Elton John – Your Song (Chords and Tab)

Elton John – Your Song (Chords)

Today I’m writing up Parada de Tettas by The Vengaboys. But then again, no. I’m doing this year’s John Lewis ad Elton John’s Your Song.

The arrangement uses a capo on the first fret to make things easier. But it’s still not completely plain sailing as there are some smart chord moves. The best being the use of F# minor and F# major. Being in D, the F#m fits with the harmony you’d expect. So the F# spices things up and lifts the progression after melancholy descending Bm move in the previous line.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this strum once for almost chord:

d – d – d u d –

The only exceptions are the Asus4 – A and Dsus4 – D moves. There you play the first half of the bar (d – d -) on the sus4 then switch the to major chord for the rest.

Twiddly Bits

This version of the intro uses some artificial harmonics (the notes with A.H. above them). These are tricky to play. So here’s a version with the capo on the third fret. It’s easier to play but the capo is on a different fret to the chords.

Links

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UkeTube: Amanda Palmer, Mr B, Tyrone and Lesley

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Tyrone and Lesley – Ukulele Sunrise
Vinícius Vivas – Tico-tico no Fubá
Feng E – Uptown Funk
The Ladybugs – Save The Bones For Henry Jones
Andrew O'Neill & Amanda Palmer – Anti-Ukulele Anthem – YouTube
Le Temps d'une Étincelle – L'endroit d'où l'on vient
Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer – Paper Plates
Mike Holland – El Testament d’Amelia via @ukeist
Dej Loaf x Einer Bankz – Who Gon Stop Us

Lana Del Rey – Venice Bitch (Baritone Tab)

Lana Del Rey – Venice Bitch (Tab)

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans. And happy No-Americans-on-the-Internet Day to everyone else. Today I’m thankful for baritone ukuleles. They may be inferior to real ukuleles but sometimes they’re the best tool for the job. Such as for this latest tune from Lana Del Rey.

The picking pattern in the verse and chorus is based around Travis picking (i.e. thumb and two finger picking with the thumb alternating between the D and G strings). But because the G-string is needed for some of the melody notes there are a few exceptions. The trickiest is pair of notes on the G-string, 7th fret in bar 10. Here the first is plucked with the thumb and the second with the index finger.

In the middle section I switch to mostly one finger per string picking.

Links

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Christmas Tabs and Chords

We’re about a month out from Christmas so time to start polishing up the festive tunes and learning a few new ones. Here’s a rundown of everything Christmassy on the site.

Christmas eBooks

I’ve written 3 collections of easy Christmas tabs: How to Play Christmas Ukulele, Christmas Ukulele 2 and Christmas Ukulele 3.

You can pick up all three for the price of 2 by buying the whole Christmas Trilogy at once.

Chords

12 Days of Christmas
2000 Miles – The Pretenders
A Christmas Duel – The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Chiron Beta Prime – Jonathan Coulton
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver/Ballard C Boyd
Christmas in July – Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick
Cold Outside – Julia Nunes & Wade Johnson
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Fuck Christmas – Eric Idle
Give the Jew Girl Toys – Sarah Silverman
I Wish it Was Christmas Today – SNL/Julian Casablancas
It’s Cliched to be Cynical At Christmas – Half Man Half Biscuit
iPod X-mas – Hello Saferide
Let It Snow
Lumberjack Christmas/Christmases Past – Sufjan Stevens
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) – The Ramones
Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade
No Christmas – Zee Avi
Present Face – Garfunkel and Oates
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Run, Run Rudolph – Chuck Berry
Santa Baby
Santa Will Find You – Mindy Smith/Tripping Lily
Silver Bells – She & Him
Somewhere Only We Know – Keane/Lily Allen
Space Christmas – Allo Darlin
Suddenly it’s Christmas – Loudon Wainwright III
The Christmas Song – Weezer
The Christmas Song Song – Rocky and Balls
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland
Year End Letter – Garfunkel and Oates
You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch

Tabs

Away in a Manger
Carol of the Bells
Christmastime Is Here (from Charlie Brown)
German Christmas Carols
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Instrumental)
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bells
Little Drummer Boy
Mele Kalikimaka
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
O Christmas Tree (Single Note Version)
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Silent Night (Harmonics Version)
Silent Night (Single Note Version)
Sleigh Ride – U900 / The Ventures
Various – Wilfried Welti’s Musikalisches Naschwerk für Solo Ukulele
We Three Kings
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland

St Vincent – New York (Tab)

St Vincent – New York (Tab)

I’m mostly into St Vincent for the wild guitar playing and shuffle dancing. But this beautiful, straightforward ballad immediately struck me as prime for a ukeing. And other than a few big pinkie-stretches it works very neatly.

