Transatlantique (sometimes referred to as Transatlantic) is tucked away on the Elephant Gun EP – which is pretty hard to find itself. The only place I’ve found it available is on on eMusic. That’s a real shame as it’s one of my favourite Beirut songs – and, judging by the number of requests I’ve had for it, a favourite amongst uke players.

The first part of the tune uses common Beirut tricks. He always seems to be playing that Fadd9 and hammering on to the F chord. Next up is the old descending note trick. The G, E and A strings form an F chord through the whole section. The only note that changes is on the C string (which moves down a fret each time). Don’t be put off by the F(2). This isn’t a strange chord you’ve never heard of – it’s just to distinguish the two different versions of the F chord that crop up in the song.

Thanks to Mitch for sending me his version of the chords. My version is slightly different. So, if you think my chords suck, see if you prefer his. You can find them on the Beirut tab and chords page.

More Beirut ukulele tab and chords here.

Listen to Transatlantique here.

Get on eMusic

If you were hoping for a Valentines song today, you came to the wrong place. Zym has a very fitting ukulele song for today. Go there.

I’ve had a few people asking me if I could put some of their tabs up on Uke Hunt. I’d like to keep the main bit of Uke Hunt for my stuff, so I’ve set up a new area where people can upload their own:

Uker Tabs

You can put tab or chords up in text or you can upload pdfs, midis or whatever you think people will find useful. Add any hints and tips people might find useful and feel free to include a link to your own website. It was set up for uke tabs, but there’s no need to stick just to that. If you have something burning to say on the subject of ukes, go ahead and say it and let people read it.

If you’re interested in taking part, check out the How to Use page then go to this page and sign up.

If you’re more interested in reading than writing tabs, go over, bookmark it or subscribe to the RSS feed and wait to see what turns up. There’s already been a tab of the Family Guy Theme tune by doubleclix, Arlo Guthrie and The Strokes.

You wouldn’t believe how many people turn up at this blog after searching for ‘wild thing ukulele tabs‘ and leave disappointed. Well, no more.

The song was written by Chip Taylor, later recorded by The Troggs but probably most famous in the guitar-burning Hendrix version. All three of those versions are in different keys (Taylor in E, Troggs in A and Hendrix in Ab) and, as luck would have it, none of those keys make for easy beginner chords on the ukulele.

About Transposing

For the most part, playing guitar chords on the ukulele isn’t a problem. The chords for guitar are the same as the chords for ukulele – if the chord is A for the guitar, it’s A for the ukulele as well. However, sometimes the guitar chords are awkward to play on the uke. If this is the situation, you can move the chords around to make them fit more comfortably on the uke. This is known as transposing.

The version of Wild Thing above shows the chords The Troggs used and is in the key of A (i.e. A is the chord where the song feels settled). It includes the E chord which uke players always hate. You can get round this by moving all the chords up or down the same number of frets so it’s in a new key. The most uke friendly keys are C, G and F.

For Wild Thing, the first version I wrote out is in A and this version is in G:

Wild Thing (Chords in G)

Since G is two frets lower than A, you have to move all the chords down two frets. So the D chord becomes a C chord, the E chord becomes a D chord and the G chord becomes an F chord.

There’s a very handy automatic chord transposing website that makes this easy. You just throw in the chord sheet, tell it what key you want the chords to be in and it’ll spit out the new chord sheet.

Michael Garfield – It Hurts So We’re Not Dead (mp3)
Michael Garfield – The Cartographers (mp3)

It’s not often you hear the ukulele coupled with keyboards, distorted guitar and crashing drums, but judging by Michael Garfield’s music, it should happen much more often.

Michael is something of a 21st Century Renaissance man. He’s an artist, multi-instrumentalist, philosopher, evolutionary biologist, raiser of consciousness and writer. Here’s how he describes his approach to music:

I have an insatiable drive to innovate, to integrate depth and technique, to grab you and pull you with me into awe – a commitment to intelligent, evocative, forward-thinking music that forbids me from settling into a comfortable niche. These songs are fingers pointing at the moon: that locus of mutuality, beneath tracings of persona and circumstance, where we meet in oceanic silence amidst the noise.

