Amy Crehore, Yo-Yo Ma and 12hr Beatles

You can get a sneak peak of Amy Crehore’s next show Dream Girls and Ukes on her Flickr and find out more here.

“”The ukulele is already a magical instrument, but there’s something about his playing and being that is other-worldly.” Yo-Yo Ma discusses working with Jake Shimabukuro.

Roger Greenawalt will spend 12 hours performing every single Beatles song on the ukulele. But it’s for a good cause. All the money raised will be going to Warren Buffett.

4th Peg Forum closes.

I’ve been slowly working up a tab for Roy Smeck’s Music Box Waltz, and Dav on the KDUS forum has beaten me to it.

“How do you relax? This might sound slightly ridiculous but I play the ukulele for at least an hour a day and I find something really blissful about it.” Frank Skinner in The Guardian.

Anyone know who this is in the Dutch T-Mobile ad? (Thanks Martin)

Death Cab for Cutie and All Time Quarterback on Uker Tabs.

Bette Midler ukes it up on Ellen (head for around 6:30).

Peter and the Wolf and Amanda Palmer do Black Cab Sessions.

Get Del Ray or Terry Kinakin to play in your living room.

Jeffery Holland’s using-the-uke-to-pick-up-chicks technique in You Rang M’Lord?. Dangerous tactic, though, because apparently playing the ukulele means you’re an “eccentric nice girl who only pretends to be interested in sex.”

Julia and Wade display mad skillz. It’s a bit depressing watching Julia fans getting her CD. They get so excited they make me wonder if I’m living in an emotional coma. I wish I could get that excited about anything, never mind a CD. (And that’s not me picking the strangest two videos - that’s a random sample).

If this is your first visit here, you can find the chords/tab in those posts by clicking on the song title in red.

WIUO, Julia Nunes, Minor Constellations: UkeTube

Loads of great stuff this week including a new video from the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra (who you can also watch playing Dancing in the Dark with Uni), Julia Nunes, my favourite Minor Constellations song and plenty more of those very low quality songs played poorly that I love so much. [Read more]

Duke of Uke and Other Ukulele Links

The Duke of Uke website looks like it’s finally up and running. As well as the shop, there’s a bit of a blog thing going which is suitably Smeck heavy. If anyone’s looking for a birthday/xmas present for me, I’ll have one of these.

Julia Nunes will be appearing on the first ever YouTube Live along with Obama loving cavaquinho player Will.i.am, dipstick lesbian Katy Perry, baldy widdle-merchant Joe Satriani and OMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111! The Mythbusters.

Kate Miccuci wins at puns.

Gnarls Barkley and Silent Night on Uker Tabs.

Vogue’s Roald Dahl/ukulele shoot. (Thanks Anne).

YuppiePunk has MP3s from and an interview with The King Blues.

Jacob Borshard comic strips.

Excessive hula dancing causes mass outbreak of nosebleeds.

How to meet Jake Shimbabukuro without trying.

Por onde andará Stephen Fry? Down a treacherous path in Hawaii with a ukulele player (uke commences around the 49 minute mark).

Careful, love, I can see your g-string.

A guitar that never grew up.

A ghost keeps bothering me with a ukulele song, what do I do about him?

Friday Timewaste: Flaming Lips game Xmas on Mars.

Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life

Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life (Chords)

I don’t want to be mean, but you’re all playing First Day of My Life in a daft key. But whichever key you play it in, it’s a great song.

From all the darting eyes, I’m guessing that people are just reading the guitar chords and transferring them straight to uke. The trouble is Oberst plays this song with a capo at the fourth fret. That puts it close to uke territory. I’ve written the song up for a ukulele tuned one step down (so the chord shapes used are mostly those he uses), but kept the chord names the same as standard tuning to avoid confusion. It’s much easier to play this way, you avoid the dreaded E major.

My chords are a little different to the guitar ones floating around the net in a few other ways. Some of them are chords in the song that I think they’ve missed (the Bbadd9 in the intro and the C7 at the end of the verses) and some of them have been changed to make them work better on the uke (using a C as a passing chord rather than a B note, and the Gm at “But I realise that I need you…”).

The biggest problem area in the song is the F - ? - Dm progression at the end of what I’ve called the bridge section. The guitar chords use the same progression as the verse, F - A - Dm in our terms. But I don’t think that sounds right. I think he’s playing 021200 which would be Amaj7sus4 (1200) for us. It’s fairly discordant; the A and Ab are one fret apart rather than 13 and the A note doesn’t read as the root strongly enough. It does just about work in context, but I’ve written it up as Asus4 which is a little more pleasing to the ear. Those are your choices. Try them and see which you prefer.

UkeTubette

This week’s UkeTube is nothing but the girls (ah-ah-ah-ahh-ah-ah-ah). Including Anna Van Riel, Julia Nunes, Brittni Paiva and plenty more.

Click ‘more’ to watch them. [Read more]

Ukulele Links: Irish Uke Gathering, Julia Nunes Inspires Molly Ringwald

Last call for entries to the win a Kala Pineapple competition. It ends on Sunday.

Ireland will be having its first ukulele gathering in Dublin on August 9/10. Guest of honour will be Dan ‘Cool Hand Uke‘ Scanlan. If you’d like more info contact Tony Boland.

Italy’s first ukulele festival kicks off today with appearances by Bosco and Honey and James Hill.

Aldrine Guerrero releases his debut CD.

The Ten Commandments of Uke (via Ukulelia). And now that straps are verbotten, here’s the Catholic solution to a slipping ukulele.

Molly Ringwald was inspired to take up the ukulele by Julia Nunes (Noo-nez). That might be my favourite bit of news ever. Skip ahead to around 4:20. (Props to Uni for finding it).

Soldier’s Joy on Uker Tabs (Thanks Ken).

The Barnkickers are the deserving winners of Ukewarehouse’s video competition.

You really should be following Ukulele Hero. Half the news here has already been on there.

The Beautiful South’s Paul Heaton writing their next album on ukulele.

Get yourself a free ukulele by having your YouTube videos sponsored. OK, that guy’s not much of a uke player, but I think that’s a pretty good idea for people whose videos get plenty of views. Bushman are the Bentley of ukuleles? I’d say they’re more the Ford Taurus of ukuleles.

The Independent on Sunday’s style guide favours the MJ Hibbett spelling of ‘ukelele’.

Ukulele greeting card.

Ain’t nothing but a G thing. Who plays the G chord like that?

Re-entrant tuned guitar. I love Soukous, but I never realised some of them replace the D-string on the guitar with a high E-string tuned to D - giving it a ‘my dog has fleas’ style tuning. Diblooooooooooooooo!

Julia Nunes/The Foundations - Build Me Up, Buttercup

Julia Nunes/The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup (Chords)

I have to admit that, since I featured her first uke video way back when, I’ve neglected Julia Nunes. Truth be told, I’m still a little on the fence about her. Nevertheless, there’s no denying the charm of this version of Build Me Up, Buttercup.

These chords are the Nunes version, but they’re very similar to the original version by The Foundations (they’re both in the key of C).

Julia Nunes, Clara Belle, George Formby and More

Featured videos from Julia Nunes, Clara Belle, George Formby and plenty of others.

Julia Nunes and Danny Tieger - Sunburnt Hand [Read more]