It is still sort of gettable. If you’re willing to spend £300 on eBay. And there is a 48 page songbook with the vinyl version which, I believe, contains the uke charts. There has also been a PDF that was for sale (containing the pertinent uke stuff but not the photos) but I’m not clear on where or if this is still available.

What You Get

A 100 page hardback book.

A two page introduction to playing the ukulele.

Chord charts (no tab) for ukulele above standard notation of the melody for all the songs on the album. The book lists Jim Beloff as the, “songbook consultant and editor.” If you’ve seen any of his chord books before, you’ll be familiar with the layout. The only exception to the ‘no tab’ is Waving Palms – the short instrumental – which has tab for a single ukulele.

Lots of very nice pictures of Eddie and his ukuleles.

A copy of the album.

The Good Stuff

It’s gorgeous: It is by far the most lovely songbook I’ve ever had. Even if you didn’t play uke, this would make for a very nice coffee-table book.

It’s a dedicated ukulele book: And there aren’t many around for contemporary stuff. I had a lot of fun playing along with the album. It’s a big relief not to have to work stuff out myself or try to find something accurate on the internet.

It’s accurate: It all sounded pretty good to me. Only two things didn’t sit right with me. In Longing to Belong it shows F rather than Fadd9 – I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure there’s a G in there. The other is the tab for Waving Palms which I had trouble matching up with the song.

The chart for Hey Fahkah

The Not-So-Good Stuff

There’s a lot missing: It is – apart from Waving Palms – just chords. That means a bunch of stuff gets missed out. There’s missing fingerpicking patterns in Broken Heart and Satellite. Missing filigree such as the solo in Longing to Belong.

There are some weird-ass chord names – which is mostly forgivable because Eddie uses some weird-ass chords. The strangest choice is the use of slash chords. Not really applicable at the best of times, but baffling to refer to 0010 as Fadd9/C (when C is in Fadd9 anyway) and 0220 as D/G (when G isn’t the lowest note).

It’s too nice to use: Being a hardback book, it doesn’t stay nicely flopped open on the selected page. If you want to get it to stay open, you’ll need to do some hefty palm-flattening. I couldn’t bring myself to do it and just used the PDF whenever I wanted to play stuff.

Overall

The book makes for a fantastic souvenir. I’m very glad I pre-ordered it. Not sure I would have been so willing to pay crazy eBay prices. But as a tool for learning it falls short.

What You Get

48 page book containing tab and standard notation for 102 licks (according to my count) of either one or two bars in length. They’re divided by genre (and within the blues section also by key). Here’s my count:

Blues: 68 licks
Country: 16 licks
Bluegrass: 16 licks
Rock ‘n Roll: 2 licks

36 track CD containing examples of the licks (usually four per track) and backing tracks to play over.

There’s a short guide to reading notation but you’ll need to know how to read tab before you tackle the book. There’s not much text and what there is focuses on uke history and players. So you’ll need to be familiar with how to play bends, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs.

The Good Stuff

Variety of licks: There are a whole lot of ideas in here and there are loads of really tasty licks. I’ve found plenty that have caught my attention and I’ll be integrating into my playing. The licks are spread across most keys (and most are movable). A few ideas are repeated in different keys, but the variety of the licks is very strong.

The only thing I’d say if I was being really picky is that almost all the licks start exactly at the start of the bar.

Good range of difficulty: If you are used to single note playing, you’ll find plenty here you can play. Most of the licks are very straight forward and there are a few more challenging ones.

Short on fluff: The book is very lean. The focus on the book is very strongly on the licks. There’s very little padding.

Good price: It’s cheapest on Amazon where you can get it for 10 cents per lick (don’t get me started about rip-off Britain).

The Not So Good Stuff

Not much explanation: It’s obviously not meant as an instruction book, but a bit more guidance in areas like fingering would have been nice.

Being an arrangement nerd, I’m really interested to know the thinking behind some of them. Like this very tasty lick. The book shows it the top way, I would have played it the bottom way.

