Tracklist
Mel Muñiz – Fight Back Sisters
Mt. Joy – Dirty Love (The song starts about 20 seconds in)
EatMyUke – Weezer Blue Album Medley
All Our Exes Live in Texas – The Devil's Part Thanks to Peter.
Gentle Brontosaurus – Wicker Park
Reneé Dominique – I'll Be Seeing You
DYAN & the BENZ – Shifted
Daniel Estrem – Branles du Bourgongne
DermitderUkulele – Ukulele Polka
New Releases
– Excellent instrumental record from Uke Hunt favourite Choan Galvez. Your €4 gets you not only the ten tracks but also tabs of every tune.
– New record from Taimane: Elemental.
– Indie-pop ukulele from Gentle Brontosaurus.
Learning
– Latest ukulele book from Lil Rev: Intros, Endings & Turnarounds for Ukulele.
– The UOGB’s Will Grove White has started doing ukulele tutorials including on barre chords, muting strings and chord Z.
Window Shopping
– KoAloha are selling off Sceptre prototypes and Pops talks about how to survive. Plus, SUS compare KoAlohas.
– 30s Martin 5K.
– Okabe Ukulele Studio guitarlele.
Amy Winehouse – Rehab (Tab)
I considered posting this song back when Amy Winehouse died but it seemed like exceptionally bad taste at the time. But it’s far too great a song to ignore for long and I’m not going to hold her questionable uke skills against her.
To keep the tab a manageable length I’ve notated straight repeats for the second verse. But there are a couple of differences between the verses. So I’ve added those at the end of the tab.
I’m using my thumb, index finger and middle finger for all the picking. But I’m am switching which strings those cover. As a general rule, if there’s no g-string in the bar my thumb is on C, index on E and middle on A. If there is some g-string, my thumb will be on g, index on C and middle on E.
Links
We’re about at the halfway point in 2018 already. Time to take a look back at some of the great ukulele music to come out this year (and a couple from last December which I didn’t find until this year).
If you’ve got suggestions for great stuff I’ve missed send me an email or tweet me and I’ll check it out. (Sorry comments are still broken. You can at least see comments that have been submitted before which is progress.)
Tracklist
I’m With Her – See You Around
Aline Kelly – Estudo V
BananaCactus – AC/DC Medley
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Highway to Hell
Zoë Bestel – Eye For An Eye
Kuinka – Mistakenly Brave
Jim Boggia – Born in the USA
The Helmsmen – Alright
Jay Hollywood x MARLOWE – Connected
Jonathan Lewis – Lonesome Fiddle Blues
Tyrone and Lesley – Moth Song
Doc Watson – Little Sadie (Chords)
The Last of Us franchise has a habit of hitting my musical sweet-spot. I’ve already tabbed Gustavo Santaolalla’s theme for the first game and Through the Valley from the first trailer for TLOU 2. Now the latest footage from E3 included Crooked Still’s version of Little Sadie.
The song has been recorded by a pile of artists since it surfaced in the 1920s including Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia and Old Crow Medicine Show. But the 1970 version by Doc Watson is my favourite and the one I’ve written up.
Suggested Strumming
The chord changes in Doc Watson’s version are fairly unusual. The weirdness starts straightaway with the opening Dm chord immediately switching to F. And it includes one bar of 3/4 on the A7.
The main strum itself is simple:
d – d u
Here’s how it fits the chords:
Dm: Once
F: Twice
Dm: Once
C: Three times
Am: Once
C: Four times
A7: Three times
Dm: Four times
This is how it sounds slowed down then up to speed:
Twiddly Bits
Here’s a ukulele version of the guitar part from the intro and after every other version. Thanks to the A note at the bottom I’m playing this on low-G ukulele.
The solo uses the D dorian mode for most of its length. Don’t panic if you’re unfamiliar with it. It’s the same notes as the C major scale. Playing those notes in the key of D gives you a minor sounding scale (the only difference with the minor scale is a major 7 instead of minor 7 note).
The exception to this is over the A7 chord where Ab and Bb notes are introduced.
