I think The Godfather would have to be my favourite film score of all time. In terms of recognisability, The Godfather theme is second only to Star Wars. The piece (also known the Love Theme and Speak Softly Love) crops up in all three Godfather films in a wide variety of guises. It was written by Nino Rota who also wrote most of the music for Fellini’s films.

By far the most difficult part of playing this tune is teasing out the melody from the backing. You don’t have to worry about it too much in the first few bars – the only accompanying notes are the 3 – 2 – 0 at the start of the third bar. But once it gets into bar six, they switch between melody notes and accompanying notes regularly. Make sure you listen carefully to the original so you know what’s what.

You should probably brush your teeth after watching this week’s crop of videos featuring Sweet Soubrette, Sweetafton and Sweet Georgia Brown.

At the behest of Howlin’ Hobbit, I’ve added in links to the videos themselves.

Sweet Soubrette – Cut-Up Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not often I get to do a ‘where are they now?’ on a ukulele I’ve featured in this section. A few weeks ago, I was admiring this Weissenborn ukulele on eBay. I’m happy to report it’s found a good home. It was bought by luthier Scott MacDonald. He’s patched up the uke’s rope binding and it looks good as new. You can check out the renovation on his blog.

Currently, I’m browsing for fretboard stickers. The fret markers on my BugsGear are less that dazzling. There are a couple of choices on eBay: turtles or diamonds. I think diamonds might be the better choice.

Enough with items within my budget. What I’m really lusting after is what is referred to as a Kanile’a Sound Monster Curly Walnut Soprano Ukulele. Great name and looks good enough to eat. In fact, I could murder a box of curly walnuts right now.

The Pahu Kani Superconcert is certainly the most visually arresting ukulele on eBay at the moment. It’s done up like the Hawaiian flag and has soundholes in the shape of the Hawaiian Island. Which would be handy if you happen to get lost there.

In the ‘can it really be worth that?’ file is this 1916 Martin 2M ukulele. It’s early, it’s got very white binding but the fact the seller was most keen to show off is that the stamp inside is sideways. Apparently, that makes it worth $4,000.

The New York Uke Fest is officially up and running. You can check out the running order here and read a dubious letter of welcome from the Mayor of New York here.

I’ve mentioned a few times that WeePOP! Records is officially my favourite record label at the moment. So it’s sad news that their podcast blog Not Quite Rocket Science is closing for business. If you hurry, you might be in time to cath the Ukulele popcast.

Speaking of WeePOP!, foggy ruins of time has an mp3 of Jacob Borshard’s tribute to the movie Cocktail.

Craig Roberson’s latest CD Houdini’s Perspective is out now.

seattlepi interviews Howlin’ Hobbit.

Ukulala adds to the ukulexicon.

Download Zach Condon ukeing out with Alaska In Winter on Let’s Sexy Fighting and Matt the Electrician on songs:illinois.

Why does the Church of Christ prohibit ukuleles in their song services? Amos 6:3-7 “Woe to you who put far off the day of doom… who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments, and invent for yourselves musical instruments like David; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint yourselves with the best ointments, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Therefore they shall now go captive as the first of the captives, and those who recline at banquets shall be removed.” I knew I didn’t like that God dude.

“So if your looking for impress your BFF wow that’s really cool kinda thing then I suggest “Fender” TM” electric guitar NOT a uke.”

Stairway to Heaven is undoubtedly the worst Led Zeppelin song there is and a strong contender for worst song of all time. “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow don’t be alarmed/It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen.” Nevertheless, everyone has to learn to play the intro. I think it’s in the Bible. Or maybe the Bhagavita. Something like that.

There are a few low-G versions of the tab around like this version on ukulele tabs. That version works pretty well on re-entrant and has the advantage of being in the original key. The downside is that playing it on a high-G ukulele shifts some of the notes up an octave – it still sounds OK but Stairway is so well known, it’s difficult to get away with. For my version, I’ve transposed the tune up three frets (from Am to Cm) to accommodate the notes.

I assume you only want to play the intro, but you can pick up the chords for the song on Ukulele Boogaloo. Those chords are in the original key of Am. If you want them in the same key as the tab, a quick auto transpose and you have the Stairway chords in Cm.

I’ve been bashing away at this blog for 11 months now. In that time I’ve amassed around 350 posts. That’s way too many for people to sift through, so here’s a quick list of my most popular posts (and after that some posts for people who are new to the uke as well as to the site). For long term readers, I’d love to hear what you think people should read when they first pitch up here so I can add it to the list.

Posts for First Timer Visitors

About page

Get up to speed on the blog. I’m completely OCD on posting the same thing on each day of the week. The about page will let you know what to expect when.

Tab & Chords pages.

This is what most people come here for. The chords start on this page and the tabs start on this page. Whatever your tastes, you’ll probably find something that takes your fancy.

Perennial favourites include Beirut (whose entire back catalogue I’ve put up), While My Guitar Gently Weeps (my entirely ineffectual plea for people to come up with their own version rather than parroting Jake Shimabukuro), and Sweetafton23’s cover of Britney Spears’s Toxic (YouTube classic). More recent hits include Yael Naim’s New Soul, Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger and Antsy Pants’s Vampire (from the Juno soundtrack).

If you’re desperate for more, check out the Rag Bag for some works in progress (sometimes glacially slow progress).

Guitar Riffs for Ukulele

Rock out with the world’s greatest guitar riffs arranged for ukulele.

Once you’ve gorged yourself on the archives, you can be sure of getting new stuff by putting your email in the doo-hickey at the top right, subscribing to the RSS feed by clicking here, or getting the latest posts on my Twitter feed.

Posts for Beginners

There’s plenty of stuff on the blog that should be helpful to the noobiest of ukulele noobs.

There’s a whole section of ukulele songs suitable for beginners. These songs usually contain just a few of the basic chords. To go along with that, the Ukulele 101 category covers the sort of uke knowledge that beginners should find helpful.

If you haven’t even got your hands on your own uke yet, you might want to check out this post about buying your first ukulele. It has a Christmas emphasis, but it still applies.

One post to check out is Ten Tips for Ukulele Beginners and if you want more tips, try my Ukulele 101 ebook.

If you’ve yet to learn, there’s a post here on how to read ukulele chord charts. A lot of the pieces on the blog are written in ukulele tablature. There’s a guide on how to read ukulele tab here.

Anything that I’ve missed?

Portishead – Deep Water (Chords)

Portishead doing a song on the ukulele? Surely an April Fools joke? No. True fact. You won’t find any April Fools jokes on here. I find scheduled anarchy rather dispiriting. I prefer to parcel out misinformation all year round. What’s the April Fools version of Scrooge?

As Andy pointed out, the song is a blatant rip off of Tonight You Belong to Me (made famous by Steve Martin in The Jerk). The chords move in a very similar way. Both songs use the chorder I – I7 – I6 – Iaug – I – V – I in the verses and head for the IVm chord in the next section.

There are only two differences between the version in The Jerk and the Portishead song. First is in key (and that’s only one fret different). Deep Water is played in the F position but tuned up half a step (or capoed at the first fret). Second, the Portishead version isn’t so well played.

The introduction is very similar in that it involves the sus4. Deep Water adds the sus four by moving from the second to the third fret on the G string. He uses this same move with other chords in the sequence later in the song. To keep the chord sheet simple, I haven’t written all these out.

Like Tonight…, there are a few little fills in the song. This one, or something like it, crops up after, “…self doubting again.”

And this little twiddle at the end:

If you’re reading this by email or feedreader, you might want to haul ass to the website and check out the brand spanking new look.

The front page of the site is now a lot less bloggy. But if you prefer the old layout, you can still read it as a blog here.

Take a look around and let me know what you think of it.

I’ve spent the last god-knows-how-long ankle deep in CSS code, but there are probably some parts that don’t work as they should. If you find something, leave me a comment. Unless the comments aren’t working. In which case, shot me an email.

If you tried to get on to the blog earlier, you might have been turned away at the door. I was up to some back stage technically jiggery-pokery (if you notice any strange goings on, let me know). I didn’t break the entire internet, so it went better than expected. So well, I’ve decided to tempt fate and spruce up the front of house as well. That might mean the blog will be down occasionally over the next few days. Or it might mean I click the wrong thing and send Western capitalism spiraling into turmoil.

Anyhoo, on to this Sunday’s theme tune. The Batman theme is an absolute classic. It was a bit hit amongst the surf crowd and was covered by The Ventures and Link Wray along with many others.

When I decided to have a go at this tune, I was a bit surprised not to find any versions of it for uke. A YouTube search only came up with Jacob Borshard’s hilarious Bryan Adams parody. The tune fits nicely on the uke.

The basis of the song is a simple I – IV – V progression; G – C – D. Each bar starts with a fifth chord. Then the fifth note shifts down and back up again. The strumming is just up, down, up, down the whole way through.

There are a couple of tricky parts. Firstly, moving from G to D. Secondly, the high chord at the end. I wasn’t quite sure what to use for the final chord. In the end I just went with something high and fairly discordant. If you don’t want to mess with that, a G5 chord at the end works just fine.

This version is half a step lower than the original. So if you want to play it in the original key, use a capo on the first fret.

My favourite ukulele videos of the week from Taimane, GUGUG, Ema and the Ghosts and plenty of others. Read the rest of this entry »