I could go on quoting him all day, but I’ll just give you one more:

I understand my own role as a musician and songwriter as it appears within the context of a unified and harmonic universe, as a gesture of the same omnipotent principles that express everything.

He has an absolutely fascinating blog covering topics from light to polyamory to the ‘exaptation of the guitar‘ (I had to look it up too).

But what interests me most, is his music – and quite some music it is. I think he’s one of the most innovative musicians around using the ukulele. The moment when the distorted guitar starts up against the uke in It Hurts… is just perfect.

And he doesn’t plan on stopping the innovation. He tells me he’s recording the first ever touchstyle ukulele piece (leave a comment if you know different). Touchstyle playing involves no plucking or strumming but uses both hands hammering-on and pulling-off notes on the fretboard. You can watch Michael using this technique on guitar here (is that the bassline of No One Knows mixed in there?).

His album, Get Used To Being Everything, is available to buy pay-what-you-want-style on Songslide. As well as these two uke tracks, there’s plenty to savour on the album. I was blown away by the opener Autocatalysis. And you can do your thing for charity by buying the collaboration album The Dream Is Valid – A Benefit Compilation for Kiva Org

He’s a fascinating guy and a gifted musician. Definitely worth keeping track of in the future.

Michael Garfield on MySpace
Zaadz Visionary Music

I get quite a few requests for tabs, but not so many are made by via the medium of blog post. So when Jason requested this tune in his blog, I couldn’t resist.

Yo Ho (A Pirates Life for Me) was written by George Bruns specifically for the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride in Disneyland (video and mp3 of the full story of the ride and song here). The ride inspired the film franchise of the same name (the first theme park attraction to do so since Barry Island: The Lucky Penny picked up four Oscars in 1973). Inevitably, the success of the film meant a redesign of the ride. You can see Johnny Depp taking the new ride and playing with himself here.

The tune itself is a camped up version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s already fairly camp Dead Man’s Chest. PotC did, however, inspire a more musically worthy project. The film inspired Depp and, director, Gore Verbinski to put together an album of modern interpretations of sea shanties called Rogue’s Gallery.

It’s quite a tricky tune to play. You have to play the same note over and over quite quickly. It makes it easier if you divide up the notes between strings (picking the G-string with your thumb). There are a couple of ways to approach it. You could strum the chord with your index finger (and pick the A-string with it too) or you could give each finger a string and pluck them all together (so your ring finger would be picking the A-string). The second option gives you more control but the first will give more rasp to the chords.

Buy the MP3

Watch my favourite ukulele videos of the week after the ‘more’ tag including Joe Brown’s appearance on Jools Holland. Read the rest of this entry »

Uke Hunt has made it to the top spot of Boat Paddle Ukulele’s Top 50 Ukulele Sites. A huge thanks to everyone who has read, commented and email. I’m chuffed.

John King takes a quality over quantity approach to his blogging. He’s just put up his seventh post in a year: A Strum Through Ukulele History. As you’d expect, this is no run of the mill, “Ukulele means ‘jumping flea’ in Hawaiian,” junk. It’s a fascinating, well research story of the ukuleles development with names, dates, places and faces. It’s a must-read.

Download a hat full of versions of Ukulele Lady on Dr. Forrest’s Cheese Factory.

Jake Shimabukuro interview and performance on The Bob Rivers Show and on Ukulele Spotlight.

Play ukulele with Jonathan Coulton.

The Colorado Ukulele Festival kicks of this Saturday.

AT&T uses the ukulele to spread the message of love (and buying useless tat) on Valentines Day.

Too Much Apple Pie offers up an mp3 of Phranc’s ukulele cover of Mrs Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter and alerts me that the song was written by the bloke from Vicar of Dibley.

Julia Nunes gets her hands on the prize and she’s not the only one.

Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra interviewed.

Some loosely ukulele related hilarity: Ukulele complaint helpline, Trixie Tangway, America’s Ukelele Sweetheart voiced by Kristen ‘Mel from Flight of the Conchords’ Schaal (you have to sit through an ad before you can see that one), Hawaii Chair.

