Helen Arney will be doing some science explaining on her ukulele along with her nerd friends Matt ‘Standup Maths’ Parker and Steve ‘Steve Mould’ Mould on their new BBC Radio 4 show Domestic Science from the 20th July. You’ll be able to listen on demand on iPlayer (wherever you are, I believe).

Last chance to get in on the Brexit sale. You can get 15% off any of my ebooks by using this code: brexit. If you prefer, you can also buy them on Payhip using PayPal in GBP (while it still has some value). No code on there. The price should be the equivalent of the USD price after the code.

New Releases
– Excellent debut album from Liam Capper-Starr: Needs More Cello.
– Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s new World War I album Lousy War.
– Grand Old Uke of York’s cover EP Head out on the Highway.
– The Burning Hell cover Men Without Hats to great effect.
– Kristen Wiig is working on a ukulele album.

An update on my capo post from a few weeks back. My clamp capo (the one I recommended) snapped in two this week. I still recommend that style of capo but perhaps go with a less junky brand.

This is a follow on from the Hanging Tree tab in a few ways. As well as the Hunger Games connection, I’ve tried to keep the arrangement as minimal and easy to play as possible.

The arrangement draws heavily on Lorde’s sparse, minor key version. But it also includes elements of the Tears for Fears original since I couldn’t get that version out of my head.

I use thumb and two finger picking for my version but it’s arranged so you can play it all just using your thumb.

Links

Buy the Lorde version
Buy the Tears for Fears version
More movie theme tabs

Time to test your chord knowledge and musical ear. It’s pretty low tech:

– Grab a pen and paper.
– Answer the questions (using a ukulele to help you is entirely allowed and encouraged).
– There might be spoilers in the comments.
– Check the answers here (no peeking).
– Return in triumph or despair and share you score in the comments(some of these questions are pretty tricky, so not too much despair). And I’d be interested to know which rounds you found easy and which were hard.

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 C chords but are they C, Cm, C7, Cm7, or C9?

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Chord Flavour: Listening

All these are A chords but are they A, Am, A7, A6, or Amaj7?

11.

MP3

12.

MP3

13.

MP3

14.

MP3

15.

MP3

Chord Makeup

Each of these triads of notes makes up a major chord (e.g. the notes of a G chord are G, B and D). Which one? (The notes are listed in alphabetical order starting at C to make it harder.)

16. C, E and G.

17. C#, E and A

18. E, G# and B

19. C, F and A

20. D, F and Bb

Chord Progression

Match the MP3 to the chord sequence:

a) A – C – D – A
b) A – E7 – D – E7
c) A – D – E7 – A
d) A – Bm – D – E7
e) A – G – D – A

21.

MP3

22.

MP3

23.

MP3

24.

MP3

25.

MP3

Go here to check your answers

Links

More ukulele quizzes

Johnny Cash is a big favourite for ukulele groups and jams. And The Poor Boys of Worcester’s version of I Got Stripes has me convinced that song should be added to Ring of Fire and Folsom Prison Blues in the repertoire.

There are a couple of weirdnesses that make the original a bit less appealing on ukulele. Firstly, it’s in C# so a capo on the first fret is needed to make things straightforward. And there’s a strange Bb chord at the start of the song which makes it feel like the song is in F.

The original version also has a key change to contend with.

Two Chord Version

To make it really beginner friendly, here’s a two chord, no capo version based on The Poor Boys of Worcester’s version and the version from Walk the Line.

Suggested Strumming

This pattern should get you through the whole song:

d – d – d u d u

Links

Buy it on iTunes
More easy chords

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

The British people, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to tank the value of the pound. If I understand economics (protip: I don’t) that means a dollar gets me more of my low-energy currency. So I’ve set up a discount. You can get 15% off any of my How to Play Ukulele ebooks until 10th July using the code: brexit.

Also, I made a preview of the first few pages of Ukulele Strums.

Learning
Two new tab books:

– Jake Shimabukuro – Live in Japan: Tab of Jake’s live album including his arrangements of Bohemian Rhapsody and While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
– Fred Sokolow’s Slide & Slack Key Ukulele.

New Releases
– Speaking of Jake Shimabukuro he has a new album: The Nashville Sessions.
– Spacey new single from Kara Square Ukuambient.

Ukuleles
– The Rebel NEO ukulele.
– Meridian Uke.

Like most Brits my age, Radiohead’s Burn the Witch gave me warm nostalgia for Trumpton and Camberwick Green. Although the Trumpton people are pissed off that it, “tarnished the brand”.

The Trumpton theme is ripe for a ukeing. The tune has an acoustic guitar backing with a high melody. I’ve mushed those two elements together but if, unlike me, you have a friend you can tease them apart and play them on separate instruments.

Easy Version

Here’s the tab for just the melody:

Trumpton Lead Tab

And the back I’ve tabbed for low-G ukulele. But it will also work for high-g without any changes.

Trumpton Backing Tab (Low-G)

This is how they sound together:

Easy Version

And here’s a backing track if you’d like to play along with it:

Backing Track

Links

Buy the complete Trumpton on Amazon
More TV theme tabs

Full Playlist

It’s about halfway through 2016 and it’s already shaping up to be another great year of ukulele music. It was tough to narrow it down to a reasonable length but I’ve deliberated, cogitated and digested and come up with a list I hope represents a good overview of the ukulele scene in 2016.

If you think I’ve missed something exceptional let me know in the comments.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m so excited that Orange is the New Black is back. As well as being fantastic, there’s often some ukulele tucked in there. There was Miss E’s Hummingbird in season three and O’Neill’s anti-nun banjolele song in season two. Season four features this ditty from superstar-progeny duo Folk Uke at the end of the first episode.

The song is just three chords and has easy strumming so it’s perfect for beginners.

Suggested Strumming

You can use the old faithful strum almost all the way through:

d – d u – u d –

In the chorus and the solo: Play that pattern twice for the C chords at the end of the first and third lines. Play it once for everything else. So it sounds like this:

Strum

The only place that strum doesn’t work is in the outro. There switch to just down-strums. One for the G at the end of the line and two for everything else. For the very last line go back to the main strum for two chords then end on a down-strum on the C.

Twiddly Bits

With a little octave shifting, the solo transfers neatly to ukulele:

It sounds like this:

Solo

Links

Buy it on iTunes
More easy chord songs

Bonus: Papa Roach – Last Resort

The first episode also featured this song and I couldn’t resist.

Tune the C-string down to B for this one.

A video posted by @ukulelehunt on Jun 17, 2016 at 11:03am PDT

Buy it on iTunes

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »