Sweet Soubrette, Sweetafton23, Aldrine Guerrero
April 5, 2008
You should probably brush your teeth after watching this week’s crop of videos featuring Sweet Soubrette, Sweetafton and Sweet Georgia Brown.
At the behest of Howlin’ Hobbit, I’ve added in links to the videos themselves.
Sweet Soubrette – Cut-Up [Read more]
The Saturday UkeTube
March 22, 2008
As well as the ukulele festival videos from Paris and Taunton and parts three and four of Bosco and Honey’s Ukulele Safari, there were plenty of other top uke performances this week including the ever growing ukulele tribute to The Cure. [Read more]
Joe Brown, Howlin Hobbit, Jen Kwok, Taimane Gardner
February 9, 2008
Watch my favourite ukulele videos of the week after the ‘more’ tag including Joe Brown’s appearance on Jools Holland. [Read more]
The Saturday UkeTube
February 2, 2008
Far too many videos this week. A couple of Hawaiian masters, a ukulele/melodica cover of Beck, GUGUG, a bit of English folk music, loads of other stuff. Click More to see them all. [Read more]
Earlyguard
August 20, 2007
Earlyguard is a big favourite here at Uke Hunt. I’ve already tabbed his tunes Busy Bee and Blue Smoke. Yesterday he released an album of his ambient and atmospheric tunes Time To Relax which you can download it for free at his MySpace.
Earlyguard’s music is far removed from the ‘rata-tat-tat’ delivery of most ukulele songs. When I asked him about how he developed his style he was typically self-effacing, “I’m not able to play the usual style. My fingers are too slow and my knowledge of the usual playing techniques is still at the very beginning.” His style is very distinctive. It’s the first style I know of that is unique to the electric ukulele (rather than sounding like an amplified acoustic-uke or an electric guitar). All but two of the tracks on Time To Relax were record with his trusty RISA Uke-Solid.
It’s hard to believe but Earlyguard (the name is a translation of his surname, Fruhwacht) only started to play the ukulele at the beginning of this year after commandeering a ukulele he had given his daughter for Christmas. Since then he has produced new tunes in rapid succession. As well as the tunes on this album, you can hear many more on his MySpace and his YouTube channel.
Earlyguard’s influences may not be what you’d expect, “I love music of all styles. The Beatles as well as Metallica for example. I don’t like ‘New Age’ music that much but it’s funny that my own music could be described that way.” Indeed, it was The Beatles that inspired his uke playing, “Watching the beautiful Concert For George tribute on DVD where Paul McCartney played Something on a ukulele – this was the point for me – the wish to play this lovely instrument took over.”
As well as his solo work, Earlyguard is one half of Earlywolf, “Earlywolf is a relationship with WS64 and some friends as guest musicians. It started at Ukulelenboard where I posted a song at the ‘membersound’ section in January. WS liked it very much and asked if we could do some songs together. I recorded many songs in the past years (2004-2005) with my GarageBand software and WS took the single tracks and re-recorded and re-arranged them. His musical skills are extraordinary and so he did a fantastic job I think. On some songs we asked some friends to play a solo or do better vocals than me and it was great fun to work this way.” You can download the resulting album free at earlywolf.com.
I’ve only had Earlyguard’s album for 24 hours but I’m already chilled out and relaxed. I highly recommend you take a little time to relax and head over to his MySpace and download it.
The Saturday UkeTube
July 28, 2007
Head over the fold to watch this week’s best ukulele videos.
The Saturday UkeTube
July 14, 2007
The week’s best uke videos after the cut.
The Saturday UkeTube
July 7, 2007
A week in which I watched the ukulele played on stilts, Taimane mix with Scientologists and an explanation of the difference between a ukulele and a tortoise which left me even more confused than I was to begin with. Nevertheless, there were still some fantastic performances. See them behind the cut.
Earlyguard – Busy Bee
July 1, 2007
Once you’ve mastered the Earlyguard piece I posted before this would be the perfect follow-up. It uses similar techniques but in a more complicated way.
The introduction to this piece always reminds me of Earlyguard’s fellow German Beethoven. The tune then moves into picking notes across the strings. This time in groups of three and two as well as all four. The tempo of this piece changes a great deal and to help play the faster sections, rather than play all notes with the thumb as in Blue Smoke, he plucks the A-string with his index finger. This gives his thumb more time to move to the next set of notes. If you want to make it easier still, you could pluck each string with a different finger
Written down, this piece looks like just a series of arpeggios. But listen to Earlyguard playing it and it’s clear that it’s full of melody. Be sure to accentuate the melody notes. These are the notes played on the lowest string except in bars 20 and 21 where they are on the 1st string.
Visit Earlywolf.
Earlyguard – Blue Smoke
June 26, 2007
I’ve already mentioned how much I enjoy Earlyguard’s tunes. He has a very distinctive style (added to by his RISA solid) which is relaxing and hypnotic. So, when I heard him complain that he hates tabbing in his explanation of this piece, I felt I had to give it a go.
The tune follows the same simple picking pattern though out: starting on the forth string and picking through each string individually. Earlyguard uses his thumb to pick all the notes which gives it a warm, rounded tone. However, you might find it easier to pick each string with a dedicated finger (4th string = thumb, 3rd string = index finger etc.).
The risk with this piece is that, if you don’t put enough feeling into it, it could sound like a practice piece. To avoid this, you need to play with the speed of the piece and with the dynamics – which Earlyguard does wonderfully. For example, you could play the first two bars of the tune strongly and the second two more quietly – creating an echo effect.
I plan on tabbing more of Earlyguard’s tunes so be sure to check back here.
I highly recommend you check out Earlywolf – Earlyguard’s collaboration with fellow UkeTuber WS64.