It’s a bit guitary: Most of the licks sound like guitar licks transported to ukulele (and guitarists are mostly cited as influences). It’s fair enough being a lick library, but it would have been nice to see more use of the re-entrant string and some chord based licks.

The ukulele history bits are superfluous: The book is aimed at more advanced players so I don’t think there’s any reason to rehash ukulele history again. I’d have much preferred that space to be used to discus the techniques used.

Overall

101 Ukulele Licks isn’t aimed at everyone and it’s all the better for that. If you’re looking to make your soloing more interesting and you find yourself repeating the same stuff, definitely get this book. There are loads of ideas in there that will inspire you. I tend not to memorize and slavishly follow licks, but I always store away ideas that I can drag out and this has given me plenty.

Buy it on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Ukuchords

Price: Free

What is it?

Chord diagrams. Major, minor, 7 m7, 7M, dim, 6 m6, aug, 9, 7b5, 7#5. gCEA tuning only.

What’s good about it?

- Dead simple. There’s no faffing about with pictures of the fretboard. You just get chord diagrams. Easy to use – no unnecessary options.
- A range of inversions at various points on the neck.
- It actually has Em as 0432 as the default (most of the other apps here go for 4432). Which suggests the chord diagrams were looked over by a human who knows how to play ukulele.

What’s wrong with it?

- No sound.
- Not visually stunning.
- gCEA tuning only.
- No fingering suggestions.

Worth it?

I’d say definitely worth a download. This app should be all that most people will need.

Ukuchords on iTunes

Ukulele ChordKuma

Price: $1.99

What is it?

Chord diagrams for major, 7, minor, m7, dim, aug, 9. gCEA tuning only. With fingering suggestions. There are also tuning notes (gCEA only).

What’s good about it?

- Pleasent, simple layout.
- Nothing to confuse beginners. So no inversions, different tunings.
- It has an option for left-handers. The only app I’ve found that option on.

What’s wrong with it?

- No sound.
- Some of the chord names aren’t fully displayed: e.g. Ebm is shown as E…
- No suspended chords (which crop up more often than augmented or 9 chords).
- All listed as flats (so no indication that C# is the same as Db).
- Some questionable fingering. It seems to be particularly fond of barring. As you saw in the Ebm example, it used the 3rd finger for g and C strings rather than including the pinkie.
- There’s a link labeled ‘History of the Ukulele’ which just goes to the Wikipedia page for ukulele. Thanks, but I think I can find Wikipedia when I need it.

Worth it?

Not so obviously better than Ukuchords that it’s worth paying for. Might be worth the extra for left-handers.

Ukulele Chord Kuma on iTunes

UkeBank

Price: $2.99 (full disclosure: Chris, the app’s developer, sent me a copy for free)

What is it?

Chord diagrams with fingerings for major, minor, 7, m7 , maj7 6, 9, diminished and sus4 in gCEA, aDF#B and DGBE. With fingering suggestions. Sound of both chords and individual notes. Translation of various phrases into Hawaiian.

What’s good about it?

- Very beginner friendly and easy to use.
- Sound. Full chords or individual notes (but not the constant strumming you hear in the video).
- Multiple tunings but…

What’s wrong with it?

- The chords for both ADF#B and DGBE tuning are wrong. The ADF#B chords are written as if the tuning was FBbDG (i.e. a step down from standard rather than a step up) so a C chord is displayed like this. DGBE tuning is a step too low so a C chord looks like this. To confuse matters further, the sound for ADF#B matches neither the correct pitch or the chord shape.
- It doesn’t always show the easiest chord shape. So D is 2225 rather than 2220 and Em is 4432 rather than 0432.
- There are also some smaller niggles: I don’t know what the Hawaiian language bits are on there for. It would be better to get rid of that and replace it with a nut so you can see you’re at the bottom of the fretboard and so that open strings can be displayed.

Is it worth getting?

