I’ve beefed the bass line up by making them into power chords:
And here’s the keyboard riff (before MES shoulder barges her out the way and starts pressing random keys):
And here’s a total screw up to illustrate the dangers of tabbing from memory:
The is supposed to be the octave stabs on the guitar (which crop up only briefly on the album version but feature heavily in the live version). As it’s actually played, ignore the last two pairs of octaves.
This one was suggested by Ben and Alec in the Essential Snippets post as a tune to play while waiting.
The first part of the tune, being in C, works really well on the uke. Then it switches up to Eb and plays exactly the same thing. Which makes things much more tricky. I’ve added some fingering suggestions underneath the tab.
Videos this week include Svavar Knutur via Ukulele Languages, Brett Domino bringing sexy and a host of fantastic instruments back, Kate Micucci giving herself a nap after confusing herself with tax terms (watch this video first if you want the set-up to the song), some nasty blues-funk from Manitoba Hal and Primrose with the least safe for work song I’ve ever featured.
I went to Belper Uke Gathering last week. I wasn’t there long, but while I was I got a chance to try out Ohana’s new resonator ukuleles. They’re very nice ukes. Well made, top quality parts, sound great. I don’t understand why they did that.
The problem is, they’re in the same price range as Nationals. The tenor will be almost exactly the same price as a triolian (although the triolian is a concert). Even if the Ohana is better than the National, I’ll still want the National because they have the story. They’re THE resonator maker. Their instruments were used by the great bluesmen and Hawaiian players of the 20s and 30s. Buy a National, you buy the story free and you get to play at Son Houses.
Ohana have a great story too. They slap together ukuleles in China so you can have a nice sounding, solid wood uke that won’t give you any problems at a decent price. That’s the reason I play my Ohana more than any other ukulele. But it also stops me spending a fat wad of cash on one of their ukes.
Compare Ohana to Kala. They’re in a similar area and have both been rapidly expanding the number of models. But Kala have stuck more closely to the idea of making ukes that are like expensive ones but more affordable. So they make the Acacia tenor for people who want to have a uke like Jake’s and the uBass for people who can’t afford a Road Toad.
Ohana don’t seem to have the same focus. If Ian Ohana had asked me what I thought, I would have gone with a cheaper, mass produced cones rather than the top, handmade ones they have. (All this is just what goes through my head – any resemblance to good business practice is purely coincidental).
On the subject of resonators, there’s this unusual ‘Resonator Fiddle Baritone’ on eBay.
Here’s a useful site that’ll help you transfer guitar tabs to ukulele. Obviously, it’ll take a bit of reworking afterwards but it looks very useful.
Eleuke USA are on a big publicity drive at the moment and they’ve just announced a new contest that starts in June. It’s the usual video contest affair. The big difference is that, rather than offering a uke, they’re giving away a pile of dirty, filthy cash-money. And a decent chunk of it too. $5,000 to the winner and another $10,000 to various other participants. The downside is that you have to use an Eleuke in your video (and, from my experience, I wouldn’t recommend buying one). That seems like it’s going to significantly cut down the size of the field.
Yes, I’ve finally caved. The endless requests, the hundreds of people turning up at the site looking for it, Ritek making me feel guilty about it, ukulele-tabs.com getting ganked. And then there’s the sensible part of me that thinks, “It’s only a damn song. If people just want to play it, why are you being such a dick?” My stated aim is to, “make sure everyone who wants to play an instrument does.” So until I amend it to, “make sure everyone who wants to play an instrument does – unless I think they have terrible taste,” here it is.
I have to admit, despite it having some of the most appalling lyrics I’ve ever heard, I did catch myself humming the tune on a number of occasions.
Judging by the video, he has the G and A strings switched round. So the B chord is actually being played 2324, the C#m 4446, A chord 0102 and E is 2444. The only advantage I can see with this is that the E chord is a lot easier to play. But I’ve written the chords up in standard tuning since I guess that’s what most of you will be using.
Suggested Strumming
The main pattern is:
d – d – – u d u
Play that twice for each chord in the verse. The only exception is on the lines that finish with a quick A – B change where you play the pattern once for each chord.
In the chorus, play the pattern twice on A and once on B. Then two down strums each for the E and B.
In the Key of F
The chords are in the uke-unfriendly key of E which is a sure sign it was written on guitar and hastily transferred to uke when they heard the bandwagon rolling into town.
A simpler set of chords to use would be in F:
Train – Hey Soul Sister (in F)(Chords)
Tune your uke down half a step to B-tuning if you want to play in the same key as the original.
To make the melody note stand out make sure it’s the last note you hit. So when the melody is on the A string use a down strum, when it’s on the g-string use an up strum. Because the melody here is all on the A-string, you use all down strums. I’m using my thumb for the strums and the single notes but for more complicated pieces varying your strumming and picking will make things more interesting.
Here we’re adding in a simple fingerpicking pattern behind the melody. The picking hand is one finger per string (thumb on g-string, index on C-string, middle on E-string, ring on A string).
Fingerpicking again but this time, rather than having a dedicated finger for each string, the thumb flips between the g and C strings. On the guitar this type of playing is referred to as Travis picking or Cotten picking.
Here’s a typical pattern with the thumb playing the g and C strings, the index on the E and the middle on the A.
And here’s how you could use the pattern to play Ode to Joy.
There isn’t a right answer. Try them all out (and try it campanella style).
I’ve already put up twoarrangements of Ode to Joy and neither of them sound anything like any of the arrangements on this post. If I was going to pick one for this tune, I’d go with the alternate picking. Which I never even thought of trying before this post.
In the run up to the first break create a bit of tension with something like this:
For the first instrumental break, use notes from the A Dorian scale. That sounds way more complicated than it is. The A Dorian scale has exactly the same notes as the G major scale. The only difference is the key you’re playing it in.
The end of the first break goes something like this (on a low-G uke):
For the second break concentrate on notes from the A minor pentatonic scale and throw in some of the other notes from A Dorian for a bit of colour.
The idea behind these little snippets is that you memorize them and roll them out at an appropriate moment to make yourself look like you have a quick wit and a huge repertoire (or make yourself look like a smart-alec knob).
Playing a grand fanfare on the ukulele is inherently hilarious and particularly appropriate when the thing being revealed isn’t particularly impressive. Anyone know where this tune comes from? The folks on Twitter were no use at all.
I’m not quite sure if I’m allowed to post Buke & Gass. The ‘Buke’ part of the name comes from the modified baritone ukulele they use. It might not be a ukulele but I’m willing to overlook the ‘4 strings good, 6 strings bad’ commandment because they make a wonderful racket.
Also this week: the welcome return of Howlin’ Hobbit with wonderful facial hair, a lovely cover by theicetray and plenty more.
