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:
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 Ukulele 2018 Spotify playlist is filling up quickly this year. There’s already an hour of ukulele goodness there. Recent additions include Zoe Bestel, Mt. Jay and The Sonder Bombs.
Time for a song of great social and political import. And, more importantly, an easy to play song. I’ve kept the simplicity of the accapella original. Just adding a few chords in for support.
I’m using fingerpicking in my version. But it’s arranged so you can play the whole thing with your thumb if you prefer.
After I put up my round-up of capo alternatives someone suggested I check out the G7th UltraLight capo. I bought one recently and it was a good suggestion.
How it Works
The G7th is a screw-capo. You wrap the capo around the neck, put the screw in a notch in the capo and tighten it to suit.
The Good Stuff
Adaptability: It fits all of my ukuleles from a sopranino to a baritone and does the job on all of them. Definitely a good capo to have if you’ve got a wide variety of ukes.
Light: They are not BSing when they call this “ultralight”. It’s noticeably lighter than even my elastic capo. I find a heavy capo can throw the balance of the ukulele off on smaller ukes.
Firm grip: I haven’t had any problems with it being knocked out of place or not holding the strings down well enough. You can fine tune how firmly the capo grips the fretboard more exactly than any of my other capos.
A Little Fiddly to Put On: You can’t just slap it on with one hand like you can some capos. It is a two-step process of attaching the capo the screwing it tight. It’s only a few seconds so it’s not a deal breaker. But other capos do this job better. And ease of putting on a capo may be important particularly if you’re playing live.
Interfering with Playing: The capo does wrap all the way around the fretboard so I’ve find it slightly impedes my playing hand. I tend to prefer capos such as G7th’s Newport capo which leave the underside of the fretboard open giving your hand more room.
Again, it’s nowhere near enough to stop me using the capo but I do notice it’s there more than I do with some other capos.
Overall
The lightness and adaptability of the G7th capo make it a great choice for ukulele players. I’m definitely going to keep using it on my smaller ukes. But I am going to keep using my Shubb capo on my tenor Ohana and baritone. That one’s great to use, sturdy and unobtrusive. But it is heavy and only fits a couple of my ukes. So the G7th nicely fits with that for use on smaller, lighter ukes. So if you have similar capo needs I’d recommend checking this one out.
The chords are dead easy. In the verse you only have to add or remove one finger for each chord change. The only thing slightly unusual is the time signature.
12/8 Time
12/8 isn’t a common time signature for a pop song and adds to the song’s bluesy edge. You might not have come across it before. But it’s not hard to get the hang. You can just think of it like 4/4 time but with each beat being a triplet. So I count it like this:
1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a
Count that along with the strings at the beginning and you’ll have it down.
Suggested Strumming
I use this as the main strum:
d – d u d –
Intro and Verse: Do the main strum four times for each chord. Here’s how that sounds:
Chorus: Do the main strum twice for each chord until the last line.
Twiddly Bits
I’ve written up the simple guitar chords. But the strings are a little more complex. Here I’m mimicking the short stabs by plucking all the strings at once rather than strumming.
Finally there’s the bluesy sax solo. The solo starts out using the A blues scale which is the A minor pentatonic with the addition of the Eb on the A-string, 6th fret (lots more on both those scales in the How to Play Blues Ukulele ebook). Then in bar 4 it switches to the C major scale building up into the C chord at the start of the chorus.
Ukulelist and Hawaiian Music Hall of Famer Peter Moon has died. I highly recommend checking out his playing on Pua Lilia with his band The Sunday Manoa.
If you enjoy Jonathan’s arrangements and are looking for something to play on St Patrick’s Day do check out his ebook Irish Tunes for Campanella Ukulele.
I’ve written up a full guide to reading tab but there are few questions I get asked a lot. So here’s a little post clearing up any problems.
What do the numbers in brackets mean?
There are two ways brackets are used. The first is to indicate these are background notes that should be played more quietly. I use them to indicate that notes aren’t part of the melody. You need to play them more softly so the listener doesn’t mix them up with the melody.
If it’s just a note by itself in brackets like above, it’s a background note. If it has an arched line connecting it to a previous note, then it’s a tied note. Which brings us on to the next question.
What do the arches between notes mean?
Again, this could mean a couple of things. An arch between a note and the same note in brackets or a blank space indicates that the notes are “tied” i.e. you add the length of the notes together.
So in this example from Ziggy Stardust there’s a tie from a quaver (or eighth note) to a semi-quaver (sixteenth note) making the note as long as a dotted quaver.
Sometimes you’ll see ties between all the notes, sometimes (like in this example) it’s just a tie at the top.
If the arch links to a different note then those indicate a transition between notes without repicking them. That means a hammer-on (if the second note is higher) or a pull-off (if the second note is lower). Often the arch will have a “p” above if it’s a pull-off or and “h” if it’s a hammer-on.
This example from The Lumineers’ Ho Hey includes first a tie and then a pull-off. Plus the note being pulled off to has its own tie.
The other type of transition it could indicate is a slide. When there’s a slide you’ll see a diagonal line between the notes as well as an arch. Here’s an example from Fraggle Rock where you slide a whole chord up one fret:
What do the X’s mean?
X’s in tabs indicate dead or muted notes. They’re not notes with a specific fret. They’re just used as percussion.
You can mute strings by resting a finger or two on the string without fretting it. Or, as in this example from the Countdown Theme, rest your picking hand on the string firmly.
Often you’ll see X’s on all the strings. There you can use a chnk or chnk alternative to get the percussive sound.
These arrows indicate bends. Bends don’t work too well with the uke’s nylon strings so I try to avoid them. But sometimes nothing else will do.
At the top of the arrow you’ll see either “1/2” or “full”. This is referring to the number of steps up you need to bend the string. Half a step is the equivalent of one fret and a full step the equivalent of two frets.
So in this example from Cantina Band you bend the string at the third fret until it’s the same pitch as a note played at the fourth fret.
And this example from Crazy (the Willie Nelson/Patsy Cline one) has full bends so the bend on the E-string 10th fret will result in the same note as the A-string 7th fret played directly after it.
You will sometimes see variations in the arrows. They’re usually fairly intuitive. For example, in the tab of The Ventures’ Diamond Head there’s a vertical arrow up followed by an arrow bending down. Here your pre-bend the string before you pluck it. After you pluck it, you slowly release the bend.
Why don’t you include standard notation?
Because I don’t think it’s useful enough to double the length of the tabs. And because so few people read it. Tab has meant that few people feel the need to learn to read standard notation. And now YouTube has meant fewer people learn to read tab and prefer to learn from tedious, interminable videos going through notes one at a time. So it goes.
