Cyprien Verseux and his crew mates successfully completed their year-long isolation as part of NASA’s HI-SEAS experiment with some help from his ukulele.
Dennis Quaid has formed a ukulele band.
Videos
– Stuart Fuchs plays the world’s largest ukulele.
– Flula serenades Michael Phelps.
Pictures
– How to convert a concert into a tenor ukulele.
– Johnny’s got you covered.
Ukuleles
– 1960s Favilla baritone
– Argapa concert
– 1970s Kamaka white label baritone.
I took advantage of my blog break to do a rare guitar tab: Pepe Kalle’s soukous masterpiece Roger Milla.
Gene Wilder – Pure Imagination (Tab)
For my little tribute to Gene Wilder I had to do this beautiful tune by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
It’s such an affecting tune it’s a great opportunity to play with emotion. I recommend experimenting with varying the tempo and volume and use vibrato when you play to get the most out of it.
Links
If you want to write a hit song at the moment you need an intro with at least two of these features and preferably all three:
- 1. A minor key
2. Lots of echo
3. This rhythm:
To illustrate the point I threw together into a medley including Sia’s Cheap Thrills, Shawn Mendes’s Treat You Better, The Chainsmokers’ Don’t Let Me Down and Let Me Love You by DJ Snake and Justin Bieber
Intros Tab
And here’s a Spotify playlist with a few more besides.
But I always associate this rhythm (and the echoy sounds) with the fittingly titled Intro by The XX.
This rhythm might be having a moment right now but it’s also timeless and well worth adding to your strum repertoire. The basic strum (from the video above) goes like this:
d – – d – – d –
The important thing to do is to use chord stabs i.e. stopping the strings ringing right after you play them (much more on the in How to Play Ukulele Strums).
The downside with this rhythm is that it does sound a bit sparse on ukulele. The best way fill it out is with some muted strums. Like this:
d x x u x x d x
This version sounds really funky when you speed it up:
Rebecca Sugar – Here Comes a Thought (Chords)
After doing It’s Over, Isn’t It? before the break, I wasn’t planning on doing another Steven Universe song so soon. But I got some requests (as I always do for SU songs) and there are some really nice chord moves and picking in it.
I worked this out from the ukulele version Rebecca Sugar did at Comic Con. The version on the show uses the same chords but is arranged differently.
Suggested Strumming
In the chorus: you can just do one down strum per chord (or two down strums on Fmaj7 if you’re feeling adventurous).
In the verse: I’ve written up the whole C9 – C – Cmaj7 – C6 line but you don’t have to play the whole thing. You can just play C9, let the g, C and E strings ring while you play 5 – 3 – 2 – 0 on the A-string. Or you can just play the Steven strum on C9 then C6.
For everything else you can use the old Steven strum:
d – x u – u d –
In the verse do that twice on Fmaj7 and once each on E and E7.
In the pre-chorus: The Steven strum twice for everything except the first two G7sus4 – G7 moves (once each there).
In the bridge: Steven strum twice for all Cmaj7 – Fmaj7. And just a down strum per chord elsewhere.
Twiddly Bits
Here Comes a Thought (Tab)
Like It’s Over, this one uses one finger per string picking. Don’t worry too much about recreating the exact pattern. You can try any pattern you like the sound of so long as you’ve got the chords right and the rhythm is similar. The sound quality of the video isn’t great so the picking in the tab probably isn’t completely accurate anyway.
Links
Steven Universe on Cartoon Network
Rebecca Sugar on Tumblr
More tabs and chords from Steven Universe
Everything Stays chords
Time for my summer blog break. I’m going to make like a western swamp turtle and aestervate until the heat dies down.
If you’re looking for some ukeing, check out my latest ebook Songs of the States tab ebook (on sale until the end of August). Or check out Blues Ukulele.
And I’ll still be posting from time to time on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram.
Have a good one.
I released a new tab ebook this week: Songs of the States. It has a bunch of fun songs to play (particularly the Monty Python theme). A huge thanks to everyone who has already bought it for supporting the site. I massively appreciate it.
Ukuleles
– Kinnard baritone ukulele.
– Tin Guitar Ukelear Fusion.
– California series 5-string Kala UBass.
