Nov/5/19
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Splendora – You’re Standing On My Neck (Daria Theme)(Chords)

Splendora – You’re Standing On My Neck (Chords)

With most theme tunes these days being heavy on doom and light on tunes, you can always rely on cartoons for an enjoyable, catchy theme. So this week I’m taking on some of my favourite tunes from animated shows. Starting with the unforgettable riot grrrl tune from Daria (recently covered almost note for note by Honeyblood – which has the same chords as the original).

I went with a capo on the first fret for this one. This does introduce an E chord. But the E-G move is easier than an F-Ab move. Of all the variations on the E chord, I went with muting the g-string with the thumb of my fretting hand. I’m also doing that with the rapid B-A-G-A chords in the lead-up to the chorus.

Suggested Strumming Pattern

For the main strum I use:

d – d – d u d u

Verse and Solo: Main strum once each in the first three lines. Then one down-strum per chord on the “excuse me”s.

Chorus: Main strum once each on C and G. Then twice on A. And on the, “You’re standing on my neck,” lines just one down-strum per chord.

Middle: One main strum per chord.

Twiddly Bits

The iconic “la la laaa la la” riff makes use of the flattened fifth note (a.k.a. the devil’s interval). The same riff crops up in a different key at the start of solo (where it’s five frets higher) and gets moved up one fret in the outro. In the Honeyblood version it’s played in the same key as the intro on both these occasions.

The solo itself is exceptionally easy. Most of it is just one note: A-string, 3rd fret (with a capo still at the first fret). Then towards the end you slide up two frets. Then back down to the third fret. Up to again. Then end on the open E-string.

Links

Buy the Honeyblood version on Amazon
More TV theme tabs and chords

Oct/26/19
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UkeTube: Crooning Vampire, Nick Mulvey

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Crooning Vampire – I’m in the Mood for Blood
Rachel Manke – Anything Can Happen On Halloween
Christopher Davis-Shannon and Michael Durkan – I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
Desirée Dawson – Give Me One Reason
Nick Mulvey – In the Anthropocene
Noah Wisch – Coexistence
Young M.A x Einer Bankz – BIG
Nico’o – Surf y Tequila

Oct/24/19
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The Decemberists – Shankill Butchers (Tab)

The Decemberists – Shankill Butchers (Tab)

There’s a long history of murder ballads in folk music. But they’re all set comfortably in the past. It’s a very different experience listening to a song about murders set in your own lifetime.

The Shankill Butchers were loyalist gang in 1970s Northern Ireland who viciously murdered 19 people (possibly with police turning a blind eye). Hearing a song mythologising them is an uncomfortable experience (particularly since Northern Ireland is perilously close to returning to those days). But it brings home how fresh the events in old murder ballads were to those who originated them.

Shankill Butchers is in the key of C#m. My first instinct was to rearrange it into a more uke-friendly key like Cm or Dm. But it turned out to work best in C#m. The intro riff (played with the thumb alternating between picking the g- and C-strings) works particularly well.

Links

Buy it on Amazon
More folk tabs and chords

Oct/23/19
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Halloween Riffs: Hendrix, Eilish, Suspiria, 30 Rock

Some more short tabs of Halloween suitable songs.

If you’re into these, you can find lots more on my Instagram.

Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Billie Eilish – All the Good Girls Go to Hell

Goblin – Suspiria Theme (Easy Version)

Goblin – Suspiria Theme (Tricky Version)

Tracy Morgan – Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

Franz Ferdinand – Evil Eye

Oct/22/19
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Nina Simone – I Put a Spell on You (Chords)

Nina Simone – I Put a Spell on You (Chords)

Another intensely creepy song from Screamin’ Jay Hawins (whose Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard I chorded for an earlier Halloween). And I’ve gone with Nina Simone’s bewitching version for the arrangement.

Although I’ve used the A chord shape for the F#m7 to keep things simple, I do like to switch it up and use 2424 or 2420. Particularly for the F#m-F#m7-Bm move.

Suggested Strumming Pattern

I keep it really simple and play just down-strums the whole time.

Intro: Two down-strums per chord until the final C#7 where you play four.

Verse 1: Starting out as the same first line as the intro. For the next five lines do four down-strums each chord except eight on the C#7. Then two on everything until the last C#7 with four.

Solo: Same as the first half of verse 1.

Verse 2: Four down for every chord in the first four lines. Two for each on the fifth line. Then one each on the last line letting the C#7 ring out for the 10,000 syllables she manages to get out of the word “because”.

Twiddly Bits

Here’s a uke version of the strings in the intro of the song.

You can also use this as a basis for the solo. Just watch out for the F#7 chord. I’d recommend playing notes from the F#7 chord itself in that bar.

