My Chemical Romance –
Welcome to the Black Parade(Chords)

Starting off Halloween week with what might be the most pompous and overblown song I’ve ever tackled on here. But it does bear out the idea that any song with a strong melody will work on ukulele. With a little bit of tweaking it survives the transition pretty well.

Most of the chords in the song you’ll be familiar with. If you don’t care for the D6 and E6 chords you can just replace those with straight D and E without a problem. When the song changes key in verse 5 I’ve suggested chord inversions further up the neck. That makes the chord changes easier. But if you prefer the shapes you’re more familiar with they will work perfectly.

Suggested Strumming

You can keep the strumming pretty simple. In the quieter verses (1, 2 and 5) I just do one strum per chord.

Then in the louder parts I play this:

d – d – d u d u

You can hear that in the video below.

If you find that a bit tricky when the song is belting along you can make the chord changes easier by dropping that last up-strum to get:

d – d – d u d –

Twiddly Bits

Black Parade (Lead Part)

Here are some of the twiddly parts in the song crammed together.

The lead part above has the piano riff in the intro and verse followed by the lead part in the first break. And the back part below plays the guitar part in the verse (that provides a counterpoint to the piano riff) and the chords for the break.

Black Parade (Backing Part)

Links

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More Halloween tabs and chords

Sibelius – Karelia Suite (Tab)

With the newly retired David Beckingham stepping up his tabbing, I’ve decided to make Mondays officially Beckingham Tab Day. And the inaugural post is his version of Sibelius’s Karelia Suite.

I must admit to being entirely ignorant of this piece before David’s video. But according to Wikipedia Sibelius intended it, “to capture the quality of “naive,” folk-based authenticity,” which I’d say makes it ripe for a ukeing.

Links

David Beckingham on YouTube
More David Beckingham tabs

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

The Uke Hunt t-shirts have passed the minimum order so they’re going to get made. You can order them from the US or order them from the UK until 31st October.

New Releases

– Lil Rev has put together a delightful romp through various Americana styles on his latest album Sing Song Daddy.
– Head Corner Laugher, Karla Kane has released her debut album of songs inspired by England: King’s Daughters Home For Incurables.
– Isaac Balson’s collection of B-sides and outtakes.
– Not a new releases but I’ve just got around to playing Burly Men at Sea and it has an excellent ukulele-packed soundtrack.

Window Shopping
– Two 1920s Ditson ukes Style 3 Dreadnought and a Style 2 soprano.
– Martin Style 3K from 1937.
– Rebel Double Cream and Double Cheese.
– Hive Snakewood ukulele.

There is a lot going on in this song. Slate claims it has 18 key changes in it. But you have to be very generous to get that high. For the most part I think of the song being in C but using both C major and C minor. That’s not too unusual in a rock song. But it is unusual just how much they do it and how far they stretch things before returning home.

The one real key change comes in the solo/middle section where the F#m and E set up a repeat of the intro but this time in the key of A rather than C.

I’m throwing a whole bunch of different techniques at this song. In the smooth sections (the intro and middle) I’m using fake strums. In the loud bits (like the start of the chorus and the bridge) I’m strumming. In the bouncy sections (like the end of the intro and the, “Not to put too fine a point…” bit of the chorus) I’m using thumb and two finger picking. And at the end of the chorus, in the verses and the solo I’m using one finger per string picking.

Links

Buy it on iTunes

Bonus: TMBG – Older (Intro)

Older (Intro Uke 1)

Older (Intro Uke 2)

Buy it on iTunes

It’s Uke Hunt t-shirt season again! Every year around this time I do a run of t-shirts. This year you can buy them from either the US or the UK:

Pre-order now from US

Pre-order now from the UK

I’m using Teespring again this year. It is sort of a Kickstart for t-shirts. So you put in an order for your shirt, if there are enough orders by the end of the campaign the shirts are made and sent out. You’re not charged anything until the end of the campaign (and you’re not charged at all if the shirt doesn’t reach its goal). This way of doing it means all the shirts are printed at once and exactly the right shirts and sizes are made.

So if you want one of the shirts they’ll only be available until 31st October.

I’ve been using Teespring for a few years now and it’s always worked well. My shirt came here (the UK) quickly and without any hassle. It’s nice quality. The one I have is four years old and it’s still in good shape. You can see it on a devastatingly handsome model in my recent videos.

The Shirts

In the US there are two different styles: the standard fit American Apparel crew-neck (at the top of the post) and the v-neck Bella Missy slim fit (directly above). Both are $22 plus shipping from the US

The UK shirts are described as “Unisex Organic T-Shirt”. They’re both £22 from the UK including VAT (if you’re in a different EU country VAT should be charged at your local rate).

Pre-order from US

Pre-order from the UK

For more information on the shirts and the system take a look at Teespring’s FAQ.

As well as being the obvious choice for a Tom Petty tribute, Free Fallin’ works very well on the ukulele. So well you only have to bother changing your fretting on the g-string. The C, E and A strings all ring though the chord changes.

The only bit that doesn’t translate so well is the section with chugging power chords towards the end. But the underlying chord changes there are exactly the same as the rest of the song. So you can just playing through that section as you have been.

Suggested Strumming

Intro and verses: You can keep it very minimal and just do one down-strum per chord.

Chorus: Because the chords change in unusual places the strumming is a little tricky. Here’s how I play it:

Which sounds like this:

Strum

Chugging section: This part I play with all down-strums while resting the side of my strumming hand lightly on the strings (more on picking hand muting here). The pattern is: three on F, six on Bb, two on F, five on C.

Chugs

As I said, you can just keep playing the chorus pattern through this section if you prefer. Or if you really like it you can play the chugging for the rest of the song.

Twiddly Bits

Just one little twiddle in the song: the guitar part in the break. Here’s how it sounds on the uke:

Lick

Links

Buy it on iTunes
More rock tabs and chords

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m delighted to report that the Survivor Girl Ukulele Band smashed through its goal just an hour after the blog post about them went up. And they’re still going strong having passed $10,000. A huge thanks to everyone who pledged. And if you still want to pledge you can do so until 2nd October.

Recently a huge batch of old 78s have been expertly digitised and put up on Archive.org. As you might expect there’s a healthy selection of ukulele records amongst them (and “ukelele” records). A favourite of mine is Charles Kama and his Moanan Hawaiians.

Ukulele ASMR. Weird even by ASMR standards.

Window Shopping

– 8-string roto-uku | The Concept Guitar Project (via Ukulelia)
– 2010 Phil Collins Koa Concert Ukulele. Not that Phil Collins.
2013 Collings UC2 Custom Walnut Concert Ukulele.
– Ohana New Products 2017 round up.
– A couple of unusual electric ukes: the Astro ukulele and a HiGuitarsUK soprano.

Ernest Hogan – La Pas Ma La (Tab)

Great news for those of us who are big fans of David Beckingham’s tabs: he’s recently retired and is hoping to make even more of them. Congratulations to Dave and I hope he has a blast in his retirement.

He’s sent me two new tabs. The first is the ragtime tune La Pas Ma La by Ernest Hogan. Hogan was the first African-American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show (The Oyster Man in 1907).

Enya – Watermark (Tab)

The second tab is a bit of a departure from David’s usual stuff. It’s the title track of Enya’s 1988 album Watermark. It’s a beautiful piece and works surprisingly well on the ukulele in my opinion.

Links

Buy Enya’s Watermark on iTunes
David Beckingham on YouTube
More David Beckingham tabs