Not at the moment. The main advantage it has over ChordKuma is the multiple tunings so it needs fixing (Chris is working on it).

UkeBank on iTunes

UkeMaster

Price: $3.99

What is it?

Chord diagrams for major, 6, 7, M7, m, m6, m7, mM7, aug, dim, dim7, sus2. In high-G, low-G, D, G (baritone), Eb, A and Bb tunings. Made by the sheep entertainment people.

What’s good about it?

- Lots of chord options and inversions.
- Plenty of different tunings (although some weird options).
- Reverse looked up: you can punch in the chord you’re playing and it will tell you the name.

What’s wrong with it?

- The layout isn’t so easy to use (and it looks a bit ugly). And having the
- The chord options aren’t laid out in the order they’re most used. So the minor button is the 5th on the list.
- Lots of chords options but no sus4?
- Another app that doesn’t like open strings. So again Em is 4432 rather than 0432

Worth it?

It’s a bit pricey but might be worth a look if you’re expecting to be assaulted with some jazzy chords (or if you decide to play in a bizarre tuning).

UkeMaster on iTunes

UkuFingers Free

Price: Free ($3.99 for full app)

What is it?

Chord and scale diagrams. Chords: major, minor and 7. Scales: major and natural minor.

What’s good about it?

- You can see more than one chord at once. The app is in landscape mode and easily accommodates three chord diagrams side by side.
- Option to have note name, relative note (R, 3, 5 etc.) or just a blank circle for the dots.
- Chords and scales on the same fretboard. It’s an interesting idea.

What’s wrong with it?

- Difficult to use. Took me a bit of playing around before I figured out how to do things.
- Very limited chord options (more on the paid version).
- Very confusing for newbies. It tries to show all the possible inversions over five frets or so at once. They’re colour-coded but not in a way that I intuitively grasped. Unless you’ve got a good idea what you’re doing, you’ll be lost.

Worth it?

If you’re a beginner, stay away. But there are a number of ideas in this app that are worth exploring. It’s not a ‘me too’ chord app, so it’s very different to the other apps (for better and worse). But it wasn’t enough for me to shell out for the full version.

UkuFingers Free on iTunes

miSonata

Price: $1.99

What is it?

Not a chord app! A sort of Rock Band type game. You play along to a song as the notes scroll down the screen. Songs include Sakura, Aloha Oe, Canon in D and Fur Elise. There’s also a mode where you can widdle away playing whatever you like. They’re partnered with KoAloha.

What’s good about it?

- Fun little game.
- Nicely laid out.

What’s wrong with it?

- It’s not going to improve your playing anywhere near as much as actually playing a ukulele would.
- It’s quite fiddly to use.
- It’s not a game I’ve kept going back to.
- The ‘About KoAloha Ukuleles’ link takes you to a 404 page.

Is it worth getting? Not really. Get Rock Band instead.

miSonata on iTunes

One More Thing

I’m thinking about doing a few reviews of more general musical education apps (ear training, rhythm training etc). If you think it’d be worth it, let me know in the comments.

What You Get

125 very heavily illustrated pages.

Chapters:

History of the Ukulele
The Great Players and Personalities
The Great Ukulele Manufacturers
The Story Continues…

The review is for the 2nd Edition of the book.

The Good Stuff

Ultimate in uke pr0n – The book is jam packed with ukulele pictures (and ukulele-related pictures and sheet music covers). There’s a huge amount of fabulous stuff to look at. Some of my personal favourites:

- The most stunning Santo ukulele I have ever seen.
- Hank’s Eukadidles for the Ukulele
- Ancil Swagerty being the chicest geek on the beach.
- A 1993 UOGB grinning like kids’ TV presenters.

It’s made to be flicked through and stared at. And doing so is a real treat (this review has taken 10 times longer than necessary to write because of the amount of aimless perusing I’ve done).

Useful reference – I’ve regularly picked up the book to check a date, name or to to answer, “Where have I seen that uke before?” niggles. While it’s not designed as a reference book, I don’t think there’s anything out there that does a better job of it than this.