Thanks to ukulele news-hounds Jenny, Andy and Amber for their contributions.

Ovation’s Applause ukuleles are probably the most popular electric ukes around. Ukulele4u are currently selling the new Applause Tenor ukulele. Personally, I much prefer the natural wood look of these ukes to the black finish of other models.

On the Martin front, there’s a Martin 2K and a Martin Tiple.

The most unusual uke up for grabs this week is the Harp Ukulele. As well as the four standard ukulele strings, it has four bass strings (intended to be tuned to an open chord). You can read more about this and other harp ukuleles here, see the photos of the first family of harp instruments the Knutsens, and watch Andy McKee pwning the harp guitar (as I believe the kids are saying nowadays).

Ukulele built by Leonardo Nunes son of ukulele pioneer Manuel Nunes.

Roland Ordonio Supreme Curly Koa ukulele: “Don’t sell out for a “dime-a-dozen”, factory, overseas made ‘ukulele like Pono, Lanikai, Oscar Schmidt, Kala, Applause…Buy Hawaii!” Meow!

If you want to play Street Spirit on the ukulele, just forget it. Impossible. Can’t be done. Having said that…

…if you make enough changes, you can move it from ‘impossible’ to the merely ‘too difficult to bother attempting’. With that in mind, I’ve tabbed out a difficult version based on the guitar part and come up with an easier version which fits more comfortably on the uke.

Difficult Version

For the ukulele version, I’ve transposed everything up 3 frets (so it’s in C minor rather than A minor). Here’s the first, and most played, riff in the song:

Part 1 midi

For the right hand picking, I use my index finger on the E-string, middle finger on the A-string and thumb to cover the other two. I’ve also put some fretting hand suggestions in the tab. Strictly speaking, the second note of this tab should be the G-string open, but this makes the right hand picking much more tricky.

The second little riff (“All these things…”) is a little trickier.

Part 2 midi

The G at the beginning of the bar is an octave above where it should be. Try to bar your little finger across the E and A strings for those notes at the tenth fret. Otherwise, it’s a big jump down to the sixth fret.

And the tab for the chorus:

Part 3 midi

If I was attempting this song (which I’m not, because it’s impossible), I’d just play the chords for this section (Eb, Gm, Cm) even in the hard version.

Easy Version

This first part of the song is derived from the vocal melody and the picking pattern.

Midi

If you wanted to make it even easier, you could strum out these shapes. So it would be 0033 for the first half of the first bar, then 0233 for half a bar, 0333 for half a bar and so on.

For the next section, I hold down a Gm chord shape and pick with one finger for each string (thumb on the G-string, first finger on the C-string etc.

Midi

For the chorus, take a breather and just strum out the chords Bb, Gm, Cm.

Here’s a pdf of all the tabs:

Street Spirit (Tab)

Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs

Hammer-Ons

Hammer-ons are produced by plucking a note on the uke then ‘hammering on’ a finger at a higher fret – making the sound of the higher note without picking it. You can watch this being done here.

Example 1

In tab, hammer-ons are shown by an arch between the two notes (with the second note always being higher than the first). These arches can appear above or below the notes themselves.

Here the string is being played open, then the middle finger hammers-on at the second fret (without the string being repicked).

Some tabs will represent a hammer-on with an ‘h’ between the notes.

Pull-Offs

Pull-offs are the opposite of hammer-ons. They are produced by playing one note then lifting your fretting finger off the string so that a lower note sounds. You can watch it being done here.

Example 2

The tab for pull-offs is also the opposite of that for hammer-ons. Again, there is an arch between the two notes but this time the first note is higher than the second.

Here the string is being played second fret, then the middle finger pulls-off the string (without the string being repicked) to let the open string sound.

Some tabs will represent pull offs with a ‘p’ between the notes.

Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs

You can have a combination of hammer-ons and pull-offs in a single run. In this case, there is an arch over all the notes that are produced by hammering-on or pulling-off rather than being picked.

Example 3

Read the rest of the series here: How to Read Ukulele Tab.

This series was derived from my ebook Ukulele 101: 101 Things Every Ukulele Player Needs to Know.