Sylvan Esso – Rooftop Dancing (Tab)

There’s been a healthy crop of great albums this year. My current favourite is Sylvan Esso’s Free Love. So I grabbed my uke and put together a cover of Rooftop Dancing.

The song fits nicely on uke. The chords are simple and the melody is contained in the first five frets. There’s only one trip up the fretboard in bars 15-18. This section is essentially the intro moved up an octave. So you can substitute the intro there if you prefer.

The challenge in the song is the speed of some notes in the melody. I’ve made things a little easier by removing a few notes. But you’ll still need to do some alternate picking to keep up.

Links

Buy the song
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Kamakakehau Fernandez – He Mele No Hina
Elisabeth Pfeiffer – Galliarde
Ziv Grinberg – Ukulele Fantasie no.2
Winchester 7 & the Runners – My Super 8
Maia & TJ Mayeshiro – Nada Sou Sou
Natasha Ghosh – ily.
Ukulele Death Squad – Insano
Birch Pereira – I'll Come Running Back To You
Ukulele Solos – Clair de Lune

Harold Melvin – Don’t Leave Me This Way (Tab)

Don’t Leave Me This Way was originally recorded by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. But by far the most well known version in the UK is by the The Communards. It’s also been covered by Thelma Houston and briefly popped up in Moulin Rouge. This version is based on the Melvin version with shades of the very similar Communards version.

The biggest element of this song is the switch from D minor in the intro and verses to D major in the chorus. Unlike the strange change from major to minor, the change from minor to major is pure fun and lifts the song as it enters the big hook.

The outro for both the Melvin and The Communards version are very loose. So I went into the outro with that spirit and improvised around the D-C-G progression. I’d encourage you to play around with your own ideas in that section.

Links

Buy the Harold Melvin version
More soul tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Now you’ve got your suggestive zither costume together, here are some tunes you may wish to bone up on before the big night.

Addams Family Theme Tune
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Chopin – Funeral March
Jonathan Coulton – Re: Your Brains
Dance Macabre
The Decemberists – Shankill Butchers
The Doors – People Are Strange
The Fall – Mansion
The Gothic Archies – Freakshow
Halloween Theme
Harry Potter – Hedwig’s Theme
The Last of Us II –
Through the Valley
London Bridge Is Falling Down (From Halloween)
The Misfits – Dig Up Her Bones
The Misfits – Halloween
My Chemical Romance – Welcome to the Black Parade
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (from The Exorcist)
One Night Ultimate Werewolf – Fantasy Theme
Ray Parker Jr – Ghostbusters
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
Gustavo Santaolalla – Last of Us Theme
Skrillex – Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
This is Halloween (From Nightmare Before Christmas)
Tom Waits – Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard
Twilight Zone Theme
Twin Peaks Theme
The Walking Dead Theme
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London
The White Stripes – Little Ghost

Five Halloween riffs/intros: Thriller, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Sweet Dreams, Don’t Fear the Reaper and Jump in the Line
Five More Halloween riffs: Voodoo Child (Slight Return), All the Good Girls Go To Hell, Suspiria Theme, Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, Evil Eye.

And a tutorial to spookify your playing:

Spooky Ukulele Sounds

Black Sabbath – Paranoid (Tab)

I put a call out for Halloween-suitable songs on this month’s Patreon request thread ad Sam requested Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album in celebration of the 50th Anniversary. Which was a great and also ridiculous idea.

It is, of course, entirely unsuited to ukulele. Which makes it all the more fun to play. It uses forceful picking almost all the way through. With just a few quieter sections to keep things chugging along.

And then there’s the solo. My take on it is pretty shambolic. So feel free to concoct your own. Or take then sensible option and leave it out entirely.

Links

Buy the song
More rock tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Gilberto Gil & Eliel Carvalho – Parabolicamara?
U Can Uke & Vinícius Vivas – The Reason
tenspd – G O N E
SeattleUke – Airmail Special
Thomas Zwijsen – You Give Love A Bad Name
EmiSunshine – Hibiscus
Bob Guz – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Aline Kelly – Killing Me Softly
Jonathan Lewis – Tourdion

– Lost tapes of a young Joni Mitchell playing ukulele found.
– Eddie Vedder played a song for Jimmy Carter on a ukulele made of wood from Carter’s estate. Close-ups of the uke on luthier Beau Hannam’s Facebook.
– Jake Shimabukuro discusses how he’s been handling the hellscape of 2020.
– Magpie joins the THUG’s Ukulele Group for some C scale practice.

Window Shopping

– Island Electric Baritone.
– KoAloha 25 Anniversary Silver ukes.
– 1930s Regal Tiple.
– 1959 Casper the Friendly Ghost ukulele.
– Kanile’a ISL-S Premium.

Patreon

A massive thanks to Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers. And double thanks go to September’s Tenor backers:

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

September’s Patreon exclusive for Concert and Tenor level backers is Robert Johnson’s Love in Vain.

The Beach Boys – God Only Knows (Tab)

There’s so much going on in this song: the complex chords, subtle key changes, that weird thing at the start of the bridge. If you want a breakdown of the theory, I recommend 8 Bit Music Theory’s discussion of the song. But I do want to call out the slick move from the bridge into the third verse. The bridge ends with the “God only knows…” bit from the verse transposed up 2 and a half steps (bars 33-35) then slips seamlessly back into the verse in the original key.

The toughest bit to play is the outro. The original has three different vocal lines going at once. Taking some pointers from what I learned playing two songs at once, I trimmed the parts down so only two lines are playing at once. It’s still tricky to keep track of.

Links

Buy the song
More 60s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Choan Galvez – Larry’s Waltz in Progress (Tab)

Today is a guest tab from, Uke Hunt favourite, Choan Gálvez.

This is a piece from Choan’s new series of tabs for waltzes dedicated to ukulele lovers called Waltz in Progress. You can get the rest of the tabs as they come out by joining his Patreon or waiting until they’re released together at the end of the series.

Links

Choan on Patreon
Choan on YouTube
Choan on Uke Hunt

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Bobby Alu – Dreamin’
mxmtoon ft. Carly Rae Jepsen – ok on your own
Valerie June – Somebody To Love
Xavi Sanchez – Untrue Blues
Natasha Ghosh – Wish You Were Here
Elisabeth Pfeiffer – Space Oddity
Nicolas Fingerstyle Ukulele – Agua De Beber
Demetrius78G – Sympathique
Edem Soul – Yellow
Frank Fairfield and Meredith Axelrod – Mythological Blues