Very sad news this week that Ukulele Ray has died. He was a long-time champion of the ukulele, a fixture in the community and the pioneer of lunchbox ukuleles.
Two exceptionally good records out this week: Zoë Bestel’s Transience and Ukulele Sketch Book from Craig Robertson. Highly recommend giving them both a listen.
The eighth and final episode of my favourite travel documentary The Madagascar Journals is up at last with Matt Kresling and his ukulele completing their journey.
Ukulele Exercises for Dummies (which I worked on with Brett from Ukulele Tricks) is part of the Learn Music Books Humble Bundle.
Window Shopping
– Aaron Keim maple and pistachio tenor banjo ukulele.
– Lyon Healy 1920’s Shrine.
– Antar Brand Kamaka 1940’s Cigar Box Replica.
La Vie en Rose (Tab)
What a great song this is. I’ve already covered the chords and a tab of the tune is way overdue.
There’s loads of room to add your own spin onto this song. You can play around with dynamics and pacing, change the phrasing, throw in chord extensions or add in a few jazzy runs. Check out Louis Armstrong’s version for inspiration.
It seems like every cover version ditches the intro section of the original. And I’ve done likewise. I’ve replaced it with a chord section that establishes the harmony of the tune by borrowing chords from elsewhere in the song. This is a good place to start adding your own ideas.
Links
I regularly post “7 second ukulele lessons” on Instagram. Here’s a roundup of some of the recent (and not so recent) indie songs I’ve covered.
Housekeeping: The website is having some trouble handling comments at the moment. So if you submit a comment it might not work. Don’t know what I’m going to do about that! You can always Tweet me if you have something to say.
Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out
I’m using alternate picking for the fast notes on this. But this is one occasion I’d recommend considering a pick.
Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Bloc Party – Helicopter
Duel ukuleles in this one. The top line of tab is the uke in the small window and the bottom line is the main window.
Parquet Courts – Wide Awake
Hippo Campus – Dollar Bill
Hinds – New for You
Viola Beach – Boys That Sing
Billy Bragg – Between the Wars (Chords)
It was St George’s Day on Monday so I thought I’d do a song by the most English singer I can think of. And now Morriessey is persona non grata that’s Billy Bragg. His songs are a bit hit and miss for me. But when he hits the button he hits it hard. Between the Wars is a beautiful song and has had me in tears before.
I’m using a capo at the second fret (the equivalent of D-tuning). Bragg used a capo at the 7th fret so that makes the chord shapes the same for uke and guitar. It’s still easy to play without a capo where the chords C – Dm – F – G – Am will be D – Em – G – A – Bm respectively.
Suggested Strumming
You can use this short strum as the main pattern:
d – d u
The song has two slightly different verses divided between odd numbered verses and even numbered verses.
In the intro and the odd numbered verses: Main strum once for everything except:
– On the F chords in lines one and three do the main strum twice or the descending line shown in the twiddly bits.
– On the F and G in the last line do one down-strum each.
In the even numbered verses: Main strum once except:
– One long down-strum on the G in line 2.
– On the F chords in line three do the main strum twice or the descending line shown in the twiddly bits.
– On the F and G in the last line do one down-strum each.
– On the F in the last line do the main strum three times.
Here’s a go around of both those verse types:
Twiddly Bits
Here’s a picking pattern similar to that in the intro. You can also use elements of this in the main song. Particularly the run down from the F chord in the second half of bar 2.
Here’s an alternative way of playing the F – C move at the end of the even numbered verses. Which sounds like this:
Links
Buy it on iTunes
All You Fascists Bound to Lose (Chords)
More UK tabs and chords
Full Playlist
Tracklist
I’m With Her – See You Around
Jay Hollywood x MARLOWE – Connected
Einer Bankz & Salsalino – Long Run
Aline Kelly – Estudo V
Manitoba Hal – Hope Of A Brighter Day
Victor and Penny – Wake Up Early
Matthew Brian Kirkland – Loch Shiel
Jonathan Lewis – Heart Shaped Box
Charlotte and Lorenzo – The Spin
Randy Gapasin – Kingdom Hearts: Simple and Clean
Paul and his Ukulele by Robert Broder is the tale of a young fox’s travels with his uke.
Speaking of peripatetic ukers, the UOGB took time out of their US tour to play for an elementary school uke club.
Window Shopping
– The Southern Ukulele Store has some Pete Howlett Legacy Series ukes. The electric Fyrefly has me sorely tempted to turn from window shopper into actual shopper.
– I love the look of the Kala Ziricote.
– Kamaka HF-3D2I.
– Ana’ole AC-808 with Hawaiian island soundholes.
U2 – One (Tab)
In One U2 make use of a simple melody trick that crops up in many popular songs. They take the highest note used in the verse (the E on the A-string, 7th fret) and use that as the first note of the chorus. It makes the song peak at the right moment and in this case adds emotion as Bono pushes for the note. They take that even further in the middle section with the starting note moving up to G (A-string, 10th fret). You can tell Bono’s reaching for the note and it really makes the song peak.
The rhythms in this one are a little unusual and wander around the beat. So I’d recommend going with the flow of the song rather than trying to recreate every rhythm.
To keep my arrangement short, I’ve chopped out the second verse and chorus and shortened the guitar solo in the outro.
