Dr Liz Price at the University of Hull is surveying ukulele players to find out how the ukulele might, “protect and enhance mental and physical well-being.” In my experience, not at all but…
I’ve tackled Ray Parker Jr’s Ghostbusters theme once before way back in 2007. But I wanted to return to it to tidy it up and make it into a full instrumental version for a ukulele group. Also because it’s a stone-cold classic.
This version has five different ukulele parts of differing levels of difficulty (including one that just involves smashing the strings in time) and each one can be simplified or fancied up as suits.
This part takes care of all the chord work. For almost all the song the chords are just C – Bb – F. You can choose whichever inversion of those chords suits your playing.
This part plays the riff for most of the song. For the intro and middle sections I make use of campanella style. Letting close harmony notes ring into each other makes them extra spooky. If that’s not your bag you can play the intro like this:
My original plan was to combine this part and the melody part. In the end I split them off so I could have the vocal part more prominent than this one. But the two parts are never playing at the same time so you can easily combine the two into one part if you wish.
The part starts of by plucking the strings with a pick between the nut and the pegs. It’s always high-pitched and out of tune up there so you’ll always get a spooky effect from it.
The intro spooky noises do include one additional uke. I scrapped a pick along a wound low-G string to get a bit of a creaking effect.
Percussive Uke
No notes at all in this part. I’m just muting all the strings with my fretting hand. I’m using two main patterns. The first one in the video I strum down right in front of the bridge to create a thud. Then up again in that area. Then and other down-up where the fretboard hits the body.
The next pattern is the same sort of idea. Start with the same down-up near the bridge. Then three down-ups at the fretboard.
The bridge strums do give you a good sound but they’re a bit tough on the fingers and not essential. You can also emphasise beats just be strumming more forcefully.
UPDATE: Sam asked for a combined tab so here it is:
I’ve written up a fair few Halloween songs over the years and have spotted a few common traits that make for a spooky song. Here are some tricks you can use to write your own terrifying tune or spook up an existing one.
Dissonance
The quickest way to create a creepy, unnerving chord is to play notes together that are a semitone (i.e. one fret) apart. Since the strings of a ukulele are tuned so close together it’s perfect for doing this.
Similarly playing chromatic notes (notes that are a fret apart) in sequence also sounds spooky.
The classic example of this is the theme to The Twilight Zone. Here’s an example that uses a similar idea:
Low + Slow = Suspense
High + Loud = Terror
You can create suspense by playing slow, quiet and low (or as low as you can on a uke) and build the tension by getting faster and louder. The most iconic use of this is the Jaws theme (which, again, uses chromatic notes)
When the time comes to release that suspense get as high, loud and dissonant as possible. Just like the shower scene in Psycho.
This example combines those two ideas:
Sharpened Fifth
Almost all common chords contain a perfect fifth note (e.g. a C chord contains the root note C and a perfect fifth G). Moving the fifth note up one fret you get a sharpened fifth (in a C chord you’d move the G up to G#). Because it’s so unusual an unexpected it has a very unnerving feel.
Similar to the sharpened fifth but this time you’re moving the fifth note down one fret (in a C chord you’d move the G down to F#).
This is known as the devil’s interval. It was considered so evil it was banned in churches.
The most famous use of the devil’s interval is during the octaves the very start of Purple Haze. Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter goes one step further and uses a flattened fifth and a sharpened fifth together (bar 21 of that tab). Perhaps those nutty evangelicals were right about Harry Potter being satanic after all.
This example is in C minor. It shifts octaves up the fretboard and includes flattened and sharpened fifth notes:
My Attempt
I had a go at using some of these techniques to come up with my own spooky ukulele tune and this is the result:
Holy Cribbins! Now that’s a comeback song. I managed to see through the floods of tears long enough to write up some chords.
As well as being incredible, it’s sparse (in the first half at least) which makes it ideal for ukuleling. Strap on a capo at the first fret and the chords are dead easy. The only chord that isn’t entirely beginner friendly is Bm. If you haven’t got your barre chords down here’s an alternative chord you can use in this case.
Suggested Strumming
Because the song is so sparse you can do just one down strum per chord most of the way through (or even all the way through if you like). If you want something more full for the chorus try this:
Note that you’re changing chords slightly before the second half of the bar. Here’s how it sounds:
I don’t like to break with regular scheduled posting, but I had to take today to flick on the klystron HV, turn the variable autotransformer up 130 and blast this one out.
Back to the Future (Alan Silvestri): Alan Silvestri wrote the score to all the BttF movies but he was clearly channeling John Williams for the epic theme music.
Mr Sandman (The Chordettes): This one is already a bit of ukulele standard thanks to the opening lick being perfectly suited to re-entrant tuning.
Power of Love (Huey Lewis & the News): The first bit of this is just switching between different inversions of F and C. It shows how effective just changing up inversions can be.
Doubleback (ZZ Top & Alan Silvestri): The only part of the medley that doesn’t crop up in the Part I. It’s the tune from the ZZ Top bit in Part III. It’s supposed to be the ZZ Top song of the same name although any resemblance is lost on me.
Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry. You know, Marvin’s cousin.): The climax of local rhythmic ceremonial ritual the Fish Under the Sea Dance and this medley.
Herman Vandecauter was kind enough to send me tab for his version of Franz Schubert’s Die Forelle (The Trout). It’s a great distillation of the tune and he’s made it work exceptionally well on uke.
I liked it so much I did my own recording of his version. In mine I used one finger per string picking. My version is quicker than Herman’s (because that’s what appealed to me) and more sloppy (because I’m a worse player).
Here’s Herman’s version:
You might notice a couple of thick black lines on the tab. I added those to remind myself which section I’m supposed to be repeating.
My usual advice about strumming patterns is to not worry too much about it and try a few to see what suits you. But some songs have strumming patterns so perfect they become its central feature. The good news is that you can’t copyright a strumming pattern (if you could Metallica would have done it by now). So you’re free to pinch these and use them as you wish. You certainly wouldn’t be the first.
Here’s my choice of the most iconic strums ever. If you’ve got one I missed leave it in the comments.
The videos here all show the strum played slowly at first (on a Bb chord) then up to speed (with chord changes where they’re useful). Some of the strums are complex so they’re shown using slash notation. You can learn more about that here and learn everything you need to about strums in my ebook How to Play Ukulele Strums.
Strum-Diddley-Umptious
Officially the greatest strumming pattern in history (according to the person who decides these things: me).
No nonsense and in your face. It’s the Meg White of strumming patterns.
Proclaiming Strum
d – d – d – d u
d u d – d – d –
If ever a strumming pattern had a Scottish accent it’s the one that kicks off I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers. It’s amazing that a simple two bar pattern can be so associated with one song.
