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.
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.
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:
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.
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
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.
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.
I owe all y’all an apology. And not just for using the term, “all y’all.” I thought I had posted this tab months ago until someone let me know I hadn’t.
The Zombies’ Odessey & Oracle (which this song comes from) seems to be criminally overlooked. If you’re into psychedelic 60s pop you absolutely have to check it out.
My favourite aspect of this song is the descending chromic line that runs through the chord progression. It starts with the G on the E-string. Then moves down through Gmaj7 and G7 to the open E-string in C6. Then it moves down to the C-string, third fret before dropping to the C-string, second fret for a D7 chord. Then it skips a fret for the open C note on the final C6.
Uke Hunt turned 12 this month. According to WebMD a 12 year old’s, “brain is able to handle more complex thinking now. This goes hand in hand with his expanding vocabulary. He’s better at putting what he’s feeling into words.” It’s about damn time.
Here’s a round-up of the goings-on of the last year.
– I’ve been trying to improve my jazz playing over the last year. I’ve still got a long way to go. But I’m particularly pleased with how my arrangement of Summertime turned out.
– Paying tribute to the legendary Aretha Franklin with A Natural Woman and I Say A Little Prayer.
