“Play something I’ve heard of,” a cry I often hear from elderly family members who are less than impressed with my Roy Smeck imitations. The fact is, no matter how technically adept you are, most people want to hear something they’ve heard a million times before. I suspect that, after ripping through the 24 caprices, Paganini’s grandma screeched, “Play that one off the cigar advert. You know the one.” Luckily, everyone recognises Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer.

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While at university – while the sensible people were out drinking, dancing and sharing venereal diseases – I was holed away in my room testing myself on Pareto optimality and trade coefficients with flashcards. It was, therefore, a huge disappointment to the geek in me that there were no flashcards online for learning uke chords.

Luckily, the wonderful and talented Jenny Flame has created some great looking flashcards for all the major, minor and seventh chords.

Uke Chord Flashcards

Simply print off one side of the pdf onto card, turn it over (being careful to check how your printer feed works) and print the other side, then cut them out (preferably fretboard side up). The idea is to look at the chord name side of the chord, play the chord on your uke, then check you are correct. Alternatively, you look at the chord side and think of the name. If you have a friend (unlikely as it is) you could have yourselves a game of flashcard war.

These cards are a great idea of Jenny’s. Be sure to join her MySpace group Ukulele Nation.

RISA have a spanking new site and a deal to distribute Ko’olau and Kolo ukes in Europe. To celebrate, they have launched a competition to win anything on the site. Anything, that is, except the Liberace of ukuleles and the combination surfboard-ukulele which I hope is in development.

There’s a dangerous shortage of ukuleles in the UK . So says The Times.

Metronomes are a very under-utilised device in the uke world – I know I could benefit from using one more regularly. Ukulele Tonya has added an interesting piece about using a metronome to her list of excellent articles.

Aldrine Guerrero has a series of ukulele instruction videos for you to watch for free on Iamhawaii TV.
Vote on whether this T-shirt gets made.

Obscene ukulele cartoon.

A ukulele love story.

Check out the best ukulele YouTube vids I’ve come across this week after the cut.

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Having been mention three times on this blog in the last week, this song has officially reached the status of ‘zeitgeist’. Amanda Palmer’s version has caused a stir in blogville; Julien Dore won Nouvelle Star yesterday; and, friend of the blog and friend of the stars, Susan Tobacco pointed me in the direction of the above version by Lady Carol.

The trickiest part of the progression is the G – B move. If you’re having trouble with it you can substitute in this alternative version of the B7 chord which is just the G chord with every finger moved one string closer to your face:

Suggested Strumming

Palmer uses this as her main strum:

d – x u d u x –

She varies it a bit so feel free to do that in your own version.

Links

Buy the Radiohead version
Buy the Amanda Palmer version
More Amanda Palmer chords

There seem to be a great deal of frightfully posh indie boys and girls emerging from London/Brighton at the moment. When the tunes are as catch as Jack Penate’s Spit At Stars there’s little wonder why.

I’ll forgo any in-depth analysis of the ukulele techniques needed for this one. It’s much more important that you perfect the Penate bandy-legged dance. My advice is to cultivate the look of a long lost Gallagher brother and study the Breakfast Club dance scene non-stop for a month.

Buy Spit at Stars for a reasonable amount in the UK

One of the joys of the ukulele is that you can play it anywhere. Often times you’ll find me on a Hawaiian beach serenading dusky maidens by firelight. But, while I take my portable ukulele everywhere, I often leave my portable brain at home. All of a sudden the girl’s adoring gaze will turn to the look of disdain and pity I have grown so accustomed to. The reason? I’ve forgotten how to play a C#m add9.

Luckily for us all, ChordGenie displays any chord you might wish on your mobile phone. Making dusky maiden mockery a thing of the past.

My mobile phone is too ancient to support such a feature (the phone company have been offering me an upgrade to a piece of string with a tin can at either end) so if any one has tried it out, let me know if it’s any good.

Download ChordGenie free trial.

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In the past uke-playing hunks like George Formby and Tiny Tim have been cruelly overlooked in ‘world’s sexist men’ lists. No Longer.

French Elle’s list of the 15 sexiest men (or palmara¨s des quinze hommes les plus sexy if you prefer) was topped by uke-playing star of France’s Pop Idol Julien Dore. He managed to beat off Jude Law, Brad Pitt and Justin Timberlake without even being old enough to grow a proper beard.

His list of musical influences is much more interesting than most of the people who appear on these shows. He name-checks Herman Dune, BRMC and Jonathan Fire*Eater but, of course, most of the songs he performs are rather less interesting.

Here’s a question for you: who’s the sexiest uke player? I’m voting for the geek chic of James Hill.

This week there have been some worthy additions to stuff I’ve already mention with more videos from the Belgium UkeFest and Taimane at her family reunion. But this week has been notable for two strangely compelling performances.

f3rt – 4:33

A note perfect rendition of John Cage’s defining work. The tune reaches a dizzying crescendo at 3:31 when he sighs a little. I love this tune so much I have it as my ringtone.

Ukulelia – Gsoffa wird halt Aberall

It takes either bullet-proof chutzpah or staggering ignorance to call yourself ‘Ukulelia’. When I listened to this the first time it was painful. Then I couldn’t resist listening again. I spent the rest of the day walking around singing ‘Suda, Norda, Osta, Westa‘.

Victoria Vox – Peeping Tomette

This clip has been up on MUD for a while now but it’s always worth listening to a mouth trumpet solo.

Amanda Palmer – Creep

Final proof that I am visiting the wrong bars. In all my years of bar propping I’ve not once seen a goth-girl with a flower in her hair stood on the bar strumming a uke. The closest was a senile farmer with sheep-dip in his hair who sang It’s A Long Way to Tipperary while lying on the pavement.

The Shane Victorino ukulele figurine I mentioned last week inspired him to great things. He hit a walk off homer at the bottom of the ninth (I have no idea what any of those words signify but that appears to mean that he did good). I hope you took my advice and grabbed an armful of them as they are currently going for anything up to $100 on eBay. Making the plastic figures far more valuable than the entire Fillies team.

Old Movie Section is a blog dedicated to charting the complete history of 1930’s Hollywood. It recently covered the divorce of Ukulele Ike and (just two weeks and a short scroll later) that of Jack Pepper from Ginger Rodgers. It looks like I was wrong to talk of Pepper’s charm.

Miss Rogers nee Virginia Katherine McMath, told a story of alleged abuse and misrepresentation on the part of her husband.

Ukulady tries to cheer up Paris Hilton.

Tofu Hut plays Jake Shimabukuro to a number of school kids. General consensus: boring.

Session tracks and chat from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain on Radio Foyle.