Red Dwarf Theme (Tab)
May 10, 2009
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Well, the new episodes of Red Dwarf stank to high heaven. Even the presence of Big Suze didn’t help. I do hope there’s some sort of Royal wipeout and we end up with Queen Big Suze.
As you might have noticed, I’ve done a video for this one for the first time in about two years. I think the low quality audio, weird light and facial gurnings should answer everyone who’s asked me why I don’t do videos more often. But it does serve to illustrate a few points in the tab.
The intro is played campanela i.e. letting the notes ring into each other as much as possible. The trickiest bit is getting the end of the first phrase to sustain over the echo part (I did a much better job of making it sound like an echo in the mp3).
I considered arranging the vocal version of the tune but I couldn’t resist the tasteless guitar-widdling version (it’s a trick the piece’s composer Howard Goodall also used in the titles for Blackadder II.
The trickiest part of this section is bar 11. I did try playing it like this for a while:
Which is much easier to play but sounds too wimpy.
In the ‘fun, fun, fun’ bit (someone should make that into a ukulele song) I’m using my favourite triplet strum: down with middle and index fingers, up with index, up with middle.
One thing I struggle with in this tab is the time signature. There are parts that don’t seem quite right. I looked at some guitar tab and they had it in 12/8. But that makes even less sense to me.
Requested by Jimmy (so long ago he’s probably forgotten by now).
Bagpuss Theme (Tab)
February 8, 2009
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It’s quite possible that my biggest musical influence is Bagpuss. I was completely insane for Bagpuss when I was little – particularly the music. Songs in general had a really big emotional impact on me as a kid. I had to ban my mum from singing the Spaghetti variant of On Top of Old Smokey because it would make me cry. I couldn’t work out why I cared that a meatball had rolled off a table and it wasn’t until years later than I figured out that it wasn’t the lyrics making me feel sad but the music. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I was massively influenced by the music I heard as a kid and I still love the music in Bagpuss (provided by Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner).
So I was sad to hear, on my birthday, of the death of Bagpuss creator Oliver Postgate. If you’ve no idea who he was, check out Charlie Brooker’s tribute to him. He was such a gent even Russell Brand acted semi-respectfully in his presence. So I’m paying respect to him in the only way I know how: via the medium of ukulele tabs.
It’s a really simple little tune to play. Despite the strumming directions, I’m actually fingerpicking and doing fake strums (picking each string in sequence to sound like a strum) to accentuate the melody notes on the A string. You could just use normal strums but I’d recommend using your thumb to give it a warmer sound.
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Kate Micucci & Ted (Scrubs) – Screw You (Tab & Chords)
February 1, 2009
Ted and The Gooch – Screw You (Chords)
When three of my favourite things – ukuleles, Scrubs and Kate Micucci – collide you know a chord sheet isn’t going to be far away. I’m probably going to have to wait months before the episode is shown over here, so It’ll have to be Screw You from the Ted and The Gooch webisode and became the Scrubs ukulele girl.
The song was originally called Fuck You when she did it with Riki Lindhome. I think the joke loses its bite with the clean-up. Swearing can still be beautiful.
The chords to the song are simple. But if you want to jazz it up with the picking, the intro goes something like this:
And the verses like this:
It looks like she’s using her thumb for the G and C strings and her index finger for the E and A strums (sometimes strumming up to hit both strings at the same time.
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Match of the Day Theme (Tab)
June 29, 2008
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Because of my anti-football prejudice, I’d never considered tabbing this out before. With the final of Euro 2008 today (that’s soccerball to you North Americans), I thought it would be fitting and, blow me down, it could have been written for the ukulele. It also makes for a great football tune medley when it’s followed by Stars and Stripes Forever (AKA ‘Ere We Go).
Most of it is fairly simple strumming. The trickiest bits are the places where you switch from strumming to fingerpicking and the jump up to the third fret. But it’s well worth practicing (if you’re British at least).
