Baby Elephant Walk Duet
July 22, 2007
[youtube -dE_xko8Kgg]
Baby Elephant Walk Duet (MIDI)
I know it’s starting to look like I’m tabbing the score to the entire 18 series of the Simpsons, but it’s only a coincidence. This tune was written by Henry Mancini for the film Hatari! to depict the lumbering and unsteady movements of large, unwieldy animal – so perhaps fitting that it was used to accompany Homer dancing.
In this arrangement, one uke takes the background riff. This is a fairly standard 12 bar blues pattern – if you slowed it down and gave it some swing it could be a Muddy Waters song. However, the spritely melody (played by the other ukulele) takes the tune a long way outside blues territory.
A quick word about the repeat signs for those of you unfamiliar with them. Play up to bar 16 where you’ll see a double line with two dots. These indicate that you should go back to the earlier set of double bars (or, if there weren’t any, to the beginning). Then play from there straight through the bar lines and on to where it says D.S. al coda – indicating to go back to the squiggle (bar 5) up to where it says Da coda. From there you jump straight to the mod-style target at bar 32 for the classic ‘and many moooooo-re‘ ending.
Pink Panther/Shot In The Dark (Tab)
June 25, 2007
[youtube vEkhfbucPJ0]
At last, a tab I can get right (sort of)
Henry Mancini is probably the most famous writer of TV and film scores. Many of his themes are so memorable as to outlive their original source; such as Baby Elephant Walk (from the forgotten film Hatari) and Peter Gunn (from the hipster detective series of the same name).
Mancini’s theme for the Pink Panther films (and later TV show) strikes the perfect balance between detective intrigue and humour. My version of it – which slips into another Mancini detective theme A Shot In The Dark – was developed from a guitar arrangement by Colin Reid.
The main trick to get right in this tune is the balance between the melody and the chord accompaniment. You should concentrate on keeping the melody strong and at the forefront while while the chords are more soft and only played between the melody notes. I’ve tabbed the chords very loosely as I usual improvise the rhythm for the accompaniment. For expert use of this style check out Ohta-San.
Tricky sections of this piece are bars 9 and 13. Although these bars are essentially the same, you need to finger them differently or you’ll come unstuck. I’ve put the left hand fingering I use in these section underneath the tab and done the same for the run in bar 20. I should say that, even though I don’t do it in the video, it would be best to repeat the first section of the tab as it is the most recognisable part.
The tune finishes on the ‘International Man of Mystery Chord’. This chord is an Am7M. It contains a minor third but a minor seventh giving a double identity which has made it almost ubiquitous in spy and detective themes.
One final consideration: it’s absolutely essential that you play this tune on pink strings.
Requested by Fran.
