Phil Phillips/Cat Power – Sea of Love (Tab)

I first heard Sea of Love by Phil Phillips The Twilights when Cat Power covered it. I worked from the Phil Phillips version for this arrangement, but I’m sure some of the Cat Power snuck in.

Intro: I’ve shortened the intro and thrown in a few twiddles. There’s plenty you can do in this section to make it your own.

Verse: The verse melody is sparse but very effective. I didn’t want to add too much and dilute it. But it is on the scant side on the ukulele.

Chorus: In the chorus, the melody goes from scant to barely existing. Cat Power ditches it entirely in her version. Which is a way you can go in your version. It only crops up once in this arrangement.

Solo: I love the chord progression in this song, and I wanted the solo to emphasise it. So the solo mostly just uses notes from the chords. As always, don’t feel you have to copy this version.

Links

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Foo Fighters – Learn to Fly (Tab)

As you expect from the Foos, Learn to Fly is a straightforward rocker. So a lot of strumming and nothing too intricate.

The trickiest part comes in some of the quick switches from G to Dm. One of these shows up for the first time in bar 5. Here there’s an open-G used as part of the melody to give you a little extra time to change chords. The second comes in the chorus (at the end of bar 13). Here you strum all the strings open and hammer-on an entire Dm chord.

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Tracklist
Pure Heart – Tokada
Dingus Khan- Hihuwahaya
Amelia Coburn – See Saw
4stringboy – Fog
Eddy Kenzo & Daniel Ho – Ukulele Essanyu
Walea – Ko`olau Waltz
Lola Mari – Ces p’tits je t’aime
Uklectic Fred – Never Going Back Again
Sage Harrington and Zaza – There Will Come Soft Rains

Pixies – Here Comes Your Man (Tab)

Intro: The classic Here Comes Your Man riff. Played with a few extra supporting notes to beef it up.

Verse: Nothing too challenging here. Just open chords until the build up into the pre-chorus.

Pre-Chorus: Bars 24-25 are the trickiest part of the song. There’s a big leap up to a bend at the tenth fret for the, “so long, so long,” backing vocals. That makes for an easier transition into bar 25. But you might prefer the way I originally arranged it:

Chorus: Back to the riff mixed in with the melody. There’s plenty of jumping up and down here but I find this section fun to play.

First Solo: A nice little melody for the transition back to the verse.

Second Solo: Much less melodic. The original is mostly bashing out chords with a few bends. For this take, I’ve shortened it down but there’s still a lot of bashing.

Links

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Where Is My Mind? tab
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Stone Roses – Fools Gold

Rolling Stones – Paint It Black

Tame Impala – The Less I Know the Better

Hundred Reasons – Silver

C418 – Subwoofer Lullaby (From Minecraft)

Slaves/Soft Play – The Hunter

Justin Hurwitz – Voodoo Mama (From Babylon)

Bill Withers – Grandma’s Hands (Tab)

Grandma’s Hands by Bill Withers. You might recognise the riff as the sample in Blackstreet’s fantastic No Diggity. Or maybe James Corden’s terrible England song.

This arrangement is very simple and the tempo is slow, so this is a very approachable tab to take on.

Intro: I hadn’t realised until starting on this arrangement that the No Diggity riff isn’t a straight sample of the original. In his version, Bill Withers has an Esus4 chord missing from that version. I went with the No Diggity version for this arrangement (and so did Gregory Porter’s guitarist).

If you want a more authentic version, you could play it like this:

Verse: A couple fingerings to help with the chord changes here. At the end of bar 5, play the A-string, 2nd fret with your index finger barred over all the strings. That’ll set you up for the B7 chord in the next bar.

In bars 10 and 11 (and in the repeats), play the A-string, 2nd fret with your middle finger so you have your index and ring fingers ready for the A7 chord.

Outro: A little minor pentatonic lick to finish things off.

Links

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Australian ukulele group banned by the council.

Attempting to spell ukulele

BoyWithUke has revealed his face to promote his latest album.

Window Shopping
– 4stringboy’s signature Flight uke.
– Pelem nano uke.
– There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
– Custom Mya Moe resonator.

Patreon

A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:

– Arthur Foley
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Kevin finn
– Leia-lee Doran
– Loreena Humbert
– Margit Stadlmann
– Mary
– Michael Lufkin
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Tina Knight
– Virtual Performing Arts Academy

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including October’s: This is Halloween by Danny Elfman from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Willie Nelson – Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain (Tab)

Despite the the pleas of Al Ferrier, here’s a tab of Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Dozens of people have recorded the song since Fred Rose wrote it in 1946. But this arrangement is based on the definitive version by Willie Nelson.

Intro: Matching the Willie version by following the bass notes using the thumb on the g- and C-strings. Followed by strums.

Verse and Bridge: Continuing the thumb-plucking and strums, and adding the melody line. Most of the melody line is picked with the fingers, but some notes are part of the strummed chords.

There’s a simple lick in bar 11 and a couple of lines inspired by the walking bass in bars 12 and 20.

Solo: With Willie playing a nylon string guitar, his solo suits the ukulele fairly well.

The one problem is the bends. It is much easier to do bends on a uke in the middle of the fretboard. So I’m bending the E-string at the 7th fret rather than the A-string at the second fret. That does require some shifts up and down the fretboard.

Although the song is in swing time, the descending line at the end of the solo (bars 43-44) is played straight.

Links

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KT Tunstall – Black Horse & the Cherry Tree (Tab)

A tab of KT Tunstall’s breakthrough hit Black Horse & the Cherry Tree.

It’s a very propulsive song even in the very sparse sections. So in the verses, where it’s just the melody line, I’m using strum blocking to keep the energy up. The verse melody is busy. But it’s fine to miss a couple of notes so long as you keep the song moving along.

Links

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Tracklist
Honoka Katayama and Jody Kamisato – Wipeout
LP – Golden
Kamakakehau Fernandez – Hanohano `Olinda
The Birdwatchers – Dream On
Mike Haysom – Brahms' Lullaby
Herman Vandecauter – La Romanesca (On machete)
BoyWithUke – Problematic
Mel Muñiz – Mi Deseo (On tenor guitar)
Kris Fuchigami – On Bended Knee