Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall has featured a bunch of old-timey musicians including Frank Fairfield, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton and ukulele chanteuse Janet Klein. I got had a request I couldn’t ignore for a song from the show so it was inevitable I went for Klein’s Langtree’s Lament.

Nothing too tricky in this arrangement. It’s almost all played with strums. There are some places when you’re not strumming all the strings e.g. bar 10. There the melody switches to the g-string so you need to emphasise that string. It’s not a big deal if you don’t hit exactly the strings tabbed so long as you’re holding the chord down (in that bar Bb7).

The notes I pick are the slides up to the fifth fret in bars 2 and 6, the one note in bar 7 and the campanella picking in bars 14 and 15. If you’re dead set against campanella you can also play it like this:

Links

Over the Garden Wall on iTunes
JanetKlein.com

I like to keep a list of songs that use just the most common ukulele chords. Arranged by the order people usually learn them in. That way you can find some songs to play no matter how few chords you know.

Songs added to the list:

Happy Birthday to You
The Libertines – Don’t Look Back into the Sun
James Bay – Hold Back the River
Eagles of Death Metal – I Want You So Hard
The Pretenders – 2000 Miles

C, F and G

If you prefer, you can use G7 in the place of G or vice versa for any of these songs.

Happy Birthday to You
NeverShoutNever! – Your Biggest Fan/Did It Hurt?
Noah and the Whale – Five Years Time
OK Go – This Too Shall Pass
Paolo Nutini – High Hopes
SoKo – I Will Never Love You More
The Bobby McGee’s – A Dog At All Things
The Lancashire Hotpots – He’s Turned Emo
Mungo Jerry – In the Summertime
The Tiger Lillies – Start A Fire
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra/Kings of Leon – The Bucket

Plus Am, Dm and Em

Addams Family Theme Tune
Alton Ellis – Rock Steady
Black Kids – I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend to Dance With You
Blondie/Imelda May – Dreaming
Darlene Love – Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Darren Hanlon – All These Things
Electrelane – Cut and Run
Garfunkel and Oates – Me, You and Steve
Florence and the Machine – Dog Days Are Over
GUGUG – California Sun
Israel Kamakawiwoíole/Jason Castro – Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Julien Dore – Cet Air-La
Kate Nash – Foundations
Kate Micucci/The Gooch – Mr Moon
Kelli Rae Powell
Last Shadow Puppets – Standing Next to Me
LP – Into the Wild
The Lumineers – Ho Hey
Phosphorescent – Wolves
She & Him – Sentimental Heart

Plus D

Allo Darlin’ – Tallulah
Allo Darlin’ – Space Christmas
Amanda Palmer – In My Mind
Antsy Pants/Bear Creek – Vampire
Belle and Sebastian – The Boy with the Arab Strap
Daniel Johnston – Living Life
Damon Albarn – Mr Tembo
Garfunkel and Oates – The Fade Away (you can use D instead of D7)
Gothic Archies – Shipwrecked
GUGUG/The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop
Keston Cobblers’ Club – You-Go
The Libertines – Don’t Look Back into the Sun
The Little Ones – Tangerine Visions
Phredd – Elmer’s Electric Tricycle
Skinny Lister – Colours
The Dubliners and The Pogues – The Irish Rover
The Pogues – Fiesta
The Pretenders – 2000 Miles
Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
Velvet Underground and Nico – I’ll be Your Mirror
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London

Plus A and E7

Camera Obscura – Cock Up Your Beaver
Eagles of Death Metal – I Want You So Hard
Florence & the Machine – Kiss With A Fist (don’t panic, you can use E7 instead of E in this song)
The Pogues – Sally McLennane
Joan Jett – Bad Reputation
Junior Brown – Better Call Saul
Kate Micucci & Ted (Scrubs) – Screw You
Paolo Nutini – Pencil Full of Lead
The Pogues – Streams of Whiskey
The Weavers – Pay Me My Money Down

Plus Bb

James Bay – Hold Back the River
Beirut – A Candle’s Fire
Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (You can use C instead of C5)
Ingrid Michaelson – Be OK
Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
Lorde/Walk off the Earth – Royals
Lorde/WIOU – Team
Mumford and Sons – The Cave
Nevershoutnever – First Dance
Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers
Noah and the Whale – Jealous Kind of Love
Sufjan Stevens – Lumberjack Christmas
The Tokens – The Lion Sleeps Tonight

More…

Mastered all those? Tackle more:

Easy ukulele songs
Beginner ukulele lessons

Too-cool-for-school New York uke duo*, The Prettiots are current on their first world tour. Their UK dates covered the three main hubs: London, Edinburgh and Hebden Bridge.