And, refreshingly, it has a section on the ukulele in Japan.

Coffee-table/toilet-side book – It’s heavily diverting and not at all taxing – making it perfect for those occasions when things are either going into or coming out of your body.

The Not So Good Stuff

Busy Backgrounds – I found it hard to concentrate on reading the book. There’s a lot going on visually and the backgrounds – sometimes photographs – make it tricky to read. Partly because of this (and partly because of the way the book is structured) I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and actually read it for a significant period of time.

Due For A New Edition – A lot has happened since the 2nd edition came out in 2003. The book is definitely deserving of an update and it feels like the right time for one.

Overall

If my copy was lost, eaten by mice or combusted on a bonfire of the vanities, I’d buy a new copy straight away. Definitely worth a buy if you’re interested in ukes (and I’m guessing you are).

The Ukulele: A Visual History on Amazon

I expect a fair few of you have seen Mighty Uke already. They’ve been touring the film around and it’s been shown at a number of festivals. As a matter of fact, they are planning a tour of the UK later this year so if you’d like to host them at your uke group send them a message here.

For those of you not familiar with it. Mighty Uke is a documentary charting the history of the ukulele and the current uke boom. It has interviews with Jake, Shimabukuro, James Hill, John King, Dent May among many others.

The DVD is released this month and Tony Coleman (half of the team behind it with Margaret Meagher) was kind enough to send me a copy for review.

The Good Stuff

An enjoyable watch: It’s a very pleasant way to spend 79 minutes. There’s plenty of good music, lovely archive footage, and lots of ukulele friends (and one enemy). By the end of the film I was dying to pick up my ukulele and get playing. Definitely well worth a watch for anyone interested in the ukulele.

The Shorts: Easily my favourite part of the DVD. There are ten little segments of between one and a half and ten minutes each focusing one group or individual (and one on Martin ukuleles). Outside of the film – where people have to fit into the narrative – you get a much clearer sense of individual personalities and motivations. So Taimane loves being centre of attention, Steven Sproat sits alone under a tree wanting to show the bigger boys that the ukulele could be as cool as Nazareth and Pink Floyd, The Langley Ukulele Ensemble are pulled from their beds and marched single file at great speed whilst spraying notes everywhere.

To get a flavour of these, you can watch John King short here.

Quoteables: There are lots of little nuggets in the film (many of which I intend to steal). My favourite comes from Aaron Keim: “No one ever failed the audition for the ukulele band then quit.”

The Not So Good Stuff

The Inter-what?: It’s a little unfair to criticize films like this for what they leave out. It can’t just be a long list of everyone who has ever played the ukulele. It’s an independent film so there’s not enough money for IZ’s music and it’s quite focused on North America. And some people just don’t want to take part (the UOGB declined). The fact that it isn’t comprehensive doesn’t diminish it at all. Except…

How you could possibly cover the current ukulele boom without a single mention of the internet? I realise I’m completely biased in this respect, but to my eyes the internet has played such a huge part in the spread of the ukulele that it’s impossible to ignore. If you think I’m too deep into this to recognise the truth that no one cares about the net, let me know in the comments.

One big happy family: The film’s central theme is that the ukulele brings people together and players love strumming in a big circle and all ukulele players are happy and well adjusted and if everyone played the ukulele there wouldn’t be any war and… OH MY GOD I WANT TO PUNCH SOMEONE IN THE FACE!

I’m a maladjusted, loner, bell-end and that doesn’t stop me playing the ukulele. Sometimes all this group-hugging makes me want to go back to playing the guitar where it’s acceptable, even encouraged, to roll with the badass-outsider/reclusive-genius image.

Overall

Mighty Uke is a very enjoyable film. If it’s rolling through your town, definitely go see it.

