Wayne Federman – Electric Ukulele Medley

Wayne Federman – Electric Ukulele Medley (Tab)

Wayne Federman, for those of you not in the know, is a stand-up comedian and comedy actor. He was in Curb Your Enthusiasm, 40 Year Old Virgin, the uke-featuring 50 First Dates and a whole pot load of other stuff you can find out about on his website. He’s also a multi-instrumentalist and back in the 80’s closed out his sets with a medley of rock songs played on the ukulele. Wayne sent me an email asking me to tab it out and I was very pleased to have a go at it.

The way Wayne uses the riffs is the way I intended the Guitar Riffs for Ukulele to be used – for a bit of fun and to throw in something the audience will recognise but not expect to hear coming from an electric ukulele.

The Federman medley (or Feder-ley, if you will) kicks off with Hendrix’s Purple Haze. The riff jumps up and down the neck quite a bit and includes bends – which you don’t often get on the uke. Mostly, the bends are just slightly sharp rather than heading for an exact note. Next up is Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida which is much more straight-forward and uke friendly. That’s followed by Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. I’ve tabbed Whole Lotta Love myself, but Wayne’s version is quite different. Since he’s playing it for laughs, he makes the riff sound as wimpy as possible by playing it with just single notes on the A string. The medley ends up with a take off of the breakdown solo from Zep’s Heartbreaker. It’s the funniest part and also the hardest to transcribe. The timing towards the end is more comedic than musical. It’s a hilarious parody of the sort of pomposity Jimmy Page was guilty of regular occasions.

On the subject of parodies of pompous guitarists, StSanders has had his channel banned by YouTube after complaints from someone whose name may or may not rhyme with Yngwie Balmsteen. So enjoy the Feder-ley while you can.

All these riffs have got me in the mood to do another set of Guitar Riffs for the Ukulele. So expect that soon.

Visit WayneFederman.com.

String Bending: Quick Tips

In what was intended to be a very straight-forward tab for Crazy, I couldn’t resist throwing in a few bent notes in bar 21. I’ve had a couple of people struggle with it so I thought I’d put up a brief post about bending.

The Basic Idea

You bend a string by pushing it upwards (for the E- and A-strings) or pulling it down (g and C) whilst staying at the same fret. This raises the pitch of the note. It looks like this:

Technically, you should bend the note up one fret’s worth where the tab has ‘1/2’ at the top and two frets worth where there is a ‘1’. However, nylon strings don’t take to bend as kindly as steel strings so you’re doing very well if you can accurately get a two step bend. I usually use bends on the uke to transition smoothly between two notes. Using it like a slide except it allows for a slower and more smooth transition.

A Couple of Tips

Finger Support: Use your ring finger to bend have your middle and index fingers behind it so you get extra bending power. In the example above, I needed my index finger to play the next note so I’m only using my middle as back-up.

Thumb Positioning: Bring your thumb over the top of the neck. That gives you much more squeezing power and it can also be used to stop the g- and C-strings from sounding – which they can do as your bend will rub up against them.

Use It

Patsy Cline/Willie Nelson – Crazy
WIUO – The Israelites
B-52s – Love Shack
Wayne Federman – Electric Ukulele Medley
Brian Hefferan – Mama Bear Bounce

Iron Butterfly – In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Riff)

Before we get down to business, two time-sensitive announcements. Firstly, we’re hoping to switch to the new theme on Thursday so the site may be inaccessible for a while.

Secondly, a few weeks ago I post a clip of highlights from Annie Bacon’s Folk Opera. She’s got in touch to tell me they’re having the first full cast performance of it on Thursday March 4th at The Jalopy Theatre Brooklyn, NY. I’ve had a sneak listen and it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area. Now bring on the rock…

Time for another set of riffs for ukulele (mostly guitar riffs but one keyboard riff and one bass riff this time round). The idea isn’t to cover the whole song but to chuck them in a different piece for a bit of light relief or just show off in a ‘I bet you didn’t think you could play this on ukulele’ way. One change this time round is that the riffs are in the original key unless it’s way too hard to play them that way.

Starting off with one that should have cropped up in this series long ago (and did crop up in Wayne Federman’s medley).


MP3

The riff for In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is fairly straightforward (even more so if you use a pick). It only gets a little tricky in the little run into the chorus.

More guitar riffs for ukulele.