A selection of short pieces that achieved internet fame.
If you like these short tabs, you can find lots more on my Instagram.
I thought I was done with Billie Eilish for a while after tabbing up bury a friend and when the party’s over. But there’s some ukulele action and I love it when old musical tropes get adopted and reworked, so couldn’t resist taking on two examples from Eilish’s new album. bad guy (below) adapts some old blues ideas while 8 takes a classic 30s turnaround chord progression of C – E7 – Dm – G7.
Before you tackle this one, slap a capo on the third fret.
You can do this strum twice for each chord all the way through (although on the original the chords do cut out now and then):
d – d u – u d u
Sometimes there’s a touch strum on the first down strum. That means you hit just the g-string when you strum. It doesn’t matter if you hit the C-string as well but aim for just the g.
Which sounds like this:
There’s a dead simple solo. Be sure to give the strings a bit of vibrato to make the notes last as long as possible. I’ve tabbed this without a capo but there’s nothing below the third fret so you can keep the capo on with no problems.
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More Billie Eilish tabs
The bass in bad guy (played on a baritone here) uses a traditional 8 bar blues riff using the minor pentatonic scale. Later in the song it’s joined by a part (played on tenor in my version) that uses the blues scale. If you’re interesting in learning more about those things you can find much more info in my Blues Ukulele ebook.
Tracklist
Professor Ogma – Gullywasher
Bailey Rushlow – You’re Still the One
Keston Cobblers Club – Eye to Eye
Feng E – Chandelier
Zoe Bestel & Tobias Elof – Hushabye Mountain
Eden Kai & Maiko – Dreams Come True
Herman Vandecauter – Meise Arboretum On machete
Mike Holland – The Windmills Of My Mind
Demetrius78G – Charlie Chaplin’s Music Ukulele Mashup
As promised when I tabbed bury a friend, here’s a version of the slightly less creepy and more Bon Iver-y when the party’s over.
The song is mainly made up of vocal harmonies which means it works well with ukulele chords. There is a lot of space in the tune. So make sure you let it breath and don’t take it too fast.
I’ve used repeats in the tab, but there are a couple of small differences between the two verses. Firstly, I move the little run in bar 14 to bar 8. Then play this for the,, “Call me back”:
I pluck this firmly and very close to the bridge to replicate the jarring, distorted sound in the original.
The trickiest part of this arrangement is the, “Quiet when I’m coming home,” campanella run in bar 17. If you’re not into that, you can play it like this:
I like to keep a list of songs that use just the most common ukulele chords. Arranged by the order people usually learn them in. That way you can find some songs to play no matter how few chords you know.
If you prefer, you can use G7 in the place of G or vice versa for any of these songs.
Happy Birthday to You
The Bobby McGee’s – A Dog At All Things
Folk Uke – Motherfucker Got Fucked Up
Mungo Jerry – In the Summertime
The Lancashire Hotpots – He’s Turned Emo
NeverShoutNever! – Your Biggest Fan/Did It Hurt?
Noah and the Whale – Five Years Time
Paolo Nutini – High Hopes
OK Go – This Too Shall Pass
SoKo – I Will Never Love You More
The Tiger Lillies – Start A Fire
Tom Waits – I Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love with You
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra/Kings of Leon – The Bucket
Addams Family Theme Tune
Alton Ellis – Rock Steady
Black Kids – I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend to Dance With You
Blondie/Imelda May – Dreaming
Billy Bragg – Between the Wars
Darlene Love – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Darren Hanlon – All These Things
Electrelane – Cut and Run
Florence and the Machine – Dog Days Are Over
Foals – Spanish Sahara
Luis Fonsi – Despacito
Garfunkel and Oates – Me, You and Steve
GUGUG – California Sun
INXS – Never Tear Us Apart
Israel Kamakawiwoíole/Jason Castro – Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Julien Dore – Cet Air-La
Kate Nash – Foundations
Kate Micucci/The Gooch – Mr Moon
Kelli Rae Powell
Last Shadow Puppets – Standing Next to Me
LP – Into the Wild
The Lumineers – Ho Hey
Phosphorescent – Wolves
She & Him – Sentimental Heart
Allo Darlin’ – Tallulah
Allo Darlin’ – Space Christmas
Amanda Palmer – In My Mind
Antsy Pants/Bear Creek – Vampire
Belle and Sebastian – The Boy with the Arab Strap
Elvis Costello – Good Year for the Roses
Daniel Johnston – Living Life
Damon Albarn – Mr Tembo
The Dubliners and The Pogues – The Irish Rover
Garfunkel and Oates – The Fade Away (you can use D instead of D7)
Gothic Archies – Shipwrecked
GUGUG/The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop
Woody Guthrie – All You Fascists Bound to Lose
Keston Cobblers’ Club – You-Go
The Libertines – Don’t Look Back into the Sun
The Little Ones – Tangerine Visions
The Monkees – I’m a Believer (Use D where it says D7).
Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel
Phredd – Elmer’s Electric Tricycle
The Pogues – Fiesta
The Pogues – Waxies Dargle
The Pretenders – 2000 Miles
Skinny Lister – Colours
Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
Velvet Underground and Nico – I’ll be Your Mirror
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London
Camera Obscura – Cock Up Your Beaver
Eagles of Death Metal – I Want You So Hard
The Clash – Should I Stay or Should I Go
Florence & the Machine – Kiss With A Fist (don’t panic, you can use E7 instead of E in this song)
The Pogues – Sally McLennane
Joan Jett – Bad Reputation
Junior Brown – Better Call Saul
Kate Micucci & Ted (Scrubs) – Screw You
Paolo Nutini – Pencil Full of Lead
The Pogues – Streams of Whiskey
The Weavers – Pay Me My Money Down
The White Stripes – Little Ghost
James Bay – Hold Back the River
Beirut – A Candle’s Fire
Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (You can use C instead of C5)
Ingrid Michaelson – Be OK
Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
Lorde/Walk off the Earth – Royals
Lorde/WIOU – Team
Mumford and Sons – The Cave
Nevershoutnever – First Dance
Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers
Noah and the Whale – Jealous Kind of Love
Sufjan Stevens – Lumberjack Christmas
The Tokens – The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Everly Brothers – Bowling Green
Etta James – I’d Rather Go Blind
The Pogues – When the Ship Comes In
Mastered all those? Tackle more:
It’s already turning into a sad year for musical deaths. This month has seen the loss of Dick Dale, Keith Flint and Scott Walker. I’ve already covered The Prodigy’s Out of Space and done tab a version of Miserlou here. So here’s a quick tribute to Scott Walker.
Walker is best known for his orchestral ballads and dramatic baroque arrangements. But I’ve gone with a stripped down song that really showed off his songwriting chops: 30th Century Man.
I’ve used the most common chord forms in the chart. But I prefer to play using these chord shapes:
Alternatively, you can use one of the alternative ways of playing the E chord or put a capo on the second fret and use these:
Intro: Since there’s nothing else going on at this point in the song, I recommend following the strum in the original which goes like this:
Verse: After the intro you use this strum:
d – d – d – d u
Play that once on E. You can then play it twice on D. Or throw in the Dsus4 and strum it like this:
Follow that with the main strum once on G and four times on A (or play the strum from the intro).
Chorus: Main Strum once per chord.
Outro: Main strum six times or intro strum one and a half times.
Arko Mukhaerjee and Hari Maharjan Ensemble – Resham Firiri Thanks to @ukeist
Prettier Than Matt – Heaven Forbid Thanks to @ukeist
Elisabeth Pfeiffer – Babooshka
Alicja Maciejewska – I’ll Be There for You
LP – Girls Go Wild
Yuki Niino – Hymne à l’amour
MARLOWE and Chanel Dela Cruz – Talk
The O’Pears – Find the Sun
Kamaka & Kala'e Camarillo – E Pi'i Mai (That’s What I Like
Legendary guitar string maker, Ernie Ball have started making ukulele strings. Check out Got a Ukulele’s opinion and Southern Ukulele Store’s comparison.
HChicago Museum’s history of the Harmony company (via @hermanvdc).
Lupita Nyong’o has been learning ukulele in order to play a zombie teacher.
Window Shopping
– Outdoor Banjolele Carbon Nickel Clear.
– 1930’s Martin 5-K.
– Final Fantasy Sabotender Cactuar Ukulele which looks insane and can’t possibly be worth what they’re asking for it.
I’ve been a fan of Ariana Grande as a person since the classy way she handled the Manchester bombing. I haven’t been a consistent fan of her music but thank u, next is a winner. Firstly, there’s the tasty chord progression. In the key of this arrangement it goes:
Second is that great vocal run leading into the chorus (bar 20). It’s very quick so I used campanella picking to play it. If you prefer, you could use hammer-ons and pull-offs like this:
And, third, her use of the Scotch snaps rhythm in the chorus (first cropping up in bar 24). Which goes like this:
Coupled with half-time Scotch snaps in the intro and outro:
A few great snippets from Irish musicians to get you in the mood for St. Patrick’s Day.
If you like these short tabs, you can find lots more on my Instagram. And there’s more Irishy tabs and chords here.
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