit up and take notice is to play a snippet of something they recognise and weren’t expecting to hear on the uke. It’s a trick that Taimane Gardner uses regularly and to great effect.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to tab out the top ten most recognisable guitar riffs for the uke. As far as possible, they’ll be in the key of C. Transpose them to whichever key you are playing them and insert them into a song or tune any time you think people are getting bored.

10. Iron Man (Black Sabbath)

Iron Man midi

The slow tempo makes this seem like a very easy riff to play. But the slides in it make it tricky. You could replace the slides with hammer-ons and pull-offs but you’d lose some of the effect.

Buy Iron Man

In between hanging out with rockstars and boinking models, at least one member of The Stokes got acquainted with God’s instrument. You can see a clip of Albert Hammond Jr with a uke right here.

They also wrote one song with a few chords that stretched beyond the usual rock power chords. Someday has add9s and 6 chords in there to add some interest. But if that’s not your bag, you can still strum along with the basic chords.

The chords fit very nicely on a D-tuned uke and that’s what I’ve written them out for. I’ve written out the full chords in the intro and the basic chords for the verse (although one of the guitars is playing the fuller chords throughout). If you’re playing the simple chords, there’s no problem with using C-tuning. But playing the chorus part in C-tuning would be tricky. The first three bars of the chorus riff (in D-tuning) go like this:

Buy Is This It US

eMusic is my favourite place to get music (and the only place I download music online). You might have noticed from the blog that my taste in music is for modern indie and classic old-school songs – which is pretty much the eMusic catalogue. For those who don’t know, it’s a subscription service – you get so many downloads per month – and they cover independent record labels (so stay clear if you’re into James Blunt and the Crazy Frog).

Since I started subscribing (well over a year ago) I’ve been adding to a list of ukulele tracks on eMusic. There are some big, popular acts there like Magnetic Fields (US only), James Hill, Beirut, IZ and George Formby; as well as many unusual and obscure sounds such as Malaysian ukulele and hip-hop ukulele. So, if you’re a subscriber, chow down and use up this month’s allocation.

If you’re not a subscriber, you don’t have to miss out. You get 25 downloads for free when you sign up, after which you can cancel before they grab any of your money. So here’s a list of the 25 essential ukulele mp3s you have to get from eMusic.

James Hill

1. Skipping Stone
2. Uke Talk
3. One Small Suite for Ukulele Part I

James Hill is THE best ukulele soloist around at the moment. There’s no competition. He’s incredibly technically adept but he never falls into the trap of sounding like a robot as some others do. His album A Flying Leap is on eMusic and, to be honest, you need it all.

Hailey Wojcik

4. Nabakov’s Butterfly
5. Bad Modern Art
Indie chanteuse, Hailey Wojcik caused a bit of a stir in ukuleleland recently with her track Nabakov’s Butterfly getting a mention on Ukulelia and a spin on UkeCast and I’m happy to report the album lives up to the promise. Even the non-uke tracks are fantastic. Check out Dinosaur Bone.

The Kalima Brothers

6. Stars and Stripes
A rollocking version of this tune. The best I’ve ever heard on the uke. And there have been a few.

That should get you started. Stay tuned for the rest of the list or skip ahead and check out my list of ukulele tracks on eMusic.

According to Google Trends, a higher proportion of searches in Sweden are for ukulele than any other country in the world (strange, since the climate of Sweden couldn’t be much more different from that of Hawaii). So when Jeff told me he was searching for a Swedish tune to play I went on the hunt for a couple to tab out for the uke.

Midi

This is a little Christmas tune. It has made it’s way all across Scandinavia. The tune is Swedish, it was used for a Danish hymn before the lyrics were translated into Norwegian. you can listen to, A-Ha frontman, Morten Harket’s version here.

Midi

This version is based on the one I found on this page of folk tunes. The description there mentions that it is a Swedish tune but heavily influenced by German/Danish music. That is particularly evident when the tune slips in to waltz time (3/4).