Prince – Nothing Compares 2 U (Tab)
The last few tabs have been at the trickier end of the scale. So for this one I’ve gone super-simple. The melody for this song is so great it benefits from having very minimal backing.
The whole arrangement is played with just the thumb on the picking hand. And most of the chord shapes used will be very familiar to you. The only time it ventures up the neck is the high variation on, “nothing compares,” right at the end. It’s a bit of stretch. So if you’re struggling you can stick with the way it’s played in previous bars. Or you can replace the 55 at the start of bar 32 with an open C-string.
Links
Buy the Sinead O’Connor version
Buy the Prince version
More Prince tabs and chords
We’re about at the halfway point of the year and it’s time to round up some of the great ukulele videos so you don’t miss anything. If there’s something great I’ve missed, I’d love to hear it. You can send me a message or tweet me @UkeHunt.
Tracklist
Arko Mukhaerjee and Hari Maharjan Ensemble – Resham Firiri
Bridge City Sinners – Run From the Sun
Paul Hemmings – It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
The O’Pears – Bleak Midwinter / River
Cavetown – Hug All Ur Friends
TENSPD – CALLING YOU BACK
Feng E – Chandelier
Zoe Bestel and Tobias Elof – The Blackest Crow
Robin Evans – Come On In My Kitchen
La Familia de Ukeleles – The Ghost of C.C.
Professor Ogma – Gullywasher
Dr John – Such a Night (Chords)
Even by the standards of 1968, Dr John’s debut album Gris Gris is a trip into the strange and unnerving. With I Walk on Guilded Splinters being a masterpiece. But I’ve gone with something more uke-suitable to celebrate his life: Such a Night (not to be confused – as Wikipedia does – with the Drifters/Elvis song of the same name.
Suggested Strumming
You can keep the strumming very simple. Either follow the guitar part and do down-strums on the off-beats. Or the organ and do down-strums on every beat. But I like to add a little variety and use this two bar pattern in the verse and chorus:
d – d – d – d –
d – d – d u d u
And then use two down-strums per chord in the middle until the little walk-up at the end where it’s one strum per chord.
Twiddly Bits
This tab combines the chords with the short organ riff at the end of the lines.
Links
Buy it on Amazon
More 70s tabs and chords
Bonus: Dr John – Right Place, Wrong Time
Tracklist
La Familia de Ukeleles – The Ghost of C.C.
Eliel Carvalho – Trocando em Miu?dos Chico Buarque
Natasha Ghosh – Boy With Luv
Luna Silva & The Wonders – Rain Via @ukeist
Machine Gun Kelly x Einer Bankz – El Diablo
Maiah Wynne and Dreadlight – My Strange Addiction
Laura Currie – Bad Guy
Randy Gapasin – A Whole New World
New instructional DVD from Jim D’Ville The Emotional Value of Chords
The Hippie Ukulelist has developed an Essential Tremor in both hands and is looking for advice from anyone who has experience similar problems playing with shaky hands.
A collection of Craig Robertson’s Not Quite Love Songs.
Window Shopping
– KLOS Guitars test if their carbon fibre ukulele can withstand a car driving over it.
– RIGuitars’ ZZ Top inspired uke.
– Patrick Snels foldable ukulele.
– G-String custom tenor with incredible flame koa.
– Pinol tenor.
Smash Mouth – All Star (Tab)
When I did the meme music post I asked on Instragram if people wanted a full version. Turns out they did and here it is.
The arrangement is shortened by a verse and a chorus (you can just repeat the previous verse and chorus if you want those). I originally included the weird solo but realised it was the worst part of an already pretty bad song and took it out. If you’d like to play here’s how I arranged it:
Links
Choan Gálvez – Medium Rare, Please (Tab)
Today’s post is a guest post from Choan Galvez taken from his 50 Miniature Studies for Ukulele. It’s turning out to be an excellent series of tunes. You can check them all out on his YouTube channel.
Here are Choan’s performance notes.
These are the tabs for Study No. 33 – Medium Rare, Please, featuring alternating thumb strokes, swing, split strums, staccato, ostinato, harmonics, and, wait for it, The Lick.
As usual, I’ve made plenty of annotations that you can profit or dismise –fingering and stroking annotations are well intentioned suggestions.