18 Wheeler is played on a low-G uke. The chords will work perfectly well on a high-G. The picking does still work but doesn’t sound quite the same. You might try a few different picking patterns with the same chord shapes to see which you like most.

* Rachel Trachtenburg seems to have left the band.

Suggested Strumming

You can keep the strumming very simple like she does in the live version and just do downstrums per chord. In the version on the record she switches it up to a more complex strum. If you want to do the same you could go with this for each chord:

d – d – d u d u

Chorus: Eight down strums per chord (twice as fast as the downstrums in the verse).

Twiddley Bits

Here’s the picked intro that continues in the first verse. It uses the same chord shapes as the rest of the song but you’re picking the G-string with your thumb then simultaneously picking the E- and A-strings with your index and middle fingers respectively.

Links

Buy it on iTunes
Prettiots website

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

Ukuleles for Ukraine is a charity that raises money via ukulele-means to supply children’s homes in Ukraine with clothing, school supplies, medicines, educational technology, and musical instruments. They’ve just released a ten minute documentary of their trip and just launched a YouCaring fund that you can donate to here.

The Hebden Bridge-based organisers of the Grand Northern Ukulele Festival were hit particularly hard with the Boxing Day floods in the UK. But they’re back in business and the festival is going ahead as planned with a great line-up.

New Releases

– Les Poupées Gonflées – Chansons pétillantes à voix frétillantes!.
– Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer – The Chap Trilogy (PWYW).
– Prettiots – Funs Cool.
– Brit Rodriguez – Valentine’s Day and Renditions for Rainy Days.
– Vessna Scheff – Echoes EP.

Jonathan Lewis’s Irish Tunes for Campanella Ukulele was my favourite tab book of last year. So I’m delighted that he’s let me put up his tab up on the site.

Like the arrangements in his ebook, this is a challenging campanella of an Irish tune (this time by Turlough O’Carolan).

Links

Irish Tunes for Campanella Ukulele
Jon’s Ukulele Site
More Ukulele Tabs and chords

I’ve been blown away by how well Ukulele for Dummies has done. It’s sold over 100,000 copies now which is way beyond what I ever imagined. It’s also had good review. There are 151 5 star reviews on Amazon UK (with an average of 4.4 stars) and 185 5-star reviews on Amazon US (4.2 average).

I can’t thank you enough for buying, reviewing and most of all recommending it. I know a lot of people who read Uke Hunt are the go-to ukulele person amongst their friends so I’m so massively grateful for people spreading the word.

The publisher must be happy with how it’s gone as well. They asked me to do a second edition of the book which came out at the end of last year. Here are some of the details on it.

What’s New?

There are two brand new chapters:

– Ukuleleing the Holidays: Like the rest of the chapters in Part IV, it applies techniques from earlier in the book to a type of music. In this case, Christmas and New Year tunes.
– Ten Greatest Ukulele Chords: My favourite chords, how to play them and when to use them.

There’s a new section on useful mobile apps for ukulele players.

There’s no CD anymore. But, mercifully, the downloads have been made easier to find and deal with. You can get them all here.

Some (hopefully all) of the typos have been fixed, a few bits have been updated and I’ve clarified and changed a few things thanks to the feedback I’ve had.

Audio and Videos

All the audio and video are easy to get now whether you’ve bought the book or are just curious. You can download the audio and watch the videos here. You can also find all the individual files linked here (useful if you’re on mobile).

Should I Buy the First or Second Edition?

I’d recommend the second edition. As well as the extra chapters I think some of the explanations are clearer.

The only people I’d recommend the first edition to are those who are happier using a CD rather than downloads or have limited connectivity. But for people who would just rip the CD anyway, go with the second edition.

I Have the First, Should I Get the Second?