As for shelling out $30 for the DVD (or $35 for international orders), I’m a little more circumspect. It didn’t inspire me enough to warrant repeat viewings. But if you have uke-ignorant family and friends that you want to lay some knowledge on, get a copy and show it round. There’s no better way to introduce non-ukers to the ukulele world than watching Mighty Uke. And by the end they’ll want to play themselves.

The Mighty Uke is released on DVD on 28th September. You can pre-order your copy here. The Mighty Uke team are planning a tour of the UK later this year so if you’d like to host them at your uke group shoot them a message here.

Ukuleles

What size/make ukulele do you play?

I’m a fully paid up tenor-man these days. My favourite at the moment (by some distance) is my KoAloha Sceptre. But I still have a soft spot for my Ohana which I use regularly.

For quiet and electric playing I use my RISA. My EleUke sucks giant monkey-balls.

Accessories

What tuner do you use?

Mostly my ears but sometimes a Kala KC-02 clip-on tuner

What strings do you use?

Aquila.

What capo do you use?

Shubb mandolin capo. But be warned, it’s not suitable for smaller ukes.

Do you use a loop pedal/effects pedal?

I have a Boss GT-10 which does a whole mess of crap.

Tabs and Chords

What do you use to make your ukulele tabs?

Guitar Pro 6. I’m also using Sibelius (for the top secret Operation Exploding Carrats) which is massively over-priced and complicated for ukulele tabs. I’m beginning to loath it with every fibre of my being.

What do you use to make your chord charts?

I make chord diagrams in Guitar Pro. Then I put together the chord sheets in OpenOffice. I also use OpenOffice for the ebooks but I’m thinking of switching to iWork for both.

Recording

What mic do you use?

The most recent ones have been done with a sE Electronics USB2200a. I’m not a big audio guy so I want something I can just plug into the computer and have it work. This mic is great for me. Pricey but it sounds good and is very easy to use.

Before that I was using a Zoom H2 which is handy for away from the computer recording, equally suitable for use by idiots and much cheaper.

What software do you use to record?

GarageBand. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best book/place to learn this (and iMovie)? I’m still a Mac noob. Before that I was using Audacity.

What do you use to make videos?

I’m not qualified to offer anyone advice on this. I just use the camera in my iMac and iMovie.

Blogging and Site

What software do you use for blogging?

The site is powered by WordPress. It’s hard to think of a reason why anyone would blog using anything else.

Who designed the site?

The site and logo were designed by Ben Lew. Who did a great job. The theme before that was one of the Revolution themes. If you’re really hard core, the theme before that was Cutline.

What do you use to sell your ebooks?

I use eJunkie to sell my ebooks. They’ve been really great. Cheap, monthly flat fee and I’ve never had a serious problem (I can’t even think of a minor one). I started out with ClickBank and they really sucked. It was expensive and I didn’t want to be associated with the junk products that mostly use it.

Misc.

Things that no one has asked about and don’t have an obvious effect on the site but without them the site would suck or possibly not exist.

Online Storage

DropBox A must for anyone who uses more than one computer and finds themselves endlessly uploading to thumb drives. And free (up to a point).

Reading

I reread these regularly to make sure I never do something stupid like getting a job.

Seth Godin The Dip
Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance
Anneli Rufus Party of One
Steve Pavlina 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

Listening

This American Life

Watching

TED
Ira Glass on Storytelling Part 3 is essential for anyone who makes anything they care about (and dovetails with The Dip

What You Get

Tab and standard notation intended for high-G tuning (although 13 of them can be played on baritone or low-G according to the book) for

Ahi Wela (which you can download tab for on his site)
All Through the Night
Aloha ‘Oe
Blue ‘Ukulele Blues
Danny Boy
Dona Nobis Pacem
E Ku’u Morning Dew
Galiarde
Gaviotas
Greensleeves
Hilo March
Isa Lei
Kaulana Na Pua
Las Mananitas
Mbube (Wimoweh)
Minuet
Minuet in G
New Spanish Fandango
Over the Rainbow
Planxty Irwin
Pua Sadinia
The Ragged Little Flea
The Southwind
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Wehiwehi ‘Oe

As the title suggests, it’s all fingerpicking.

