There’s a neat little trick at the end of the solo in Steve Miller’s The Joker. While the backing guitar plays a C chord, the lead guitar slides into an F chord. The two chords blend together to make a much more interesting sound than they do individually.

Stacked chords like these are known as polychords and there’s a lot of potential for them on ukuleles where chords are limited to four notes per uke.

Here’s the averagest chord progression possible: C – G – C – G

C – G – C – G

Incalculably boring, I trust you’ll agree. Here’s another one: Em – Bm – Em – Bm

Em – Bm – Em – Bm

Also very boring. But if you play them both at the same time you get this:

Combined Progression

The two ukes blend together to create the progression: Cmaj7 – Gmaj7 – Cmaj7 – Gmaj7.

You can pull this trick with any major chord. When you combine a major chord with a minor chord a third higher (i.e. the root note is four frets higher) you get a major 7 chord. For example:

F + Am = Fmaj7
D + F#m = Dmaj7
Bb + Dm = Bbmaj7

The Theory

The theory behind it is pretty simple. Each major and minor chord is made up of three notes. In the example of C and Em they’re:

C chord: C – E – G

Em chord: E – G – B

And Cmaj7 contains four notes:

Cmaj7 chord: C – E – G – B
Blending the C, E and G with the B from the Em gives you all the notes you need for a Cmaj7 chord.

Getting Fancier

You might already be familiar with maj7 chords and already playing them. But what about 9 chords (Prince’s favourite chord) that contain five notes? Playing them on one uke you have to ditch one of the notes. But by stacking chords you can create them by playing a major chord along with a minor chord a fifth above it.

In this example the left panned ukulele is playing:

C – F – C – F

And the right:

Gm – Cm – Gm – Cm

These combine to create:

C9 – F9 – C9 – F9

C9 – F9 – C9 – F9

Some other chord combinations that produce this sound:

A + Em = A9
D + Am = D9
G + Dm = G9

Up the Neck

So far all the chords I’ve used have been the bog-standard, from-the-book shapes. But you can use this technique to the fullest by using chord inversions up the neck. That’ll give you a much wider range of notes in the chord.

Here’s another boring progression: C – F – G – C

C – F – G – C

And here are the same chord shapes played with the capo at the 7th fret (so the actual progression is G – C – D – G):

G – C – D – G

Combine those and you get the progression Cmaj7add9 – Fmaj7add9 – Gmaj7add9 – Cmaj7add9

Combined Progression

You can pull the same trick by playing any major chord with the same chord played at the 7th fret stack on top.

Taking it a bit further, here’s a progression based on Purple Rain:

First uke: Bb – Gm7 – F – Eb (using the standard shapes).

Second uke: F – G7sus4 – F – Bb

To create the slightly crazy progression Bmaj7add9 – Gm7add11 – F – Ebmaj7add9. Which sounds like this:

Poly Rain Progression

Putting It Into Practice

Some of the stuff in this post is definitely on the technical side. And I’d recommend using it a lot more sparingly than I have in these examples. But I hope it’s given you a few ideas to spice up playing with more than one uke and encouraged you to experiment. There are so many possibilities it’s a shame to have every uke playing the same thing all the time.

I’ve felt in a bit of a rut recently. And I’ve found the best way to bust it is to changing things up a bit. So I slipped a slide on my finger and tried out some of my favourite slide guitar bits on uke. Including The Joker‘s pompatus packed solo.

If you’re in a similar position there’ll be more slide coming up in Thursday’s post and I wrote an ebook about slide playing.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this as the main strum:

d – d – d u d u

In the verse (and the first solo) you can use that once for every chord. But I like to mix it up with a “dudududu” on the last Bb of each line like this:

Verse Strum

You can use the main strum for almost all the choruses. But there’s a slight change in one chorus and the second solo with a C-Csus4 move. There I strum down twice on the C then “du” six times on the Csus4. Then two more downs and six “du”s on the Csus4. It sounds like this:

Chorus Strum

Twiddly Bits

Riff

Here’s the bass riff moved to ukulele:

A video posted by @ukulelehunt on Oct 27, 2016 at 11:16am PDT

Solo

,

First thing to do for the slide solo is to tune your A-string down to G. That creates an open-C tuning. Second thing to do is to make sure you mute the strings behind the slide and mute all the strings you’re not playing.

I threw the little wolf whistle that crops up a couple of times at the end of the solo. You don’t need much accuracy in playing it. I just slide up as far as I can go. Then slide up to about the tenth fret and down.

Links

The Joker on iTunes
How to Play Slide Ukulele

Full Playlist

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It’s your last chance to get a Uke Hunt t-shirt. You can buy them in the US and the UK. Both campaigns have hit their goals so you’re guaranteed one when you order.