No, I wouldn’t recommend it. The new stuff isn’t essential in the 2nd Edition that wasn’t in the first.

Excerpts and Extras

You can get a flavour for the book by reading these extracts and extras that are on Dummies.com:

– Suspending and Diminishing Chords on the Ukulele
– Relating Chord Diagrams and Tab to the Ukulele
– Extending Ukulele Chords
– Attempting More Complex Chords on the Ukulele
– Augmenting Chords on the Ukulele
– 10 Famous Ukulele Lovers
– Ukulele For Dummies Cheat Sheet
– Getting to Know Chord Families on the Ukulele

Second Edition Contents

Introduction

Part I: Getting Started with the Ukulele

Chapter 1: Exploring the Ukulele

Chapter 2: Tuning Up to Sound Great

Chapter 3: Discovering How to Handle Your Ukulele

Part II: Starting Out with Chords and Strumming

Chapter 4: Playing Your First Ukulele Chords and Songs

Chapter 5: Drumming Up More Strumming Patterns

Chapter 6: Meeting the Chords and Their Families

Part III: Picking and Single Note Playing

Chapter 7: Getting to Grips with Tabs and Notation

Chapter 8: Discovering Fingerpicking Patterns

Chapter 9: Combining Melodies and Chords When Playing Solo

Chapter 10: Picking Up Some Soloing Techniques

Part IV: Discovering Genres and Styles

Chapter 11: Rocking Out with Your Uke

Chapter 12: Playing the Blues to Lift Your Spirits

Chapter 13: Saying ‘Aloha’ to the Hawaiian Style

Chapter 14: Jazzing Up Your Uke Playing

Chapter 15: Strumming Up the Jawaiian Style

Chapter 16: Getting Classy: Classical Masterpieces for Ukulele

Chapter 17: Ukuleleing the Holidays

Part V: Buying and Looking After Your Ukulele

Chapter 18: Weighing Up Your Options When Buying a Ukulele

Chapter 19: Splashing Out on Essentials and Accessories

Chapter 20: Restringing, Maintaining, and Adjusting Your Uke

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 21: Ten Ukulele Players to Know

Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Get Involved in the Ukulele Scene

Chapter 23: Ten (or So) Tips for Improving Your Playing

Chapter 24: Ten Greatest Ukulele Chords

Part VII: Appendixes

Appendix A: Chord Charts

Appendix B: Reading Standard Musical Notation

Appendix C: Audio Tracks

What a great song this is. I love the half-hearted pretence of, “Oh, I’m totally fine with being dumped.” And the music reflects that so well. It does its best to avoid minor-key gloominess but can’t raise the tempo above a crawl and is drenched in melancholy, ambiguous chords.

The song has been sung by all the greats including Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker and Nina Simone. But I’ve written up Blue Dean Carcione’s excellent banjolele version.

Suggested Strumming

I’d recommend following Dean and just doing simple down strums all the way though.

Twiddly Bits

Here’s the little fingerpicked intro:

Links

Buy the Sinatra version
BlueDeanCarcione on YouTube
More jazz tabs and chords

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s Winter NAMM (the big music instrument trade show) had plenty of new ukuleles to gawp at:

– The uke that’s really lubed my wallet-slit this year is the 2016 Kanile’a Platinum. I’m guessing it’s going to be over $3,000 so I’m just going to let my dreams be dreams.

– Kamaka Ukuleles are 100 years old and kicked off their centenary with a show at NAMM packed with ukulele stars. I recommend watching PBS’s Kamaka documentary to catch up with their long history.

– Scooped cutaways seem to be the new hotness this year. As well as Kanile’a, aNueNue has the Super Lani, Kala has a new scalloped series and Rebel have the new Livingston tenor. (Also hot: comfort edges.)

– Blackbird have long been experimenting with materials used in their instruments. The latest is the most unusual yet: the Ekoa ukulele made from linen. You can find out more in this factory tour video.

– At the goofy end of the spectrum are Ayers’ Zodiac ukuleles.

– And this year’s wackiest idea goes to Bugsgear for this thing that has a speaker in the soundhole so you can play along with a backing track.

– Deering have launched a tenor banjolele. Mim tested one out.