Links

Buy it on Amazon
More Jazz tabs and chords

Oct/12/19
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UkeTube: João Tostes, Billie Eilish

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
João Tostes & Carol Campos – Hallelujah
Vinícius Vivas – Fly me to the Moon
Billie Eilish – Telegraph Ave
Gracie Terzian – Treasures Untold
Jan Laurenz – Another Day, A New Tune
Arko Mukhaerjee – Bala Joban
EmiSunshine – Crimson Moon
Feng E – The Stalker in the Shadow
Le Temps d'une Étincelle – Kora'lélé
Rusty Cage – The Family-Friendly Noose Song

Oct/11/19
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Friday Links

Vanity Fair investigates why a light ukulele ditty, Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, was used to soundtrack Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (Tab for Raindrops… here.)

“Shirtless ukulele player pulled from top of police car in Fremantle”.

New Releases
– Biscuithead and the Biscuit Badgers’ new album Thought Porridge (complete with handy songbook).
– Manitoba Hal has announced a collection of reworkings of his earlier songs: Vintage Blend.
– New record from Indian urban folk uker Arko Mukhaerjee: Bondhur Bari – My Friend’s Home.

Window Shopping
– Kanile’a’s 2019 Platinum Pineapple Tenor
– Orangewood Guitars have moved into ukuleles with their first collection: Marina Ukuleles.
– Les Rietfors custom pineapple.
– Tenor Petros ukulele.

Oct/10/19
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Dick Gaughan – The World Turned Upside Down (Tab)

The World Turned Upside Down (Tab)

Dick Gaughan’s Handful of Earth is an absolute powerhouse folk album. One of the best records of the 80s. Probably the best that didn’t come out of Manchester (okay, maybe Minnesota too). The highlight of the album is his galvanising take on Leon Rosselson’s The World Turned Upside Down

The original version is curiously mild-mannered for a song about an uprising. But Dick Gaughan packed his version with a fierce sense of resistance. His arrangement became the default and was an obvious influence on Billy Bragg’s cover (seen here performing it with Amanda Palmer and her ukulele) and on mine.

I tried to capture the force and relentlessness of Gaughan’s version in my arrangement. I’ve done that by having my thumb hammering out eighth notes on the g-string the whole way through. In combination with the index finger picking the C-string, that produces this rhythm in the intro and between verses:

Then on top of that you have the middle finger and the ring finger picking the melody on the E and C-strings respectively.

Links

Buy it on Amazon
More folk tabs and chords

Oct/9/19
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Halloween Tabs and Chords

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

Addams Family Theme Tune
Chopin – Funeral March
Jonathan Coulton – Re: Your Brains
Dance Macabre
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)
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
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

And a tutorial to spookify your playing:

Spooky Ukulele Sounds

Oct/8/19
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Lizzo – Cuz I Love You (Chords)

Lizzo – Cuz I Love You (Chords)

What a joy it’s been to see Lizzo getting the attention she deserves this year. For a long time, pop music has been dominated by singers reaching back to Aretha Franklin for and extrapolating endless vocal curlicues. Whereas Lizzo has gone for the real meat and taken Franklin’s powerful emotional directness. Never more powerfully than on Cuz I Love You‘s title track which takes the old blues-wailer format and updates it wit and style.

The song is heavy on chromatic chord changes. So much so that it contains every major chord except A. In case all of that is a bit much for you, I’ve written up a simplified version of the chords with a capo on the second fret below.

Suggested Strumming Pattern

The song is in 6/8 time, so I use this as the main pattern:

d – d u d – d – d – d –

Intro: Use the main strum. On the first chord of each bar you play d – d u d – d -. Then one down-strum each on the descending/ascending chords.

Verses: Play the main strum once for the first chord on that line. Then continue with that chord and play the strum as in the intro.

Chorus: Play the first half of the main strum (d – d u d -) twice each on the first two lines. Then the intro strum for the next line. Then d – d u d – once each for each chord from Bb to D then a single down-strum on the Eb. After that, it’s back to the intro strum. Or you can replace all the d – d u d – strums with

Outro: The outro uses the same strum but the chords flip things a little. The first line is the same intro strum (don’t be thrown off by the opening G, that’s a hang over from the chorus). Which continues up to the Ab in the second line. Then instead of going chromatically down it switches to Eb-E move. So you’re playing d – d u d – on the Ab then one down-strum each on the Eb-E.

Use that same pattern for a long F followed by a short Db-Eb. Then play d – d u d – once each for E-B-Bb and one down-strum on the F#.

Easy Version

Cuz I Love You (Simplified Chords)

Easy Version Strumming

You can use the same same main strum as the other version:

d – d u d – d – d – d –

Intro: Main strum once per chord.

Verse: Main strum twice per chord. Or you can go with

d u d u d u d – d – d –

Chorus: Play d – d u d -:
– Four times on the first two chords.
– Twice each on the third line.
– Once each on the fourth line with just one down-strum on the C.
– Twice each chord on the last two lines.

Outro: d – d u d – twice each for every chord on the first line. Then twice on D, once on G. Then a single down-strum on Eb.

Links

Buy it on Amazon
More 2010s tabs and chords

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