It comes with a CD with a recording of each arrangement (but no tuning notes).

You get brief guides to reading music and tab (probably not enough if you’re entirely new to them but a decent reference) and fingerpicking; performance notes for each piece and a list of chord inversions.

The Good Stuff

Perfect for Intermediates: I think this is the best book around for intermediate players who are experienced with chords and want to start tackling fingerpicking pieces. Each track has some performance notes that are going to offer you some guidance.

And the tunes are arranged fairly simply.

There’s a lot of crossover between the tunes in this book and those in, the more advanced, John King’s Classical Ukulele. They make for an interesting comparison. Here are the opening bars of Greensleeves arranged in Fingerstyle Solos (at the top) and Classical Ukulele (at the bottom) in the same key.

Mark Nelson’s version is much easier to play but less elegant.

Mbube (aka Wimoweh aka The Lion Sleeps Tonight) and Over the Rainbow: Easily my two favourite arrangements in the book. Over the Rainbow is particularly useful for occasions when someone you want to impress requests it.

FYI: Using Over the Rainbow to impress a potential suitor: acceptable. Using I’m Yours or Hey, Soul Sister to impress a potential suitor: entirely unacceptable. Using Wimoweh to impress a potential suitor: very much encouraged.

The Not So Good Stuff

Lack of Variety: You might have noticed I like to play uptempo tunes. Unfortunately, Fingerstyle Solos for ‘Ukulele is very heavy towards the slow, light tunes. There’s very little fast tempo stuff.

Not always carefully arranged: Some of the position choices in the book completely baffle me. For example, here are the opening notes for Planxty Irwin:

I can’t see any reason for that big jump between 3rd and 8th fret when you could play the C note much more easily on the g or E strings.

I have found myself rearranging a lot of the tunes in the book to suit my own style. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Overall

Definitely a recommended book for people looking to start of fingerpicking. Also a lot of fun to use as a basis for your own arrangements of tunes.

You can get a free arrangement from the book on his site.

Buy it on Amazon

This is my personal choice. So, if you think I’m an idiot, let me know what I’ve left out (or shouldn’t have included) in the comments and why it deserves to be here.

In no particular order:

James Hill – A Flying Leap

He’s got more tasteful and understated with his recent albums but I love this one for its spirit of , “Hey, Mum, look how high I can swing.” There’s an unrelenting enthusiasm to the entire album. Tunes like Uke Talk and Down Rideau Canal blast along like he’s desperate to play every note on the uke in as short a time as possible. He’s got total command of his ukulele and he’s enjoying every second of it.

With highly skilled players of any instrument there’s a tendency to sacrifice enjoyable tunes for technical wizardry but A Flying Leap doesn’t fall into that trap. Even a quite pretentious idea like the One Small Suite for ‘Ukulele is packed with hummable tunes.

James hasn’t made any secret of the fact he’s a bit jaded with the ukulele at the moment and, really, where do you go after an album like this?

Standout Track: Down Rideau Canal
Buy It: On Amazon
Play: Uke Talk, Skipping Stone and Song for Cheri on Dominator
Read: James Hill interview

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Live in London #1 and #2

If you tour for 25 years, you tend to become a pretty good live act. And there’s no doubt that the UOGB are best experienced live (they’re currently up there with Dillinger Escape Plan and AC/DC as my favourite gigs). These two albums pack in all the hits (with the merciful exception of Smells Like Teen Spirit) along with the atmosphere and jokes as old as the band.

As a nerd, what fascinates me about these records are the arrangements. Most uke groups just have most people strumming the same chord while a couple of flash-Harry’s have at it. But their arrangements are crafted.

