The Big Ukulele Chord Quiz

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 chord from the chord diagram (they’re major, minor, or 7).

1.
1

2.
2

3.
3

4.
4

5.
5

Chord Flavour: Diagrams

All these are A chords but are they A, Am, A7, Am7, or Aadd9?

6.
6

7.
7

8.
8

9.
9

10.
10

Chord Flavour: Listening

All these are C chords but are they C, Cm, C7, C6, or Cadd9?

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

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? (They’re listed in alphabetical order starting at C to make it harder.)

16. C, E and G.

17. C, F and A

18. C#, E and A.

19. D# F# and B.

20. Eb, G and Bb.

Chord Progression

Match the MP3 to the chord sequence:

a) C – G7 – C – F
b) C – F – G7 – C
c) C – Em – F – C
d) C – Am – Em – F
e) C – A7 – D7 – G7

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

Go here to check your answers

Lana Del Rey – Terrence Loves You (Chords)

Lana Del Rey – Terrence Loves You (Chords)

Who did Lana Del Rey piss off to lose out on the Bond theme? She’s been auditioning for it constantly for years and the theme to Spectre (the first Bond film named after a ukulele since Diamonds are Favilla) goes to a guy who sounds like an X Factor semifinalist.

She might not have a Bond theme, but the pre-release tracks suggests she’s recorded another top-notch album.

Suggested Strumming

The song’s backing is very minimal. I’d recommend keeping that for the ukulele and use just down strums (for extra moodiness strum down with your thumb).

Verse: One down strum per chord for the first line of the verses. Then four down strums per chord.

Chorus: Three down strums per chord. (Technical bit: on the first, second and third beats for the first chord in each line and the second, third and fourth beats for the second chord).

Middle: Four downstrums per chord for the first two lines. Then in the Major Tom bit do three for the Bm and G with just one short downstrum for the A chord.

Twiddly Bits

7 second ukulele lesson: Lana Del Rey – Terrence Loves You (Intro)

A video posted by @ukulelehunt on

TerrenceIntro

Here’s a uked version of the intro. Which you can play it like this if you prefer.

And a version of the You Only Live Twice style outro:

7 second ukulele lesson: Lana Del Rey – Terrence Loves You (Outro) #ShouldveDoneTheBondTheme

A video posted by @ukulelehunt on


TerrenceOutro

Links

Buy it on iTunes
More Lana Del Rey tabs

Ledward Kaapana, The pUKEs: UkeTube

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

Friday Links

Video

Pete Howlett talks to the BBC about uke making and his diagnosis with Parkinson’s.
– Another outstanding episode of Matt Kresling’s The Madagascar Journals. This time he’s made it to Madagascar and runs across a few players of the kabosy aka “the Malagasy ukulele”.
Nat King Cole does a terrible job pretending to play ukulele.

New Releases

– Uke Hunt favourite, Phredd has released a Very Best of… collection.
PUSHIN’ THROUGH by Craig Robertson.
– Lou Barlow’s new bari-heavy record Brace The Wave is out today. You can stream it on NPR.
– Garfunkel and Oates have a new album coming out next week: Secretions.
Emilyn Brodsky’s Folkadelphia Session.

Learning

– Test out your note and chord recognition skills with Toned Ear.
– Manitoba Hal has begun a tutorial series starting with Jambalaya.
I play the ukulele and it’s bloody brilliant.

Pictures

Pinup pioneers: the first underwater photoshoot (via @sremmala).
Ukul’ale’le.

Lil’ Rev’s wife Carol has been diagnosed with lung cancer. They’ve started a GoFundMe campaign to help with the costs of treatment. You can donate to them here.

Jake Shimabukuro is touring the UK for the first time this month.

David Beckingham – Tiptoe Through the Tulips (Tab)

David Beckingham – Tiptoe Through the Tulips (Tab)

Another tab by the always excellent David Beckingham. This time he’s rescuing Al Dubin and Joe Burke’s Tiptoe Through the Tulips from Tiny Timothy and restoring it to its former glory.

Links

Buy the Tiny Tim version on iTunes
Buy the Annette Hanshaw version
David Beckingham on YouTube
More David Beckingham tabs

Short Lessons, Ukulele Ratings and Tab Requests

Time for the traditional back-to-school “What I did on my holidays” assignment.

7 Second Ukulele Lessons

7 second ukulele lesson: Wiz Khalifa – Black and Yellow

A video posted by @ukulelehunt on

I’ve been putting up short videos with tab on Instagram (okay, they’re not all exactly 7 seconds long). Mostly of riffs and intros. So far there’s Drake, Ghost, Meek Mill, Simon and Garfunkel, The Libertines, Walk the Moon and Wiz Khalifa.

If you’re not an Instagrandma you can keep track of them via Twitter and via Tumblr. If you’re a Facebooker you can sod off back to your minions. Or I’ll probably be posting roundups on the blog at some point.

Ukulele Ratings

Over on the Ukulele Review section I’ve added a new star rating system (the old one exploded a while ago and temporarily took the whole site with it – that was fun!).

You can see a list of the top rated ukuleles here (by Bayesian average of course).

It’s a new system so ratings are a little thin on the ground at the moment. So if you’ve got a minute to spare I’d really appreciate if you could rate your own uke. There are links to ukulele makers here and luthiers here.

Tab Requests

I’ve set up a new page for collecting tab requests (using Google Forms). The info from that goes into a spreadsheet which is – I’m hoping – going to be easier to scan and pick out favourites than trying to keep track via emails.

The Libertines – Don’t Look Back into the Sun (Chords)

The Libertines – Don’t Look Back… (Chords)

I did not have high expectations when I heard The Libertines were getting back together. But after a storming set at Glastonbury and Gunga Din (quick tab of the riff here) I’m officially very excited.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this as the main strum for the intro, solos and verses:

d – d u – u d –

Play that once for each except on the last D in each section play this:

– u d – d – d –

Here’s how those two sound together:


Strum (MP3)

In the chorus: Do this twice for each chord (except just one down strum on the last D):

d – d u d u d u

Twiddly Bits

Here’s a uke version of the little guitar solo that crops up a few times in the song:

DontLookBack

Links

Buy it on iTunes

Summer Break

Time for a blog break. I’m off to aestivate for a few weeks.

If you want to keep up with me I’ll still be posting on UkeToob, Tumblr and Twitter.

Have a good one!

The Figs, Adron: UkeTube

Full Playlist

Jillian Johnson, ukulele player with The Figs, was one of one of those killed in the Lafayette shooting this week.

Read the rest of this entry »

Friday Links

Uke Go Girl! are running a GoFundMe campaign for their Summer 2015 Workshop.

New Releases

– Another lovely, tuneful album from Ukulollo: AWARE. Take a listen here.
– I really slept on badass, low-fi punk ukulelist S.L.F.M. when she was putting records out in 2010-12. I thought I’d missed out entirely but a new record has just shown up on Bandcamp: Perks of People.

Videos

Daniel Hulbert’s ukulele collection.
Ukulele feel good crap. (Thanks to Ron Hale.)
Jerry ‘The King’Lawler smashes Tiny Tim’s ukulele.
Chimp gets to grips with a ukulele.

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