Performance notes
Swing!
First thing to note is that this piece is performed with a bluesy swing, so rhythmic notation doesn’t exactly match rhythmic performance. Actually, when the beat is divided in two parts, the former part is played longer and slighty more accented than the latter.
I play close to a 2:1 ratio, so two consecutive eighths are played as a triplet quarter note + triplet eighth. Add the syncopation and you’ll get into a notation hell and a reading nightmare if the rhythms were to be precisely notated. Beware: your eyes may bleed and your head explode when trying to decipher the following example (the first two bars from this study):
Wikipedia has a decent section on Swing as rhytmic style with some good examples and a description of various rhythmic swing approximations.
Alt thumb
Then, most of the bass line is performed in alternate thumb/Travis picking style. I’d suggest to review the performance notes for Study No.7 – Fairly Late and learn that one (and even No. 21 – Exciting Rag, if you’re feeling brave) before attempting this new one.
Staccato
In bar 8 you’ll find some staccato double stops. As these are played at a fast pace, the best way to stop the notes ringing is to slightly release the pressure of the fretting finger without abandoning the string.
Split strums
You’ll find an interesting set of strokes in measure 12. A couple of chords (Db7, C7) are played split, two notes at a time. I choose to strum upwards with the index finger, downwards with the thumb, stroking two strings in each movement.
Note that the arrows in the notation follow the order of the strings in the tablature, so a down arrow means an up stroke. Another notation glitch! (Would you prefer upbow/downbow symbols instead of arrows?)
Ostinato
Second section starts with an ostinato melodic figure, repeated over different harmonies. I do love the effect it creates.
But you should actually practice the second voice line. It consists of a steady thumb picking on the beat, although this time the pattern involves as much as three strings.
You’ll win bonus points if you also get to play the crescendo fluently ;)
The Lick
A conscious and shameless usage of The Lick appears on bar 19.
Harmonics
The piece concludes with a touch of harmonics. Let’s ask an expert: Christopher Davis-Shannon explains how to play harmonics on the ukulele. Thank you, Christopher.
Have fun!
The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again (Chords) (Classroom Instruments Version
I’ve considering writing up this one in the past but have shied away from it because of all the lengthy, meandering sections. But the recent “classroom instruments” version they did with The Roots on Fallon strips the song down to the bare essentials and works really well for ukulele. Although I wish my classroom would have had that sweet Kamaka Captain Kirk is playing.
I’ve written up the chords with a capo on the second fret to make things easy to play. Judging by the chord shapes he’s using, it looks like Townshend is in baritone tuning. But I can only hear Captain Kirk’s uke in the recording.
Suggested Strumming
Intro: You can use one strum per chord. Or use the main strum from the verse for the G-F-C move.
Verse: Start off with this on the G:
d – d – d u d u
Then a chnk and an up strum on F. Followed by a chnk u d – d u on the C.
x u x u d – d u
Then the same strums respectively for the D-Bb-F progression.
Together it goes like this:
Chorus: d – d u on each of the C and Gs. This once each for the F-D:
d – d – d u d u
Followed by one down-strum on each of the C and Csus4 chords. Then returning to the verse strum at the end.
Bridge: This twice for every chord before returning to the verse strum for the A-G-D progression:
d – d – d u d u
Outro: Mix up the verse strum with some giant windmill strums.
Twiddly Bits
The intro from the classroom version is very simplified from the original (which meanders all over the place). I’m picking this one thumb and two finger style.
This lick crops up in the original version over the D-F section of the chorus. It doesn’t crop up in the classroom version but I thought it was too good to ignore it. So I gave it a quick ukeifying.
Links
Buy it on Amazon
The Who – Blue, Red and Grey (Chords)
The Who: Chord Riffs
Tracklist
Bridge City Sinners – Run From the Sun
The Who, Jimmy Fallon & The Roots – Won’t Get Fooled Again
Tommy Emmanuel and Feng E – Classical Gas
Taimane – System of Down, Led Zeppelin, ACDC, Beethoven
Remi Harris – Sketches #35
Zoe Bestel and Tobias Elof – The Blackest Crow
tenspd – Voicemail
Robin Evans – Badger Milk
Laura Currie – The Lovecats