Pictures
– Portuguese ukulele factory c.1950
– Martin Style 3 on the beach c.1955
– Vivienne Myer, Chicago 1919
Ukulelist busks a Matisyahu song doesn’t realise Matisyahu is right in front of him.
Dear Points of View, When will the BBC realise I want to watch Great British Bake Off NOW?! Yours, Disgusted of Uke Hunt.
The Olympics has pushed back Great British Bake Off (which is the Olympics to us fat people). So that gives you time to practice this arrangement of the theme. And never say you can’t play it. You can and you will.
This arrangement is in five parts. All very simple. And all but Uke 3 are played with a pick. Although all could be managed perfectly well with fingers.
Uke 1
Uke 1 is just a two note stab played the whole way through.
Uke 2
Uke 2 acts as the bass so it’s played on a low-G ukulele. (All the others are in standard tuning.) The part is just eighth notes on the open G-string all the way through.
Uke 3
Uke 3 is the one fingerpicking part. Alternating between the g- and A-strings means you can let the notes ring into each other.
It kicks off in bar 5.
Uke 4
Uke 4 comes in at bar 9 and is what I think of as the, “It’s time for baking,” line.
Uke 5
Uke 5 Tab
Uke 5 also starts in bar 9 and is the most involved of the parts. Even so, it’s just a few easy chords and some open A-strings.
Links
TheGreatBritishBakeOff.co.uk
Ghostbusters group tab
More TV theme tabs
What’s in it?
Tab for:
Aura Lee (AKA Love Me Tender)
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Hail to the Chief
The Liberty Bell (AKA Monty Python Theme)
Reveille
Taps
Yankee Doodle
How Do I Buy It?
Buy it on Gumroad for $9 until the end of August when the price goes up to $12.
If you prefer, you can also buy it with PayPal for £6.50 on PayHip (PayPal should convert from whatever currency you’re using without any hassle).
After you pay you’ll get a link to the download page and an email with the link. There you can download the full ebook that contains the performance notes and the tabs. You can also download a zip file containing individual PDFs of the tabs if you want to work with them individually.
What’s It About?
I love taking tunes as far away from what you’d expect of ukulele music and transferring them. And you can’t get much further from a humble uke to a pompous marching band. So I thought it would be perfect to take on a collection of American patriotic marching band pieces, Civil War songs and songs generally full of fervour and Ameritude.
As well as being some corking tunes to play, I wanted this ebook to act as a guide to different techniques for performing tunes solo. The arrangements include a full on strumming chord-solo of Battle Hymn of the Republic, tunes you can play with just your thumb on the picking hand (Aura Lee and Hail to the Chief), fingerpicking tunes and a mixture of many techniques (Liberty Bell).
Practicing a new technique within a tune is more fun than dull exercises and you have a piece to show for it when you’re done. For example, if you wanted to get into campanella style fingerpicking you could start with the slow and easy Taps, move on to the quicker Reveille then onto the challenging arrangement of Yankee Doodle.
Difficulty: Mixed. Some tunes are perfect for people new to solo playing (Aura Lee and Taps) and some will be a challenge to even experienced players (Liberty Bell in particular)
Tuning: High-g gCEA tuning. Some of the tabs aren’t suitable for low-G or baritone (Reveille, Taps and Yankee Doodle wouldn’t work without changes).
Price: It’s going to be $12 but you can get it for $9 until the end of August. (If you’re in the EU VAT will be charged at the local rate.)
Videos: As well as videos of the full arrangements there are also close up, slowed down videos showing the techniques used.
Performance Notes: Tips for playing each tune and a brief history.
What if I buy it and it sucks?
As with all my ebooks, if you buy it and don’t like it just send me message with the email address you used to buy it and I’ll send a full refund. No questions asked.
Remind Me Again, How Do I Buy It?
If you prefer, you can also buy it with PayPal for £6.50 on PayHip (PayPal should convert from whatever currency you’re using without any hassle).
After you pay you’ll be taken to the download page and get an email with a link to your download.
After you pay you’ll get a link to the download page and an email with the link. There you can download the full ebook that contains the performance notes and the tabs. You can also download a zip file containing individual PDFs of the tabs if you want to work with them individually.
