Slap my ass and call me Sally, I should have done this song a looooong time ago.

David Ivar Herman Dune (or Herman Düne for fans of unnecessary umlauts) is a ukulele hero and his Ya Ya album is an indie ukulele classic and his Yayahoni covers are something else. And, of course, he’s done a Le Soir Ukulele Session.

I Wish That I Could See You Soon doesn’t have a ukulele in it, but the fact he plays it on a guitar capoed at the fifth fret (putting it in the ukulele range) suggests he may well have written the song on the uke.

Strumming

When I strum this song, I like to use a bit of left hand damping. Leaving that aside for now, the strum is down, down, up, up, down. If you just want a simple strum, the song will sound perfectly good.

If you want something a bit more interesting, try it this way. Create a short chord on the first strum. You can do this by strumming down on the F chord as normal, then resting the ring finger of you right hand on the strings to stop the chord ringing (and relax your fretting fingers). Then you strum down again with the strings still dampened by your finger. After that, you can go back to your normal chord shape and strum up, up, down. Do this for each chord and it should sound something like this:

There are a few variations in how chord charts are shown. But, since they’re a fairly intuitive picture of what to do, it’s not hard to work out.

The Dots

The type of chord chart I use shows the ukulele fretboard as if it’s pointing upwards and facing towards you. The strings are the vertical lines (starting with G at the left) and the horizontal lines are the frets.

Chord shapes are shown by dots at where each finger should go.

For this G chord, you play the C string at the second fret, the E string at the third fret and the A string at the second fret. Wherever there is a ‘o’ at the top of the string, that means the string is played open (it is not fretted at all).

The Numbers

The numbers at the bottom refer to the finger that you use rather than the fret. So a 1 would mean you fret that string using your index/pointer finger, a 2 would mean you use your middle finger and so on. It’s important to remember that the refer to fingers not strings (often they’re the same so it can be confusing).

For example, the G chord. You fret the A string at the second fret with your second finger, the E string at the third fret with your third finger and the C string at the second fret with your first finger.

These fingerings are just suggestions. If there’s another way of arranging your fingers, that’s not a problem.

Some, such as this ukulele chord chart, show the fingerings within the dots themselves.

Xs

You’ll sometimes see an ‘X’ at the top of the string. This means the string is not played at all. You might need to rest one of your fretting hand fingers against the string (without actually fretting it) to make sure it doesn’t sound.

Barre Chords

Barre chords, i.e. where one finger plays more than one string, can be represented by an arch over the barred strings (below) or with a black bar stretching across the strings (like this).

Chords Up the Neck

When a chord is played higher up the fretboard, the lowest fret played is indicated at the top right (sometimes it’s on the left). In this example, the C and A strings are played at the seventh fret, the E string at the eighth fret and the G string at the ninth fret.

Text Chords

Sometimes, when I want to refer to chord shapes quickly, I just use four numbers like this 2100. These refer to the fret numbers for each string in the order gCEA. So the 2 means you play the g-string at the second fret, the 1 means you play the C-string at the first fret and the 0s mean you play the E and A-strings open. Giving you the standard A chord shape.

As its title suggests, the latest album from Magnetic Fields, Distortion, is loud, dirty and electrified. As a result, there’s no ukulele at all. Even live he’s eschewed the uke in favour of a bouzouki.

Nevertheless, no one can fully recover from playing the uke and Merritt broke his out for version of The Nun’s Litany on Fair Game. So, I had to work it out and upload the chords.

Most of the chords are fairly simple. The only potential difficulty is the quick changes between G and Gsus4. Here you strum down, up, down, up with all the down strokes a G chord and all the upstrokes Gsus4.

Download the mp3 on Fair Game.

Kate Micucci – Dear Dear (mp3)
Kate Micucci – Mr Moon (mp3) via her website.

MP3s no longer available – you can buy them on CDBaby

There’s little doubt of the link between the ukulele and comic actors. From Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, through Steve Martin to Adam Sandler and William H Macy. The latest in the list is Kate Micucci.

Micucci has had bit part roles in Malcolm in the Middle and How I Met Your Mother, and a less bitty part in ill-fated Four Kings. You can watch her performances on her show reel and it’s worth watching just for the model line. According to her IMDb, she also played the role of ‘less attractive girl’ in Campus Ladies. Only in Hollywood could that even be possible. Rumours that she plays Rico in Hannah Montana seem to be a half truth.

All of which explains why the video for Dear Dear is so amusing. Her ukulele songs, or at least the ones she’s posted on line, are light, fun and catchy. She also plays the piano and guitar and creates a more serious sound – you can give those tracks a listen and a download on her MySpace (Walking In LA might be the only good song to namecheck LA, I’m sure I’ve forgotten one though). But if you’re more interested in ukulele fun, she also hooks up with fellow thespian Riki Lindhome under the name Garfunkel and Oates for songs like F**k You.

UPDATE: Kate’s appearing in Scrubs as Ted’s ukulele sweetheart. You can find out more here: Scrubs ukulele girl.

Visit KateMicucci.com.

Father Ted Theme (Tab)

Father Ted is one of my favourite sitcoms of all time. I don’t think it made its way across the Atlantic. So, for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, it’s about three Catholic priests who are banished to a remote island; one for being so stupid… , one for being drunken and comatose and one for having church funds “resting” is his account. The series was co-written (along with Arthur Matthews) by Graham Linehan who wrote the equally hilarious IT Crowd.

The theme tune for Father Ted was written by, Divine Comedy man, Neil Hannon (who also wrote the music for IT Crowd). The tune was expanded to become Songs of Love. The song was later covered by Ben Folds, who added a rather fantastic Stylophone solo).