Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Music for a Found Harmonium (Tab)

I’ve loved this tune for many years (after hearing Colin Reid’s version of it) so when I found Penguin Cafe barrister Geoffrey Richardson was a uker I decided I had to find a way to play it on the uke. How hard could it be? Five months later…

The first thing you need to do to play this arrangement is tune the g string up to a (so it’s aCEA). This lets me do one of my favourite things on the uke: play the same note on every string then do a bit of very close harmony. The picking pattern for this section is thumb, index, thumb, middle.

In the main section of the tune I’m picking what was the g string with my thumb, the E string with my index finger and the A string with my middle finger. As for the left hand, I use my ring finger on the E string, middle finger for for A string 4th fret and pinkie for the fifth fret. This makes it easier to slide down for the second phrase.

The middle section of the tune (starting at bar 16) is the one I had most problems with. For the picking I’m using the same finger set-up as the previous section but with the thumb covering the G and C strings.

The strumming section was a late addition to the arrangement – I thought it needed something more forceful to finish it off. As I result, I haven’t got this section nailed down as much, so you might have to feel your own way through this section.