Standout Track: Just one? Hot Tamales
Buy It: On their website.
Play: Shaft, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Anarchy in the UK, They’re Red Hot.
Read: Will Grove White interview

tUnE-YaRdS – BiRd-BrAiNs

If someone had asked me a few years ago what I’d most like to hear I’d probably have said, “MIA covering Frank Zappa on a ukulele,” and I would be imagining something a lot like tuNE-yArdDS. Connecting TUne-YArds to those to is the masses of ideas they cram in each track and their ability to combine sometimes wildly avant-guard sounds to make something enjoyable, listenable and popular.

Standout Track: Hatari
Buy It: On Amazon
Play: Hatari
Read: UkeToob’s interview with Tune-Yards.

Miss Jess – Jammin’ at Jackson’s

The Luddite part of me thinks every album should be made this way. Write some great songs, get together a bunch of great musicians, sit them around a single mic and give them a day to produce something incredible. Miss Jess followed that tactic and it paid off spectacularly with this record.

Standout Track: Philadelphia
Buy It: On Amazon
Read: Miss Jess interview

The Bobby McGee’s – S’Amuser Com Des Fous

I liked this EP so much I bought it on vinyl despite not having a record player.

Standout Track: When Father Died Ferrets Licked Away the Tears (aka Forever and a Day).
Buy it: On iTunes
Play: Forever and a Day
Read: Bobby McGee’s interview

Jake Shimabukuro – Gently Weeps

Jake Shimabukuro is idolised by many ukers for his individuality and originality. Which is why they try to play like him.

After the effects- and instrument- heavy Dragon, Gently Weeps is much more open and direct. Other instruments don’t get a look in until towards the end (where they make the sound much more cheesy). The album is the perfect showcase for Jake’s ability and contains some captivating performances.

Jake has such an individual and recognisable style it’s a shame that he inspires more people to imitate him than he inspires to find their own style.

Standout track: No one agrees with me on this but my favourite is Grandma’s Groove.
Buy It: On Amazon

Beirut – Gulag Orkestar

“Yeah, I’m in a band. I play guitar. And Billy’s on drums. And Mike on bass.” Oh, piss off.

With all the incredible instruments in the world it baffles me why 95% of bands just stick with the obvious. By the simple expedient of using brass, ukuleles and accordions, Zach Condon makes music far more interesting and captivating than most of his contemporaries.

Standout Track: Elephant Gun.
Buy it: On Amazon
Play: Beirut tabs and chords

Sophie Madeleine – Life, Love, Ukulele

It’s tricky writing songs that are timeless without being retro. It helps to be an impossibly talented songwriter. And that voice. Being something of a white-trash thug myself, I can’t resist the posh voice.

Standout Track: Take Your Love With Me
Buy It: On Bandcamp
Play: I Just Can’t Stop Myself (Writing Love Songs About You), Take Your Love With Me (The Ukulele Song) (Chords), The Knitting Song, You Are My Favourite
Read: Sophie Madeleine interview.

Specifications

Size: Tenor
Construction: Solid Koa
Frets: 20 (comfortably playable: 17)
Fretboard Koa
Nut and Bridge: TUSQ (man-made ivory substitute)
Neck: Koa
Tuners: Grover geared tuners.
Finish: Gloss.

Strum Test

Sister Kate

Picking Test

MP3

Craig Robertson – Staten Island Slide

Sustain Test

MP3

C-string open. A-string 3rd fret. A-string 15th.

Intonation Test

MP3

12th fret harmonics followed by 12th fret fretted.

The Good Stuff

Playability: My Flying V experiences have taught me to be wary of unusual shapes. So I had some trepidation picking up a Sceptre. But it immediately felt very comfortable to play. Sitting down my arm naturally rests on the first curve and standing on the second. The beveled edges are a nice touch too.

The action is perfect for me. It’s very easy to play and doesn’t create too many buzzes and flubs even with my sloppy playing.

Construction: Flawless as far as I can tell. No fudging or corners cut.

Volume: Alvin Okami makes a big deal about the volume of the Sceptre. And he’s right to. It’s very loud. But he demonstrates the volume by playing loud. Which isn’t when you notice it most. It’s when you’re not playing loud that you really notice the response. When you’re fingerpicking on it you don’t have to force it to get decent volume. You can play very softly and still hear it. Which gives you a lot of dynamic range to play with.

