Shigeto Takahashi – Goofus (Links fixed)

Shigeto Takahahi – Peanut Vendor

Shigeto Takahashi went down a storm when he played the New York Uke Fest this year. Michael DaSilva was so impressed that he has decided to sponser him with a DaSilva soprano.

After I mentioned him in an earlier post, Shigeto got in touch with me and was kind enough to point me towards his mp3s and to answer a few questions.

What made you want to play the ukulele?

The famous Japanese comedian Takagi Boo played ukulele. The pure sound moved me and I started playing ukulele to share the sound many people.

Who are your musical inspirations? Which ukulele players do you admire?

My ukulele and life mentor is Takuji Mori. His teacher is Haruhiko Haida from Hawaii. My favorite musician is Japanese pianist Fujiko Hemming and my ukulele hero has been Herb Ohta for 15 years.

Haruhiko Haida, it should be pointed out, almost singlehandedly introduced the ukulele to Japan and was the first person to record Herb Ohta.

Did you enjoy playing at the New York Uke Fest?

I enjoyed playing at NYUF very much. I also performed in a cafe and in the NY street too. Some people just passed without me, some people smiled and said, “Thank you,” to me, some gave me tip. When I played the old American song Goofus, an old couple stopped and gave me a tip. I saw the tears in the lady’s eyes. She said they ware musicians too. I was so impressed. I’ll never forget them: her tears.

You can hear more of Shigeto’s music, as well as see pictures and videos, here

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (midi)

As well as inspiring a gaggle of ukulele orchestras, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain also have a habit of inspiring reviewers. The Independent called them the, “anarcho-syndicalists of the ukelele world,” and John L Walters referred to them as a, “band that appeals to the dispossessed, alienated audience stranded between the Scylla of crass commerciality and the Charybdis of half-baked obscurantism.” No wonder the audience are stranded; neither ‘the Scylla of crass commerciality’ nor ‘Charybdis of half-baked obscurantism’ could be found by my SatNav.

The UOGB’s performance of Ennio Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly appears on their live DVD Anarchy in the Ukulele. I haven’t tabbed out the tune exactly as they play it – I felt you might not have half a dozen uke players and a bassist to hand. This version is arranged for solo ukulele.

The most challenging part of the piece is bars 19 and 20. The version I’ve gone with in the tab is the one I like. It sounds great (I like close harmony notes ringing into each other) and is the smoothest transition down the neck. But it isn’t easy. The fingering suggestions under the tab should help you out a little.

A (slightly) easier way to play it is this:

It’s still tricky.

Buy Anarchy in the Ukulele

My favourite ukulele videos uploaded to YouTube in the past week.

Taimane Gardner

Taimane recently turned in a suitably barnstorming performance at the memorial concert for Don Ho; with whom she had been playing since the age of 14.

Here, at a family reunion, she is markedly more restrained and relaxed than she is in most of her performances.

Takashi Nakamura

Albert Hammond, Jr – In Transit

With The Strokes taking a year off, guitarist Albert Hammond is focusing on his solo career. In it’s original version, this song featured I’ll forgive the use of a plectrum in this case.

Ukulele-Coolia – Tequila

Gus and Fin – California Sun

Ukulele + wooble board = fun.

John Culshaw thinks Yorkshire and Lancastrian accents sound the same? Poncy Southern get. But full marks to him for noticing that Arctic Monkeys are the true heirs to the Formby throne and seeing that their songs are perfect for the uke.

Suggested Strumming

For the main strum you can use Strum #6 from the Strum Bible:

d – d u – u d u

Do that twice for every chord except in the bridge. There you can do it once for each chord until the last line where you do one down-strum per chord.

Twiddley Bits

The intro to Despair In The Departure Lounge is easier to play on the uke than on the guitar. Not only that, but the short piano solo in the middle of the song fits perfectly too. I’ve included just the piano notes in the chord sheet. But you can also combine it with the chords like this:

Links

Buy it on iTunes
Fluorescent Adolescent chords
AM Medley tab

Thessaly ‘UkuLady’ Lerner has been banned from her regular gig at Canter’s Deli for being loud and annoying. As much as I love her, it’s not the most surprising news I’ve ever read.

ChiyoDad discusses the impact of the new Koalana Concert Uke.

How do you tell someone you love them? Say it with flowers? Over a candle lit dinner? Hire a mariachi band and serenade them? Or take out an eBay ad for a non-existent vintage ukulele and refer to you loved one as ‘Captain Sunshine’ in front of the entire ukulele playing population of the planet?

There are a surprisingly high percentage of people from Iceland doing Google searches for ‘ukulele’.

The gentleman to your left with the scary eyebrows is indeed me. I’ve finally got round to doing an About Me and I’ve upload some of my uke tunes. But be warned, the quality is highly dubious.

If you have any suggestions for the site, requests, complaints or suchlike; I’d love to hear from you. You can leave a comment or send me an email. I promise I’ll reply no matter how sick and deviant your suggestions. In fact, the sicker the better.

Only a precious few hours left to bid on this beautiful uke from Duane Heilman of Black Bear Ukuleles. As well as luthiering, Heilman also makes quirky, ukulele based art. Sometimes it’s hard to work out where the ukuleles end and the art begins.

The collision of rictus-grinned morning TV host and the morose wit of Stephin Merritt was always going to produce hilarity. The look on Merritt’s face seems to shoot the words, “I’m going to set fire to your house and watch the smoldering remains through a huge spyglass.” I can only pray that the song’s final line of, “Everyone you despise will die so smile,” was followed by the words, “Here’s Tom with the weather.”

Merritt and Daniel ‘Lemony Snicket’ Handler have worked on a number of projects together and have, apparently at least, been friends since childhood. Handler is a fine accordion player and appeared on The Magnetic Fields’ (Merritt’s main band) album 69 Love Songs. Merritt returned the favour by forming The Gothic Archies with Handler and recording songs to accompany the Series of Unfortunate Events books. The two are a partnership made in heaven (and also a fine comedy duo).

Smile! No One Cares How You Feel has a simple repeating uke figure throughout – making it ideal for anyone learning to fingerpick on the ukulele.

The best approach to picking this is to assign a finger (or thumb) of the right hand to each string. The thumb on the g string, the index finger on the C string, the middle finger on the E string and the ring finger on the A string. The picking pattern is:

Thumb, index, middle, ring, middle, index, thumb, index (then repeat… a lot)

Once you can pick that pattern without thinking, you shouldn’t have any problem playing the song and scaring TV hosts.

I never really understood people who get sweaty-palmed over album covers. But I do love to browse the various sheet music cover galleries online. This example of Red Rose Rag is particularly good. It’s sexy in a way that you never see on album covers anymore; it’s relaxed and has an off-duty cool about it – completely lacking in the desperation you usually see now. And she’s smoking; which is the coolest, sexiest thing anyone can do (until your lungs turn to dust and you start coughing black phlegm – that’s a little less sexy). You can download the cover and the score for the song here.

The woman pictured is Dolly Connolly, wife of the writer of this song Percy Wenrich and singer in her own right. Wenrich (known as “The Joplin Kid” – reference to his place of birth rather than the earlier famous ragtime composer Scott Joplin) wrote a number of popular tunes in the first few decades of the 20th Century – largely in the ragtime style – with Red Rose Rag being one of his most popular. Read the rest of this entry »

As I mentioned before, even professional writers are unable to spell ukulele correctly. So, it’s no surprise that humble eBay sellers get it wrong too. Luckily, there is a way to exploit the illiteracy and carelessness of others for your own greedy, money-grubbing ends. Read the rest of this entry »