Links
There’s long been a story floating around that Jimi Hendrix started playing music on a one-string ukulele. Now Jimi’s brother has gone into a bit more detail.
Herman Vandecauter has been collecting information on the machete and related instruments (the Madeiran forebears of the ukulele).
Two books for community focused ukulelists: one for teaching and leading ukulele sessions and one for making your way as a community musician.
Grace VanderWaal on NPR’s Tiny Desk.
New Releases
– Excellent new EP from Bud Sugar: Vampire.
– Marc Gallagher’s Level Up.
Window Shopping
– 1920s Martin Taropatch.
– 1930s Gibson UB-3 banjolele.
– Tasmanian Blackwood Maple Tui.
Charli XCX – Boys (Tab)
I don’t cover a lot of pop music on here but Charli XCX’s contribution to the long tradition of lusty songs about handsome boys was the song of last summer and one of my favourite songs of the year.
The arrangement is a bit tricky with a few leaps up and down the fretboard. Probably the trickiest parts are the Mario coin noises. These are created by playing a note on the E-string 10th fret quickly followed by natural harmonic on the A-string, 12th fret. If you’re still getting the hang of natural harmonics you can fret the string at the 12th fret as you usually would. It won’t have the same ringing sound but it will sound right.
Links
Time for the Uke Hunt Annual Chord Quiz. Test your chord knowledge, theory knowledge and musical ear. The method is as low-tech as ever.
– Grab a pen and paper.
– Answer the questions (using a ukulele to help you is entirely allowed and encouraged).
– Check the answers here (no peeking).
If you’re reading by email or feed reader you may need to click through to the post to see everything.
Chord Diagrams
Name the minor chord from the chord diagram.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Chord Flavour: Diagrams
All these are D chords but are they D, Dm, D7, Dm7, or Dmaj7?
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Chord Flavour: Listening
All these are G chords but are they G, Gm, G7, Gm7, or Gmaj7?
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Chord Makeup
Each of these triads of notes makes up a major chord (e.g. the notes of an F chord are F, A and C). Which one? (The notes are listed in alphabetical order starting at C to make it harder.)
16. C, E and G
17. C, F and A
18. C#, E and A
19. D, F# and A
20. C#, F and G#
Chord Progression
Match the MP3 to the chord sequence:
a) D – G – D – G – D
b) D – G – D – A7 – D
c) D – G – Em – A7 – D
d) D – F#m – G – A7 – D
e) D – A7 – G – A7 – D
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
Links
Big Chord Quiz 1
Big Chord Quiz 2
Big Chord Quiz 3
More ukulele quizzes
Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run (Chords)
I’ve been inspired by the King of Springsteen ukulele Jim Boggia and his show Bruce Off Broadway to do a Boss song. One of these days I’m going to tackle one of Jim’s amazing arrangements. But for today I’m taking on Born to Run.
The song is in the key of E so to keep things easy I’ve arranged it with a capo 4th fret. That keeps most of the song simple but there’s still the strange middle section to deal with. That’s made of a series of chord changes from the sus4 chord to the major chord. Very similar to the moves used in The Who’s Pinball Wizard.
Suggested Strumming
I use this as the main strum:
d – d – d u d u
Intro: Main strum twice on C, once on F, then two down strums each on G7sus4 and G7.
Verses: Main strum twice on C and once each on F and G7 in the first two lines (there’s a variation in the third verse where you use the strum from the intro). Then I switch to this pattern:
d – d u – u d –
Do that once for every chord except the Bb on the “OOOOOOOOOHHH” part. There play nothing for once beat followed by one down-strum. Finally, back to the main strum for the last line.
Solo: Same as before on C-F-G7. On Am, main strum once then a single down-strum. Followed by single down-strums on the rest of the chords. Here’s the timing for that last part:
Middle: I play just one down-strum per chord.
Twiddly Bits
Here’s a tab of the intro with a capo on the fourth fret:
Here’s a version of the descending lick at the end of the middle (again with the capo):
Transferring the sax solo to ukulele is pretty ridiculous. It sounds much more folky. No capo on this one.