Look: It is one sexy plank of wood. It’s not to everyone’s taste. But I love it.

Smell: Light and sweet.

The Not So Good Stuff

Hmm. There’s not much I don’t like about it. If I’m being really harsh, the tone of it isn’t very rich and I’m not completely sold on the koa fretboard. The shape does cause some storage issues and renders most stands useless.

That’s about it.

Comparison

After yesterday’s discussions, I decided to do a Sceptre version of Carmina Burana to compare to the Ohana version. I tried to keep everything else the same – even the shirt (thus provoking more “you looser does you only has one shirt lol” comments).

Ohana Version
Sceptre Version

The extra volume does distort the Sceptre version (although to be fair, I was closer to the mic). The main thing that strikes me is how clearly the higher notes sound compared to the Ohana. And it was certainly much easier to play up there.

Conclusion

I love it. Right now I want to redo every video I’ve ever made with this ukulele.

I avoided watching Ralph Shaw’s Essential Strums for Ukulele for a very long time. I knew I was going to be writing my own guide to strumming and I didn’t want to be unduly influenced by it. The problem was I had nothing to tell the people who asked me if it was any good. So now I’ve finally got round to watching it I can let you in on my opinions.

What You Get

A 1 hour, 33 minute DVD covering basic strumming technique and strumming patterns in the following styles:

Strums: Common, March, Waltz, Blues, Triplets, Bossa Nova, Reggae, Swing, Samba, Bo Diddley, Frailing (Clawhammer), Syncopated (Split Stroke).

Songs: Take Me Home Country Roads, Mister Sun, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Kiss Me Once, Rolling Down the Hill, The Girl from Ipanema, Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World, The Darktown Strutters Ball, A Song to Bring Back Something Which is Lost. I’m Happy, Let Me Sing You a Country Song.

You also get two booklets: a chord chart and one with notation for the strums and song sheets.

The Good Stuff

Very Clearly Explained: The big question you ask yourself before you buy a uke DVDs is, “Is there’s anything here I couldn’t pick up on YouTube?” On this DVD, there isn’t. The big difference is that it’s much more clearly explained here. There are plenty of video tutorials on clawhammer and the split stroke. But this is more clear than any I’ve seen. And he’s also demonstrating good technique which isn’t always the case with YT tutorials.

Ralph is adorable: The DVD is very easy to watch and Ralph is a friendly and charming teacher. It’s enough to forgive him for the shirt and the strange chalk picture in the background.

Good range of difficulty: Takes from the absolute basics up to complex stuff like clawhammer and split-strokes. Although it’s heavily slanted towards beginners, most people will pick up something from it. He’s convinced me to have a proper go at getting the clawhammer technique down (which I hadn’t had much interest in previously).

The Not So Good Stuff

He doesn’t teach you how to fish: If you’re looking for a deeper understanding of rhythm and strums, this isn’t for you. The DVD doesn’t equip you with the skills to adapt the patterns he gives you, to understand how strumming patterns fit within songs or to decide which strumming patterns to use yourself.

Booklet: The booklet could be a bit more helpful. It uses guitar picking notation for the strums which isn’t very intuitive or easy to read and is inadequate for more complex stuff like triplets, clawhammer and split stroke. The song sheets in the booklet don’t have chord diagrams with them.

It’s a DVD: I’ve moaned about this before. DVDs make it hard to go over the bits you’re interested in and skip past the stuff you know already. It leads to a lot of shuttling back and forth trying to find things. For example, he carefully explains all the chords he uses – even the most basic. Which drags a bit and is probably familiar to most people using the DVD.

Overall

I’d say it was a worthwhile purchase for beginners and anyone concerned about their strumming technique. It’s clearly taught and will give you a solid technique. But there’s not enough here to justify the price tag for more advanced players.