Learning
– Robin Walter’s tab book for groups.
– Ukulele Go! has 34 ways to become a better ukulele player.

Kickstarting
– Southampton Ukulele Jam are running a Kickstarter to make a documentary. It’s going great guns and has already passed the goal.
– The Mourning Glories are Indiegogoing their debut album.

Records
– I might be a bit biased but West Yorkshire is killing it with the ukulele this year. Hope & Social’s FEEL (Spotify) and Astraluna’s The Pass of Storms (Spotify) are both in contention for my ukulele record of the year.
– The Coldharts’ Edgar Allan is a dark comic “manic lullaby”.

Ukes etc.
– Gigy gig bags are new colourful, customisable ukulele gigbags from a mother-daughter team.
– Cigar Box Nation profiles the weird and wonderful ukuleles of Rob Uker.

The Walking Dead theme uses a technique I should have included in my spooky ukulele sounds post: unusual timings. Each bar has a pattern that rises and falls twice but then cuts off half way through the third time. The bars themselves are played an odd number of times. The first pattern is played three times at the beginning in my version (seven in the original) and five times at the end. Usually you see bars in powers of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8 etc.) or at least an even amount. Having an even number gives it a unsettling feeling.

I went with low-G tuning here. It makes it so much easier to play. But I like the way it sounds even on high-g. Even spookier if you ask me.

The tune is very simple. It’s just one pattern on three different locations on the neck. It’s great for practicing your thumb and two finger picking. I’ve been using it as a little warm up exercise. The great part is you can move the pattern up and down the neck and it always works.

Links

Buy the Walking Dead Soundtrack
The Walking Dead on AMC
Bear McCreary talks about writing the theme
More Halloween tabs and chords

Now you’ve got your depraved nose-hair trimmer costume together, here are some tunes you may wish to bone up on before the big night. Including a band new version of Danse Macabre so you can compare version and judge whether I’ve improved or degraded in the nine years between arrangements.

Addams Family Theme Tune
Chopin – Funeral March
Jonathan Coulton – Re: Your Brains
Dance Macabre
The Fall – Mansion
The Gothic Archies – Freakshow
Halloween Theme
Harry Potter – Hedwig’s Theme
London Bridge Is Falling Down (From Halloween)
The Misfits – Dig Up Her Bones
The Misfits – Halloween
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (from The Exorcist)
Ray Parker Jr – Ghostbusters
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
This is Halloween (From Nightmare Before Christmas)
Tom Waits – Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard
Twilight Zone Theme
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London

And a tutorial on spooking up your playing:

Spooky Ukulele Sounds

It’s Halloween week on Uke Hunt to give you some time to work up tunes. But you probably won’t need that long to get this one together. It’s just three chords: A, D and E7. You can make it even easier if you use the no hassle way of changing from A to D.

The challenge is how fast it’s played. So start off slow until you’ve got it under your fingers.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this strum almost all the way through:

d – d u – u d –

The strumming in the verses and chorus are exactly the same:

In the first and third lines: Do the main strum twice for the first chord and once for the other chords.

Second line: Twice for each chord.

In the last line: Once for the first two chords, then twice for the last chord.

The only part that doesn’t work is when the song slows right down in the second and third lines of verse 3. He plays tremolo strums there. But I’d recommend just doing one down strum per chord.

Here’s how that sounds up to speed then slowed down:

Ghost Strum

Links

Buy it on iTunes
More Halloween tabs and chords

Full Playlist

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Uke Hunt’s annual t-shirt release started this week. Pre-orders run until 26th October and you can get them in the US or in the UK. UPDATE: Both the UK and US t-shirt campaigns have hit their goal. So if you pre-ordered one you will be getting it. A massive thanks to everyone who has ordered already for supporting the site with both your wallet and your torso.

Learning
– Jake Shimabukuro has released a tab book of his album Nashville Sessions.
– Craig Robertson has released free chord songbooks for his albums That Dress and Practical Hypnotist. Lots of great, jazzy chord progressions to steal. I’ve already added Cm6 (2333) – G7 (from The Hypnotist) and Fm – Cm+4 (0313) (from Missing) to my repertoire. (Alternative links: Practical Hypnotism and That Dress).
– BariFever has a bunch of tabs for baritone ukulele.

Ukes
– 1940s Favilla soprano.
– 3D printable plans for a travel ukulele.

Walk Off the Earth’s performance of O Canada got a furious backlash from ukulele haters and women haters alike.

A very welcome new tab from David Beckingham. Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer is a WWII song by Adamson and McHugh. But David’s version is based on Joseph Spence’s incredible take on the tune.

Links

Buy the Jospeh Spence version
David Beckingham on YouTube
More David Beckingham tabs