I’ve been updating some of the chord posts I did back in the olden days when the internet was in black and white. Updating the chords, adding strumming patterns, videos and audio and whatnot. Check ’em out:
Arctic Monkeys – Despair in the Departure Lounge
Oi, 2016. If you could let me go a few weeks without needing a tribute post I’d appreciate it. Cheers.
Prince Buster was the king of ska and a huge influence on the UK ska revival. Madness alone was covered by The Specials, Selecter and, of course, Madness.
You can use the classic ska strum all the way through this one:
– u – u – u – u
Make sure those are chord stabs by stopping them ringing immediately with your strumming hand (there’s a guide to chord stabs and ska strums in How to Play Ukulele Strums). If you use the barre chord version of the chords you can make them chord stabs just by taking the pressure off your fretting hand.
If you’re playing by yourself though it might be worth beefing it up by playing a downstrum on the first beat and not muting it.
d u – u – u – u
Here are both those strums:
I recorded a backing track for this one. The first uke is an F chord played with a ska strum and the second is muted strums playing this pattern:
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.
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.
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:
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
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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