For a band that has a career’s worth of songs about lazing on Californian beaches, there’s not a lot of ukulele in their songs. But their latest album has a ukulele-heavy song and the uke slides neatly into the Beach Boys sound.

Also up this week is a blistering version of Classical Gas by sanfordandsong, some sound romantic advice from MrJnobianchi, Nicholas Abersold daydreaming of YouTube fame, Carly Rae Jepsen singing that song that’s all over the place and plenty more besides.

Warning: if you’re listening on headphones turn the volume down for Garfunkel and Oates.

The Full Playlist

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One of my favourite ukulele tunesters, Nicholas Abersold has released his album Porridge free on Bandcamp. It’s packed with top songs so grab it while there are still free downloads available.

Matt Kresling has made a travelogue about his trip to Madagascar with his ukulele and you can watch part one of The Madagascar Journals on YouTube. You may remember Matt from ukulele hits like The Beast That Swallows Its Young and Seventeen. And he makes excellent documentaries too. I loved this first part which includes him trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious death of King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho.

Lorraine Bow – off of the Ukulele for Dummies videos and LearnToUke – has released a book Ukulele Basics aimed at young folks.

Garfunkel and Oates have their own show on Comedy Central tonight (Friday).

Schoenhut used to make ukuleles in the 20s. And now they’re back in the game with a suspiciously familiar looking ukulele. UKISOCIETY has done a comparison of the fake Flea and the real thing.

On the subject of inferior knock-offs, UOGB rip-offs The UK Ukulele Orchestra are making their UK debut at the Edinburgh Fringe.

If you’re a fan of the real thing, there’s only a week left to fund the The Ukes Down Under documentary.

Also kickstarting is Joy Ike.

Tricity Vogue writes about ukuleles and women for The F Word.

Someone on Tumblr asked my advice on singing with a ukulele. I have enough trouble talking but my followers kicked in with some sage singing advice.

Most popular ukulele videos May 2012 – I switched this up so it’s the highest rated rather than the most watched. To take out the trolls.

Pictures: Creatures, I don’t know what this says but I get the message.

Jeff Lynne & George Harrison play ukuleles (via Ukulele Brasil).

UPDATE: Thanks to Peter Bulls for this translation of the comic:

“Here it is, I finally got what I lacked to be a true comic artist like Sfar, Boulet and the others… The unavoidable, indispensable ukulele!

At the start, you get the impression that your fingers are enormous, the frets are that small.

In fact, it’s a bit like playing guitar with boxing gloves.

(and after a while, it kills the fingers)

But what’s amazing is that, from the very first chord, you’re teleported to Hawaii. First class.

Then, you’re inclined to push on to Nirvana’s repertoire, like a teen that sits down with his first guitar… Hawaii can’t touch that.

*smash!*

(anyway, for The Mamas & The Papas, ukulele is fine as well)”

Following on from The Queen is Dead on Tuesday, here’s an arrangement of the song that kicks off the track, Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty. It was written during World War I and has a bunch of music hall features. Including the perfect opportunity to bust out your triplet strum in bars 21 and 25. Here I’m using this method:

Down with index finger
Down with thumb
Up with index finger

I’ve also given it a ‘whoops, have a banana’ (or ‘shave and a haircut, two bits‘ if you’re American) ending because I couldn’t resist.

It’s fairly tricky to play. But there is plenty of scope for simplifying. You can play bars 29-31 (i.e. the ones I screw up in the video) like this:

This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

As promised in the Hip Hop Riffs for Ukulele post, here’s an updated list of the riff posts on the blog.

The idea with these riffs isn’t to play the whole song or that the suit the ukulele particularly well. It’s to throw them in to your playing for a bit of light relief and audience recognition (like the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain on Orange Blossom), to provoke the ‘I didn’t think you could play that on the ukulele’ or just for shits and gigs. Because of that, the riffs aren’t always arranged in the original key but the key that suits the ukulele best.

Five Riffs Series

Acoustic: Roll Away Your Stone, Fly, Heartbeats, Fast Car, She Talks to Angels,

Acoustic 2: Day Is Done, In the Ghetto, Holocene, Put Your Records On, Hold Me,

Black Keys: 10am Automatic, Act Nice and Gentle, Tighten Up, Your Touch, Modern Times.

Funk: The Meters – Cissy Strut and Funky Miracle, Stevie Wonder – Superstition, Funkadelic – Hit It and Quit It, Rick James – Super Freak.

