Charlie McDonnell – Exterminate, Regenerate (Chords)
My post on the adorable Charlie ‘charlieissocoollike’ McDonnell’s A Song About Acne proved very popular, so I thought I’d follow it up with his latest tune despite the fact I don’t understand a single reference in it. I’ve only watched two episodes of Dr Who (one set in Rome and one with Peter Kay in) and they were both unremittingly dreadful. I didn’t even get that it was a song about Dr Who until he explained it at the end. Turns out I fail at video games as well.
The chords aren’t the standard fare – there’s not an open string in the whole tune.
Suggested Strumming
For the intro:
d – d – x u – u
– u – u – u d –
The verse starts with some single strums then doubles up the tempo with this strumming pattern twice for most of the chords but once each in the E – F# move.
Turning the brilliant up to 11 this week are Sigur Ros’s Jónsi (thanks to Fivetide who drew my attention to his performance
on Lauren Laverne’s radio show last week at about 1hr44), Allo Darlin’ quoting El Scorcho at a band-bigger-than-the-crowd show as SXSW, Tricity Vogue with one of her handsome young men, Thos Henley and a selection of familiar faces. Read the rest of this entry »
No competition for the uke I want most this week. The Juke-a-lele is the latest addition to KoAloha’s Masterpiece series. Not as classic a design as the Sceptre, but that’s not going to stop me wanting one.
I’m not much of a banjolele fan, but I could go for one that looks as good as this Ludwig Wendell Hall.
This lovely tune from the Keston Cobblers’ Club got a great reaction when I featured it on the UkeTube. And Matt from the band was kind enough to share the chords and lyrics so I thought I’d write them up.
Suggested Strumming
For the most part it’s just down strums with a ‘d u d u’ just before the chord changes.
So in the first part the G would be:
d – d – d – d –
d – d – d u d u
And the C and E:
d – d – d u d u
The exception is the C in lines three and four where you just need two down strums.
Back in the olden days I had a fingerpicking mini-course available for people who signed up for my mailing list. It’s been unavailable for quite a while and a few people have been asking about it. So here’s the first part of it and the rest of it will be available once I work out what I want to do with it.
In order to tab fingerpicking, we need to introduce some new notation. The fingers of the picking hand are referred to as:
T = Thumb
I = Index Finger
M = Middle Finger
A = Ring Finger
The finger names come from pulgar, indice, medius, annular.
Each of these fingers is allocated to an individual string:
Thumb – g-string
Index Finger – C string
Middle Finger – E string
Ring Finger – A string
Like this:
As you can see, I use my little finger as an anchor. This stabilizes the hand. However, there is a trade off. Letting you hand hover over the strings will give your fingers greater flexibility and make it easier to switch between picking and strumming.
Once you’ve got comfortable with that position, try this simple exercise.
Here, we’re picking through the each string in order while holding down a C chord. When picking a note, your fingertip should be very slightly underneath the string. You pluck it by bringing your finger up and towards your head (or up and away from you head for your thumb).
Make sure you let all the notes ring into each other so that, by the time you’ve picked all the notes, a full chord is ringing.
You can see a video (mpg) of me doing this (first slowly then sped up) here:
Once you get the hang of this, you can try changing chords while playing it. Like this:
Example 2
This can feel like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time. But a little bit of practice and it start to come more naturally.
It’s must-read stuff for everyone, but particularly relevant for ukulele groups. It’s dispiriting to watch a group of ukers all playing the same chords in the same inversions with the same strum at the same volume for the whole song. If you’re just playing for shits and giggles, no problem. But if you’re playing in front of people, you need to put some thought into the arrangement.
This Too Shall Pass would be an excellent tune for a ukulele group to play. The chords are dead simple, it’s one big singalong, there are some twiddly bits for the show offs, plenty of dynamic changes in the arrangement and plenty of room for ideas.
Suggested Strumming
When you are strumming you can use
d – d – d u d u
But the most important part of the strumming pattern is when you stop strumming. Make sure you’re not playing during the plinky bits and the, “Let it go…”
Twiddly Bits
The most obvious dip in the dynamics is this little bit that comes in the verse.
I like to play it further up the neck for extra plinkiness (let me know in the comments if you need these technical terms explained).
These notes are also used in the middle section but each two note pair lasts for twice as many beats.
And here’s the little xylophone bit that crops up in the verse:
It’s a little tricky to fit all those G notes in – even using two strings – so you can drop a few notes to make it easier.
There are tons of ideas for extra bits of filigree for you to add as the arrangement builds towards the end in the vastly superior but unembeddable marching band version. You can use any notes you feel like in the C major scale or, simpler still, pick notes from the chord that’s playing at the time.
A great way to keep strumming and add some colour is to use octaves like this:
The site has been throwing a bit of a diva fit this evening. At the time of writing, it’s sort of back on line. But don’t be too surprised if things look weird, aren’t working or the whole site disappears.
I’m going to get some sleep and pray the interfairies take pity on me.
A big thanks to all the people who let me know they were having problems.
Richard Ayoade makes some great videos but the one he made for Vlad the Impaler is a whole new level of astounding. Not least because of Noel Fielding’s moustache.
The bass riff, of course, doesn’t work on ukulele at all. But why should that stop us?
Nothing made me laugh more this week than this video by Barbara Holm. I watch a lot of ukulele videos and, with the best will in the world, some of them are really bad. This parody is spot on (there’s always a danger declaring something to be a hilarious parody when you’re not entirely sure it’s a parody at all).
Up this week is Samantha Shelton (who has some veryheavyweightfriends), The Bad Mitten Orchestre, Marie Darling playing with both arms in plaster and plenty more.