I’m mostly playing this very loosely without any strict pattern. In the first and third verses I throw in a lot of index-finger flicks where – rather than picking the note – I’ll flick my index finger upwards to catch the melody note and one or two other strings. This helps fill in the sound a little. In the second verse I switch to full strumming to get an even larger sound.

The only part that requires strict one finger per string picking is the rapid picking in bar 7 which is extended in the coda. Other than that you can play it however you feel it.

Links

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UkeTube: Cera Impala, Paula Fuga

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Cera Impala – Roll a joint
Guido Heistek – I Can’t Give You Anything But Love Via @ukeist
Mel Muñiz – Melodrama
Paula Fuga – Parachute
Paul Mansell – Fallin’ Coconuts
Herman Vandecauter – Theme & Variations Luigi Sagrini on rajao
Bartt Warburton – Somebody to Love
dodie – HUMAN

Friday Links: Jake’s Secret, Dog Love, Expensive Ukes

Jake Shimabukuro has revealed the secret to his virtuosity.

A piece by David Farrier (the documentarian behind Dark Tourist and Tickled) on a guy who went viral after being snapped playing ukulele for his humping dogs turns completely insane.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra are worried that ukuleles are so popular that no one will play other instruments.

New Releases
– Professor Ogma has an excellent instrumental debut EP on his website or on Spotify. (If you’ve been paying very close attention you might know him as Matthew Brian Kirkland.)
– New Craig Robertson album: CROOKED.
New rajao tracks from Herman Vandecauter.

Window Shopping
Aaron Keim master grade myrtle tenor.
Ka’alla soprano KU 25S.
40s Martin 3M.
Emerald harp ukulele.

The Beatles – Hey Jude (Tab)

The Beatles – Hey Jude (Tab)

Technically, I shouldn’t be posting this on White Album week. But it was recorded during the White Album sessions and it is one of the best (possibly the best) Beatles song. If you’re dying for a White Album song have a go at the Blackbird tab.

I’ve kept the arrangement as simple as possible. It has such a strong (and well known) melody it doesn’t need much to back it up. I’m not following any strict pattern for the fingerpicking. For the most part the thumb plays the lowest string in the bar then letting the fingers fall on a string each from there.

In the repeat of the chorus I play a slight variation on the, “And don’t you knowwwwww…” in bars 15 and 16.

After all that I switch to strumming and the occasional finger flick for the boisterous sh-outro. I bash out a couple of adornments in this section. You don’t need to do anything complicated with these so long as you use the appropriate amount of gusto. Both mine are just based on the C7 chord.

Links

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The Beatles’ White Album: Five Intros and Solos

Continuing this week’s selection of tracks from The Beatles White Album with five of the best musical moments from the album.

Back in the USSR: Solo

A great solo using the A minor pentatonic scale over a blues shuffle between the major and 6 chords (both of which I cover in depth in the Blues Ukulele ebook). I’ve also included the chorus riff at the end of the solo.

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While My Guitar Gently Weeps: Intro

Way back in the early days of the blog I wrote up the bare bones of this tune to encourage people to come up with their own take on the tune rather than aping Jake’s version. That was a dismal failure.

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Piggies: Harpsichord Solo

A rapid-fire harpsichord solo presumably used to represent the hifalutin piggies. I was expecting this to be impossible to do on uke but add a capo at the third fret and it’s tricky but doable.

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Birthday: Riff

A simple 12 bar blues riff played on a low-G ukulele.

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Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey: Solo

Everybody’s Got… (Tab)

I’m using two ukes here. One playing the chord stabs (top line) and one taking the lead part (bottom line).

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The Beatles – Honey Pie (Chords and Tab)

The Beatles – Honey Pie (Chords)

It’s the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ White Album this month. So I thought I’d completely trash my no-Beatles rule with a week of songs from that era. Starting with the 1920s pastiche of Honey Pie that was made to played on uke.

The intro is a typical piece of genius. I’ve tried to capture the spirit of it without over-complicating it in the chord chart. But there’s a tab version below with all the twiddly bits.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this as a main strum:

d – d – d u d u

Intro: One down-strum per chord.

Chorus and Outro: Two of the main strum on the G. Then one for every chord after that until the Eb7 – D7 at the end. There split the strum into two so you’re playing d-d- on the Eb and dudu on the D7.

Verse and Solo: Same as the chorus including splitting the final bar between F# and F. Speaking of which, if you’re struggling with the quick switch to F# you can just slide the G chord down a fret and mute the g-string with your thumb.

Bridge: Main strum on everything until the D7 at the end. The do du-u to match the “tee tee tee”s.

Twiddly Bits

No 20s pastiche would be complete without a solo, meandering, minor section at the beginning.

Apparently this little solo was played by John. Which explains why it’s not as clean an precise as most of George’s solos. But it does pack in some nice ideas.

Links

Buy it on iTunes
More Beatles tabs and chords

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