Super Mario Bros Theme (Simplified Version)
November 23, 2008
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First off, Seeso cropped up on Julia Nunes’ YouTube Live performance. The poor lad’s cable fell out (that should get the ladies clicking over). Wade Johnston looks like he’s going to be the next UkeTube hero that I just don’t get (beyond the fact no one can make a comment about him without using the words ‘cute’ and ‘adorable’). But if anyone’s opening a book on the Bushman Contest, I’ll have a tenner on him.
Down to business.
Dominator has already tabbed James Hill’s barnstorming version of Super Mario Bros Level 1 (you can download the tab here). Which is great if you’re a ukulele super hero like Dom and James but a bit beyond us mortals. So I thought I’d put together an easier version – heavily based on the James Hill arrangement.
Notice I said ‘easier’ not ‘easy’. There are still plenty of tricky parts. There’s a great deal of switching between picking and strumming and a few big jumps up and down the fretboard.
Buy Super Mario Bros. Theme
Visit James Hill’s website.
Aloha de Chocobo (Final Fantasy)
November 9, 2008
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I’ve been meaning to tab this one out since I did Ukulele de Chocobo. It has a lovely Hawaiian flavoured tune and works very well as a solo ukulele piece (even to those who have never ridden a bright yellow, overside galliforme).
It is possible – and more technically correct – to fingerpick this tune with your thumb on G, index on C, middle on E and ring on A throughout. However, I like to move everything up a string (thumb on C, index on E, middle on A) for bars like two and four.
Jonathan Coulton – Still Alive (Portal End Credits)
April 13, 2008
Jonathan Coulton has already put up the chords for the tune he wrote for the game Portal. But the J-Dog don’t roll with tabs. So I thought I’d have a stab the fingerpicking bit in the first part of the song.
The song is played on a low-G ukulele and the picking pattern is T, I, M, I (thumb, index, middle, index). This pattern makes up the majority of the first section of the song:
Then moves on to this pattern for the turnaround:
Far be it from me to tell Jonathan Coulton how he plays his own songs, but I’m fairly sure there’s a 7th note in that A chord. He has it as a plain A chord on his write up of the chords, so I may be completely wrong.
The second time around, the series finishes off with a sweep of a Bbmaj7 chord.
If you don’t have a low-G uke, you can play it the sweetafton way. She uses the same chords but the picking pattern is slightly different.
Buy all of Jonathan Coulton’s song here.
Final Fantasy IX – Ukulele de Chocobo
February 3, 2008
[youtube EFPXqehek6U]
Final Fantasy is one of those games that completely passed me by and I’ve never actually played any of the Police Academy sized oeuvre. What didn’t pass me by is the fact that ukuleles crop up in the ninth version of the game. Ukulele de Chocobo is the tune that starts playing every time you jump on board a Chocobo (like getting a piggy back from Big Bird). You can hear it in the game itself here. That clip also has Aloha de Chocobo – another uke tune which I’ll probably work out sometime.
I’ve written up the chords in tab form – to give you a better idea of where the changes come. In the original key, the melody goes a little too high for comfort on the uke:
It’s much more comfortable if you shift it down five frets:
If you want to play the accompaniment to this version, you’ll have to transpose the chords from C to G.
Tetris Theme (Solo Version)
August 5, 2007
[youtube lXooGmW-wYY]
I recently acquired a Fluke and ill-educated people have been confusing it with a balalaika ever since. I’ve given up trying to explain it to them and have learnt to play two Russian sounding tunes on it. The first bit of this video is the tune from Gogol Bordello’s Not A Crime – from a traditional tune called Tromba de Zingari. The second part is a solo version of the Tetris theme.
I’ve tried to retain as much as I could from the duet version – which has made it tricky to play as it shoots around the neck. The trickiest section is bars 5 and 6. Originally I had it tabbed as:
I made it slightly easier for the tab. You can make it easier still by playing it like this:
Which I should have done because I was struggling with this section in the video.
One more hint: in the first bar make sure you fret the A with your third finger so you can play the next few notes more easily.
Tetris Duet
July 17, 2007
[youtube EVR91_iNMTk]
Korobeiniki/Tetris Theme Duet (pdf)
MIDIs: Duet, Ukulele 1, Ukulele 2
I think it’s safe to say that I’ve listened to this tune more than any other over the course of my life. Yet I didn’t even know what it was called until I started researching for this post. The tune is variously called Korobeiniki, Korobeyniki, Korobushka, The Peddlers and ‘that plinky-plonky Tetris music’. The lyrics of the song (written by one Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov in the 19th Century) tell of a young stable-boy who was obsessed with arranging different shaped straw bales as they dropped from the sky.
This duet divides the parts up fairly evenly. The first ukulele takes the main melody and the second plays a counter melody. I’d suggest that you repeat it more than is indicated in the tab, speeding up each time until you’re going at a frantic pace at the end.
“But,” I hear some of you cry, “I have no friends.” No worries. I’m working on a solo version so stay tuned.
Update: The solo tab is here: Tetris (solo)
