Tracklist
La Familia de Ukeleles – Hurry Up
Taimane – Fire
Garfunkel and Oates – 50/50
DermitderUkulele and Herman Vandecauter – Pimontoyse (Adrian Le Roy)
Mike Haysom – Spring Fling
Allison Russell – This Will Be Our Year
Amanda Shires – White Feather
Ives Lamego & Vinícius Vivas – Natiruts
My Sun and Stars – It’s Been You
EatMyUke – Dookie Medley
Videos
– Penn Jilette and Piff the Magic Dragon sing the Dragon Song.
– UkuRobot.
New Releases
– Brit Rodriguez’s album of children’s songs (plus a fantastic Daniel Johnston cover).
– Debut album from uke-picker Mike Haysom.
– Ukulele Glue from Kara Square and ccMixter.
– Herman Vandecauter has released a new batch of expertly played pieces on the machete.
Window Shopping
– RIGuitars Motorhead style ukulele.
– Go the way you believe is right.
– 1920s Gibson Uke 3.
– 1930s dobro and 20s electrified soprano.
– Pelem guitarlele.
– G String soprano.
Summertime (Tab)
Having spent my summer break measuring cotton and watching tench pole-vaulting, I thought this song from Porgy and Bess best summed up my experience.
I’ve done a few jazz tabs in the past (like Take Five and La Vie en Rose) but this is the first time I’ve used a jazz approach and used the tune as a springboard for soloing. In this arrangement I play the melody straight for the first verse. Then semi-improvise around the tune for the next two verses. Each with a different scale.
In the second verse I’m use the G blues scale. The main shapes I’m using to solo are:
There’s an exception in bar 23 (and later in bar 39). That little turnaround lick is adapted from the Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald version of the tune.
I get more adventurous in the third verse and mostly use the G harmonic minor scale. I had fun playing around with the scale. The wide gap between the Eb and Gb notes give it an unsettling feel.
These two scale boxes I’m using:
I also borrow an F (A-string, 8th fret) from the G melodic minor scale in bar 37.
I highly recommend you play around with the scales and phrasing in this piece to come up with your own version. There’s much more on the blues scale and soloing in the How to Play Blues Ukulele ebook.
Links
It was Yorkshire Day while I was on my blog break. So to celebrate I’ve put together some riffs from my favourite Yorkshire acts. Including three from Arctic Monkeys.
Human League – Don’t You Want Me
Arctic Monkeys – Four out of Five
Arctic Monkeys – Teddy Picker
Arctic Monkeys – Brianstorm
Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar
alt-J – Left Hand Free
Kaiser Chiefs – I Predict a Riot
Joe Cocker – You Can Leave Your Hat On
twenty one pilots – Nico and the Niners (Chords)
twenty one pilots have been hit-and-miss for me in the past. But I’ve been enjoying the three tracks they’ve released ahead of their new album. Particularly the uke-featuring track Nico and the Niners.
There are two main ukulele parts in the song. The first is a straight-forward move from Dm7 (all the strings played at the fifth fret) to Am7 (all the strings played open). The second is a spacey single-note figure in the bridge.
Suggested Strumming
Intro and Chorus: The main ukulele riff uses a ska-inspired all up-strums. Four each per chord:
– u – u – u – u
Make sure you keep these strums short by muting them with the side of your strumming hand right after playing them. You can do this quite forcefully. You can hear a percussive click on these as Tyler brings his hand down hard to cut the strums short.
Verse 1, Final Chorus and Outro: Once the uke part cuts out you can use whichever ska-flavoured strum you like (I cover a bunch of ska and reggae strums in How to Play Ukulele Strums). I like to do this once per chord:
– – d u – – d –
Bridge: For the first half of these I just do one down-strum per chord. Then for the second half I use the strum from verse 1. So together they sound like this:
Breakdown and Verse 2: I keep it simple and just one down-strum per chord.
Twiddly Bits
Here’s my best attempt at the wibbley ukulele part in the bridge. It’s a little hard to pick up on exactly what’s being played.
Links
Time for my summer blog break. I’m going to make like an African lungfish and aestervate until the heat dies down.
In the meantime you can catch bits and pieces from me on Twitter and Instagram.
Have a good one.
Tracklist
Vinícius Vivas – A taca do mundo e nossa
Ukebox – Distraction
Calvin Joe and Rod Salaysay – What a Beautiful Name
Neil Young – Tumbleweed (Thanks to Phredd)
A Boogie wit da Hoodie x Einer Bankz – Check
Paul Mansell – Adagio (Concierto de Aranjuez)
MARLOWE – Sorry Not Sorry
Polkadot + Moonbeam – Polkadots and Moonbeams
Randy Gapasin – The Girl From Ipanema
Steven Gilpin – You Totally Got This
Window Shopping
– Martin have reproduced the Konter ukulele. The famous ukulele that travelled to the North Pole on Byrd’s 1926 expedition and was signed by Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh, and Calvin Coolidge among many others.
– Summer NAMM 2018 (the music gear shindig) didn’t have much exciting uke action. Makala have eight-string ukes and guitarleles and Fender have a Grace Vanderwaal signature uke.
– Kanile’a K3 long-neck soprano.
In case you missed yesterday’s post, João Tostes’s new instrumental album is available on his website for free and has tab for every track.
Gibson are hoping ukuleles can help pull them out of bankruptcy.
Pictures
– The hands of ukulele players.
– Manu e tokerau: Tahitian ukulele ensemble (Thanks to @HermanVDC).
– Carved duo.
João Tostes – Dança devenir (Tab)
The third and final guest tab from the trio of exceptional ukers comes from Brazilian ukulelist João Tostes’s album naturæ which you can download mp3s and tabs for free on his website. The album is a collection of richly textured and pristinely delivered ukulele instrumentals backed by bass and piano. Highly recommend giving it a listen.
The tab I’ve chosen to feature is a rapid-fire piece whose tension-filled opening alternates the open g-string with a descending line on the C-string.
Links
Download naturæ free on João’s website
Follow Joao on YouTube
Choan C. Gálvez – Jiga de los Buenos Días (Tab)
Excellent barcelonés ukulelist and friend of the blog, Choan Gálvez has a new album out 10 minutos para ukelele solo. As well as being packed with fantastic playing and catchy tunes, he also includes tab for every song. Well worth €4 of your money. Choan was kind enough to let me post the tab of my favourite track from the album Jiga de los buenos días.
The piece is played in a campanella style and is challenging to play in some sections. Very rewarding when you get it down. Which I haven’t yet. But Jonathan Lewis has and here’s his version:
Links
Buy Choan’s album 10 minutos para ukelele solo on Bandcamp
Follow Choan on YouTube
Choan’s tab for If I Had You