Grunge:Soundgarden Spoonman, Nirvana – Heart Shaped Box, Pearl Jam – Alive, Temple of the Dog – Hunger Strike, Alice in Chains – Them Bones.

Hip Hop: Jay Z and Kanye West – Ni**as in Paris, Dr Dre – Still DRE, Missy Elliott – Get Ur Freak On, Usher – Yeah, Panjabi MC – Beware.

Hip Hop 2:

Hip Hop 3

Jack White: White Stripes – Hardest Button to Button and Icky Thump, Raconteurs – Salute Your Solution, Dead Weather – Treat Me Like Your Mother, Tom Jones – Evil.
Manchester: Stone Roses – Waterfall, Happy Mondays – Loose Fit, Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart, Chemical Brothers – Galvanize, The Fall – Right Place, Wrong Time

REM: Losing My Religion, Shiny Happy People, Pop Song 89, Driver 8, Pretty Persuasion.

The Who: Can’t Explain, Substitute, Pinball Wizard, The Seeker

Single Riffs

AC/DC – Back In Black
AC/DC – Hells Bells
AC/DC – Let There Be Rock
AC/DC / James Hill – Thunderstruck
Aerosmith – Walk This Way
Alice Cooper – School’s Out
Audioslave – Cochise
Beastie Boys – Fight for Your Right To Party
The Beatles – Come Together/Day Tripper
Biz Markie – Just A Friend
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear the Reaper
Chic – Good Times/Rapper’s Delight
Chic – Le Freak
The Clash – Straight to Hell / MIA – Paper Planes
Cream – Sunshine of Your Love
The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry
The Darkness – I Believe In A Thing Called Love
Deep Purple – Smoke On the Water
Deee-Lite – Groove Is In The Heart
Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus
Dillinger Escape Plan – Milk Lizard
Dire Straits – Money for Nothing
Donna Summer – Hot Stuff
Electric Six – Gay Bar
Eric Clapton – Layla
Free – All Right Now
Girls Aloud – Love Machine
Gogol Bordello – Not A Crime
Guns n Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
Hanson – MmmBop
Happy Mondays – Step On
Harold Faltermeyer- – Axel F
Ian Dury – Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll
Iron Butterfly – In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Jay-Z – Death of Auto-Tune
Jimi Hendrix – Fire
The Hives – Hate To Say I Told You So
Judas Priest – Breaking the Law
Kasabian – Vlad the Impaler
The Killers – Mr Brightside
Lady Gaga – Poker Face
Led Zeppelin – Kashmir
Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love
Lenny Kravitz – Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Metallica – Enter Sandman
Metallica – Master of Puppets
Metallica – Seek and Destroy
Michael Jackson – Beat It
Motorhead – Ace of Spades
Muddy Waters – Mannish Boy
Muse – Plug In Baby
Nirvana – Come As You Are
Nirvana/UOGB – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train
Pearl Jam – Jeremy
Phoenix – Lisztomania
Pink Floyd – Money
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows
Rage Against the Machine – Freedom
Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name Of
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Suck My Kiss
Rolling Stones – Satisfaction
Slayer – Raining Blood
The Sonics – Have Love, Will Travel
System of a Down – Toxicity
They Might Be Giants – Older
Thin Lizzy – Boys are Back in Town
U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (Riff)
The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – Pin
Yes – To Be Over

A long weekend of Jubilee nonsense has put me in the mood for a song saying how great regicide is.

This is a tricky one to fit the lyrics against the chords. Morrissey’s lack of respect for non-democratic rule is only matched by his lack of respect for scansion, so they’re crashing all over the place. There’s a rollocking live version of it on the recent box set where he stumbles over the words. So good luck with that.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this one all the way through:

d – d u d u d u

Do that once each time you see a chord name.

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More Smiths

Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
This Charming Man

A Dylan cover from the Leftover Cuties to belatedly celebrate his birthday (much overshadowed on the net thanks to him sharing it with Maru). Also this week: Arborea do a session for NPR, the steam-punk Posh and Becks sing a murder ballad and Herman VDC picks up a timple.

At the behest of JimUke, I’ve put this week’s videos into a YouTube playlist so you can listen through without any interruption. If you find it useful and want me to do that every week leave a comment letting me know.

