Joni Mitchell – A Case of You (Tab)

A tab to celebrate the recent release of long-lost demos of a young Joni Mitchell apparently playing ukulele.

I think this is the first time I’ve transferred a song from dulcimer to ukulele. And it works nicely. I just transposed the original down half a step and it fitted perfectly.

What didn’t transfer so easily were the vocal lines. The vocals tumble out of her unpredictably. Which matches the meaning of the song perfectly, but is a pain in the arse to play. So I’ve taken a few liberties and played the song as it felt right to me. I recommend you do the same rather than sticking rigidly to the original or the tab.

In the repeat of bars 35 and 36, I did a little run up the neck. Rather than write the whole thing out again, I’ve included tab for just those bars at the end.

Links

Buy the original
More folk tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Goo Goo Dolls – Iris (Tab)

I was inspired to knock this one up after hearing Phoebe Bridgers’ recent cover. Which partly explains why it’s in the same key as that version (i.e. F).

It’s a very simple arrangement. It’s all played in the first position. The picking is one-finger-per-string everywhere but the solo section (which is strummed). The one weirdness is the change in the time signature from 4/4 in the intro and solo to 6/8 in the rest of the song.

The only tricky bit is the fast picking in the intro. If you don’t want to tackle that, you can just strum it so it’s the same as the solo.

Links

Buy the original
More 90s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
B.S Roberts – Fairytale
Vivian Kim – Sibelius Etude op.76 No.2
Aline Kelly – My Favorite Things
Jack Tracy – A Change is Gonna Come
Harry Jans And Harold Whalen – Soft Shoe Routine From 1929 Via @ukeist
Laura Anglade and Virginia MacDonald – Weaver Of Dreams
Ukulele Nick – Moonlight in Vermont
Vinícius Vivas – Everybody Loves Saturday Night

Damien Rice – The Blower’s Daughter (Tab)

While I was tabbing the Frankie Valli track the line, “Can’t take my eyes off you,” kept reminding me of this track. And it’s not the only familiar part of this song. The bridge is a dead-ringer for No Surprises.

The arrangement uses a mixture of picking and strumming. As a rule of thumb, if it’s just one note it’s picked. And if it’s more than one, it’s strummed. Don’t worry about hitting exactly the same strings as are tabbed. As long as you’re holding down the right chord it’ll sound good.

The original is in the key of E. So I’ve moved it up into the more uke-friendly key of G. Plus there’s a key change in the bridge to A. Which carries though into the final chorus making it two frets higher than the earlier choruses.

Having dragged my keyboard out of its dank cave earlier this week, I threw a bit of cello on this track. The arrangement works fine without it though.

Links

Buy the song
More folk tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

If you’re looking to entertain over the festive season, it’s time to start polishing up your holiday tunes and learning a few new ones. Here’s a rundown of everything Christmassy and seasonal on the site.

Christmas eBooks

I’ve written 3 collections of easy Christmas tabs: How to Play Christmas Ukulele, Christmas Ukulele 2 and Christmas Ukulele 3.

You can pick up all three for the price of 2 by buying the whole Christmas Trilogy at once.

Chords

12 Days of Christmas
2000 Miles – The Pretenders
A Christmas Duel – The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Chiron Beta Prime – Jonathan Coulton
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver/Ballard C Boyd
Christmas in July – Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick
Cold Outside – Julia Nunes & Wade Johnson
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Fuck Christmas – Eric Idle
Give the Jew Girl Toys – Sarah Silverman
I Wish it Was Christmas Today – SNL/Julian Casablancas
It’s Cliched to be Cynical At Christmas – Half Man Half Biscuit
iPod X-mas – Hello Saferide
Let It Snow
Lumberjack Christmas/Christmases Past – Sufjan Stevens
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) – The Ramones
Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade
No Christmas – Zee Avi
Present Face – Garfunkel and Oates
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Run, Run Rudolph – Chuck Berry
Santa Baby
Santa Will Find You – Mindy Smith/Tripping Lily
Silver Bells – She & Him
Somewhere Only We Know – Keane/Lily Allen
Space Christmas – Allo Darlin
Suddenly it’s Christmas – Loudon Wainwright III
The Christmas Song – Weezer
The Christmas Song Song – Rocky and Balls
White Christmas
White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes
Winter Wonderland
Year End Letter – Garfunkel and Oates
You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch

Tabs

All I Want for Christmas is You – Mariah Carey
Away in a Manger
Carol of the Bells
Christmastime Is Here (from Charlie Brown)
German Christmas Carols
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Instrumental)
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bells
Little Drummer Boy
Mele Kalikimaka
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence – David Bowie
O Christmas Tree (Single Note Version)
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Baby
Silent Night (Harmonics Version)
Silent Night (Single Note Version)
Sleigh Ride – U900 / The Ventures
Various – Wilfried Welti’s Musikalisches Naschwerk für Solo Ukulele
We Three Kings
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland

Ray Charles – Georgia On My Mind (Tab)

I hastily put together this version of the Hoagy Carmichael classic last week while it was still relevant. But it turns out this song is going to be relevant for a while yet.

My version is heavily based on Ray Charles. But I’ve made a few adjustments. For the intro, I played around with the chords and I added on an old-school blues outro.

The picking is a bit haphazard, but it’s mainly melody notes picked with supporting chords strummed. Other than a few moves up and down the neck, there’s nothing particularly tricky and the tune flows beautifully.

Links

Buy the song
More 30s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Norwegian Uke – Snappin'
Walk off the Earth – Thunderstruck
Inni-K – Sweet Geranium
Edem Soul – Leave All Your Burdens
Markus Rantanen – Valdemar
The Kid LAROI – So Done
Arko Mukhaerjee – Without You
Aabha Hanjura – Hukus Bukus

Two excellent new instrumental albums: from Finland Markus Rantanen’s debut Ukulele and from Israel, composer and producer, Ziv Grinberg’s Ukulele Fantasies.

Vulfpeck‘s Cory Wong chats with Jake Shimabukuro about technique, gear and touring with Bela Fleck. A big step above the standard Shimabukuro interview. (Thanks to Dan for the tip-off.)

CPR Classical ask James Hill and Anne Janelle how their raising their son to love music.

The UOGB have released a new DVD collecting their COVID restricted videos: The Ukulele Lockdown

Patreon

A massive thanks to Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running. And double thanks go to October’s Tenor backers:

– Arthur Foley
– Dan.
– Fiona Keane.
– Joseph Freeman.
– Katherine Penney.
– Kie77.
– Mr Daniel Barclay.
– Nick Parsons
– Olga deSanctis.
– Pat Weikle.
– Pauline LeBlanc.
– Sandi Clement.
– Thorsten Neff.
– Trevor Mccravy.

October’s Patreon exclusive for Concert and Tenor level backers is Neil Young’s Harvest Moon.

Frankie Valli – Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (Tab)

For this arrangement I’ve mashed-up elements of the Andy Williams version and the original Frankie Valli version. Like the Williams version, mine is in the uke-friendly key of C all the way through. Whereas the Valli version starts in E and modulates to G.

The verses are fairly straightforward. A simple melody with descending notes on the g-string. Things get a little harder with preposterous Austin Powers bridge. Then ramp up to a chorus with fancy chords and a few jumps around the neck.

Links

Buy the Frankie Valli version
More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

It’s Uke Hunt t-shirt season again! Most years around this time I do a run of t-shirts. This year you can buy them from either the US or the UK:

Pre-order now from US

Pre-order now from the UK

I’m using Teespring again this year. If you want one of the shirts they’ll only be available until 27th November.

They’ve changed how it works slightly since the last time I used them. Instead of waiting until the end of the campaign to print the shirts, they’re printed every three days. So you won’t have to wait until the end of the campaign to get your shirt.

I’ve been using Teespring for many years now and it’s always worked well. My shirt came here (the UK) quickly and without any hassle. It’s nice quality. The one I have is five years old and it’s still in good shape.

Pre-order from US

Pre-order from the UK

For more information on the shirts and the system take a look at Teespring’s FAQ.