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.

Photos: Dour women sit on a car, ukulele woman.

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.

In the comments: The 10 things that might be bollocks has provoked a lot of discussion. There were some great suggestions for additions to the essential snippets post which I’ve added to the post.

Episode 1 of Bosko and Honey’s Oz Safari.

London’s Ukulele Wednesdays is celebrating three years of jamming next Wednesday.

CTFxC is for ukulele lovers.

The ultimate ukulele outfit (thanks to Bartt and Mrs Bartt)

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:

Tune your uke down half a step to B-tuning if you want to play in the same key as the original.

In the Key-na Grannis

For her version of the song Kina Grannis uses the D chord shapes and is also in B-tuning.

Next week, Justin Bieber and High School Musical.

A few ideas for people who want to start making their own arrangements of tunes.

For this post I’ll be using Ode to Joy because the melody is very simple and you can play it against one chord (in this case C). Here’s the snippet:

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You’ll have to forgive any sniffles, coughs and hocked loogies you can pick up on these MP3s. I’m down with a nasty cold at the moment.

Melody and Strums

The most common way to combine melody and chords is to strum the chord and add the melody note on top of that.

In this case, we can strum the open g, C and E strings (make up a C chord) while we play the melody on the top string.

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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.

Check out Mark Occhionero arrangement of Blue in Green for an idea of what you can do with this technique.

Melody and Harmony and Strum

You can spice up the chord soloing idea by harmonizing the melody. Here I’m harmonizing with notes a third below the melody.

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Back-up Picking

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).

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There are all sorts of patterns you can use for this type of accompaniment. Take a listen to Rick Hulett’s arrangement of Falling Slowly for some ideas.

Alternate Picking

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.

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Here are a couple of tunes played in this way.

Which is the Best?

The one that sounds best to you.

There isn’t a right answer. Try them all out (and try it campanella style).

I’ve already put up two arrangements 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.

There are so many ways of arranging any tune the only way to go is choose the one that suits you best rather than blindly copying the way it works for someone else.

I was tempted to bust out some Boyoyo Boys licks, but this was the only choice for the Malcolm McLaren tribute post.

Twiddly Bits

The chords for this one are pretty simple, but there are plenty of opportunities for showing off as well

There’s a simple bit at the end of the lines in the verse:

You can mix it up with the little picking pattern Will plays like this:

For the general widdling, use the G major scale (there’s a fretboard diagram here) for runs such as this:

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.

Buy it on Live in London #1 or the Prom Night DVD

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).

Cheesy Joke

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If you had a drum you’d go ba-dun tsss. But you’ve got a uke so play this.

Phone Call

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I wonder how Tarrega would feel about his Gran Vals being one of the most recognisable tunes on the planet but only known as the Nokia tune.

Here’s an easier version:

Someone’s on the Pull Tonight

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You don’t have to be accurate with the frets here, just make sure you play it with irony.

Spooky

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Are You Trying to Seduce Me?

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Yes, I do have to work this one up into a full arrangement.

Grand Entrance/Big Unveiling

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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.

Sad Trombone

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Thanks to SamD for suggesting this.

Tied to the Tracks

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Suggested by Jodi and Scott.

Big Clock

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This one uses harmonics but it works fine playing the same thing without them. It just won’t sound so chime-y.

Suggested by turgis.

Anyone have any suggestions for other tunes that could come in handy?

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.

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The more I hear of Mya-Moe resonator ukes, the more I’m dying to have one. Particularly the lap-steels. There’s this non-lap tenor up on eBay at the moment.

Another name that’s been gradually moving up my gimme-list is Gibson. This Gibson Uke 1 is beautiful. At the other end of the condition scale, this beaten up banjo uke is charming.

Pete Howlett dreadnought.

What on earth makes this Texas Centennial ukulele worth two and a half grand?

Jake plays for Google, chats ukulele and – my favourite part – does a Q&A in this hour long appearance at GoogleTalks.

Ukulele April Fool of the year goes to this article from NPR about the discovery of demos from a very young Kurt Cobain including, “”Nixon Must Die (Or Resign)”… “Shazam!”; and the collection’s lone cover, a ukulele version of the Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker.”” Like all good April Fools, it’s just bordering on believable. The ‘news’ was still being reported as fact several days later.

Fluxblog interview Dan Kois about his Israel Kamakawiwo’ole biography. The interview is well worth a read and there’s also a video of Pearl Jam covering Hawai’i ’78.

Guitar Magazines realise what people really want.

Ugulele via Humble Uker

MP3s: Wisdom Tooth has a new EP out (and a lovely cover of Panic on her Tumblr

The ukulele bit on Malcolm in the Middle.

Elliott Brood on Uker Tabs.

Racy ukulele meets Mills and Boon action.

Misery Loves Sherman – getting it wrong on ukuleles and moustaches.

Pictures: Make a Wish, rock out with your spock out, ukulele, another graphical representation of Ukulele for Geeks (this time including me – yay – and ezFolk – boo).

I thought while I had my baritone out for the Jonsi tab, I’d do a long overdue post of Patrick Wolf’s Gypsy King.

The first thing you’ll have to do is retune the uke. The tuning is DGCE – so you need to tune the B-string up a semitone.

The time signature of it is a little tricksy. 6/8 is the way it makes most sense to me. But I’m not really to be trusted in such matters.

There are only two riffs in the whole song:

This tab is from the studio version which is slightly different from the live version above. In the blank bar he does a few pull-offs from the third fret on the E string. And in the chorus he just strums out the chords that are picked in the studio version.