Full Playlist

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It used to be that you could only legally post covers of public domain songs to YouTube. But last year YouTube struck up a deal with music publisher. That meant publishers who opted would get money from cover versions and nobody would get in trouble. Which would be great except when Andy Baio at Wired tried to find out what was on the list no one could tell him. Which leaves us back in the situation of uploading stuff and hoping for the best. Ho hum.

I got frustrated with reading books and immediately forgetting everything about them. So I’ve taken to writing up a self inflicted book report when I finish one. Sometimes they’re ukulele related (Ralph Shaw’s The Ukulele Entertainer), sometimes music related Cultural Appropriation and the Arts and sometimes neither (Zimbabwe: Years of Hope and Disapir).

The Slack Key Show always has great performances – and I’ve featured quite a few here. Now you can buy a ‘Best of…’ DVD.

PBS documentary on Kamaka.

Pictures: Scenes from my living room, No job, Mr Jack, I disagree with this t-shirt.

New release: The Future Laureates’ Fortress Sessions.

Giving a ukulele a swirly paintjob.

The Guitar Riffs for Ukulele series is mostly packed with rock music. But I like to broaden things out a bit now and then. So here’s a bunch of riffs from hip hop.

Jay-Z and Kanye West – Ni**as in Paris

Riff

This has to be my favourite riff of last year. Which is really saying something in a year when The Black Keys released an album.

Dr Dre – Still DRE

Riff

This one works so well on the ukulele I’m a bit surprised he chose not to use one for the original. UPDATE: Thanks to Adam sleuthed out this interview where Dre says the riff is piano, guitar and ukulele mixed together.

Check out the song that inspired this riff Grant Green’s Maybe Tomorrow. Be sure to keep the chord stabs really staccato (i.e. stop them as soon as they sound).

Missy Elliott – Get Ur Freak On

Riff

This has to be the most most mashed–up song in history. I’m picking this with my index and middle fingers in a running-man motion. But this is one occasion when using a pick might give you a sound closer to the original.

Usher – Yeah

Riff

Perfect example of how effective a really simple riff can be.

Panjabi MC feat. Jay-Z – Beware

Riff

This one has been popular again recently thanks to its use in Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film The Dictator.

I’ve made this one way harder than it really needs to be by splitting it between the g and A strings. I just love the song of the same note played on different strings. In fact, in this tune I wrote I play the same note on each of the four strings in quick succession.

If, like me, you’re an idiot and want to play it the hard way barre across at the sixth fret for most of the riff and move that shape up when you go to the 7th and 9th frets.

If you’re a sensible person grab a pick and play it like this:

More Hip Hop

Mr B – Chap Hop History
Jay Z – Death of Autotune
Biz Markie – Just a Friend
Outkast – Hey Ya

Can you guess these ten ukulele players/acts from the clues given? Once you have your guesses, check your answers here. Then leave your score in the comments along with your darns, waahooooos and ‘how the hell was I supposed to guess that?’s.

If you hover over the photos you might get an extra clue.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Go check the answers here

Photos Via

Thanks to these fine folks for allowing use of their photos:

chrisinplymouth, Photo Plod, Tambako the Jaguar, kudumomo, itsbf, Espacio CAMON, SD Dirk, woody1778a, msmail, Hubert Burda Media, Simon Greig (xrrr), StuBramley, Benjamin Chun, eschipul, HeveaFan, PlanetObserver, iamtdj, foilman, Scott*, Jeffrey Beall, calamity1, paulswansen, slowitdown, Thirsty in LA, ?????????, bubjay, koadmunkee, mag3737

I’ve had a few requests for this ukulele song from Train’s new album already. So I thought I best get this one done before it turns into another Hey Soul Sister stand-off. Plus I like this one more than Hey Soul Sister.

If you want to play along with the original, shove a capo on the first fret or tune up half a step. But if you don’t mind playing in a different key you can just play it in standard tuning.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this pattern almost all the way through:

d – d u d u d u

Which sounds like this slowed down:

Main Strum

Do that once each time you see a chord name.

The only exception is the end of the bridge. There do d – d u for the G7 and G7sus4 and a long down strum for the G7′. Which sounds like this:

Bridge Strum

(If you prefer a chart without the chord repetitions here you go).

Twiddly Bits

If you can’t be arsed with the extra twiddles you can replace both Am’ and Am9 with the standard Am chord. And you can replace G7sus4 and G7′ with the usual G7 chord.

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