Links
I’ve written a bunch of posts about capos. But AJ pointed out that I’ve never done a post explaining why you might want to use a capo. So time to rectify that.
To Make a Song Easier to Play
Most of the time I use a capo is to make a song more uke-friendly.
When a chord progression is in a key like C# (such as When a Man Loves a Woman) it makes a lot more sense to put a capo on the first fret so the song is in the much more uke-friendly key of C. You can also use a capo to avoid chords you not comfortable with. So you might avoid dreaded E chord in songs like Wagon Wheel and Good Year for the Roses by putting a capo on the 2nd fret (making it into a D chord).
Some chord inversions would be difficult or impossible to play without a capo. For example, my arrangement of Black Hole Sun includes chords with open strings and strings fretted high up the fretboard. Which you couldn’t play without a capo unless you had Matt Berry fingers.
I often use a capo when I’m working on instrumental versions of songs. I can move the capo up and down to see which creates the best arrangement. For example, here’s a section of Across the Universe with a capo on the first fret:
But with a capo on the third fret you could play it like this:
Sometimes I’ll leave the capo on for the final version of the tune (as I did with Across the Universe). And sometimes I’ll take it off e.g. Feel It Still.
To Move a Song into Your Vocal Range
Luckily for me, my voice sounds equally terrible in all keys. But if you come across a song that’s outside of your vocal range you could use a capo to move the song into a key you’re more comfortable with. You could, of course, do this by transposing the chords. But a capo will let you use the chord shapes as they’re written.
To Change the Tone of the Ukulele
Playing with a capo high on the ukulele really changes its tone. This is a trick that Keston Cobblers’ Club use on Pett Level (and many of their songs). The high capo gives the ukulele a sharp, mandolin-like tone.
It’s a trick guitarists often use to give them a ukulele-ish tone. The obvious examples being Here Comes the Sun (which works so well on D-tuned ukulele I’m half convinced Harrison wrote it on one) and Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours.
To Make the Sound of a Ukulele Group Richer
When you have a whole group of ukuleles playing together it can sound a bit monotone if you don’t mix things up. By introducing capoed chords you increase the range of notes that are being played creating a fuller sound.
In this example I’m playing two ukuleles (one panned slightly left one right) both playing this progression:
C – F – G7 – C – F – G7 – C – G7 – C
In this example one ukulele is playing the open chords while the other has a capo on the 7th fret playing the chord shapes F – Bb – C7 – F – Bb – C7 – F – C7 – F (these work out to the same chord progression):
Transposing Chords for a Capo
If you’re convinced of the usefulness of capos, you might want a bit of helping transposing songs so you can actually use one. Here are a few tools that come in handy.
Circle of Fifths: You can transpose songs just by using the circle of fifths. The relationship between the notes on the circle of fifths is the same the whole way around the wheel. Move one segment clockwise anywhere on the wheel and you go up a fifth (hence the name). Move one segment anti-clockwise and you always go up a fourth. The same goes for any amount you move. Meaning all you have to do to transpose is recreate the pattern of chord changes starting on the chord you’re transposing to.
For example, you have a song with this progression:
Eb – Ab – Gm – Bb
You might want to transpose it to C to make it easier to play. Since Eb is three frets above C, you can do this by putting a capo on the third fret. To transpose the progression all you have to do is match the same pattern on the circle of fifths starting at C.
On the circle of fifths Ab is one segment anti-clockwise from Eb. To transpose to the key of C you move one segment anti-clockwise from C to get F. Similarly Gm is the minor chord one segment clockwise from Eb. The equivalent for C is Em. Finally, Bb is one segment clockwise from Eb. So the equivalent for C is G. Making the final progression:
C – F – Em – G
Logue Transposer: Logue’s transposer is a really handy (and old) tool. You can put whole chord sheets in and it’ll transpose it for you. Using the same example, if you paste this in:
Eb – Ab – Gm – Bb
Then select the old key of Eb and the new key of C. Press “Click Here!” and it’ll spit out the new progression C – F – Em – G.
Ultimate Guitar: Ultimate Guitar has chords (of varying accuracy) for loads of songs. They also have a handy transposing tool. At the bottom of a standard chord page there’s a little box allowing you to transpose all the chords in the song. So if you were playing with a capo on the third fret you’d hit the minus sign three times and you’re set.
Luis Fonsi – Despacito (Chords)
I’m about five billion views late to this one but with Fonsi’s latest includes a bit of ukulele and this track having a few tasty licks it’s still worth doing.
Update: Well, I can now pretend I’m being hyper topical rather five billion views late. YouTube had to take down the Despacito video today after it was hacked.
To keep the chords dead easy, I use a capo on the second fret. If you want to play without a capo you can use the chords Bm – G – D – A.
Suggested Strumming
If you want to keep things very simple you can just follow the keyboard stabs and do short down-strums on the off-beats (four per chord). For something a little more involved you could do this once per chord:
d – x u – u d u
Which sounds like this:
Or you can go all out and do this once per chord:
Twiddly Bits
The video version of the song starts out with two very nice picking patterns. I’m using one finger per string picking for my version. And it sounds like this:
The intro proper starts out with a tasty lick flowing into the picking pattern under the woah’s and wails.
