Lead Belly/Nirvana – In the Pines (Tabs)

In the Pines is a traditional song but the most famous versions are by Lead Belly and Nirvana. I mostly worked from the Nirvana version for this arrangement and I’ve kept it very simple.

The arrangement kicks off with a short intro. There’s lots more you can do here if you’re in the mood.

The first verse is very simple fingerpicking. The melody is all played on the C-string with just the open E and A-strings for backing. There are a couple of exceptions. In bars 7 and 15, I add a bit of dissonance with the E-string, 6th fret. And in bar 17 the open A-string is part of the melody.

The second verse stays with the fingerpicking but adds chords. The the third verse switches to strums. After that, it’s a re-run of the first verse.

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Oh Shenandoah (Tab)

Loads of people have covered Oh Shenandoah, but the Tom Waits and Keith Richards version is the one I’m most familiar with.

I’ve arranged it three different ways. In order of easiest to trickiest. I’d recommend using this version as a springboard for your own. You can mix and match sections and add your own ideas.

Intro: Just a short intro to establish the harmony.

Verse 1: A very simple way of playing it. There are a few grace notes and an Fmaj7 chord in bar 6. But that’s as fancy as it gets.

Verse 2: This verse harmonises the melody. It’s starts using thirds. Then switches to using a pedal at the end of bar 15 (around the open g-string and A-string, 7th fret). Then, bars 16-17 switch to sixths. After that, it goes back to using thirds.

Verse 3: This one throws around all sorts of curlicues and filigree. There’s a lot of jumping up and down the fretboard and rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs. By far the hardest section, but still not too bad. You can add more frills here if you like. Or pare it back and make it more tasteful.

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Tracklist
Max De Bernardi & Veronica Sbergia – Blue Skies
Jon’s Ukulele – The Nine Maidens
Ornery Broad – Woman of Constant Sorrow Thanks to Colin.
The Wallfisch Quartet – Desert Wind
Twenty One Pilots – Paladin Strait
Krakow Street Band – Hold On Thanks to Colin.
SeattleUke – A Firefighters Lament
Akea808 – Chim Chim Cheree
Taimane – Beethoven, System of a Down, Led & ACDC Medley – New Version

The Flaming Lips – Do You Realize?? (Tab)

There’s nothing too difficult to play in Do You Realize?? . But it is constantly shifting. There are slight changes in chord progressions, melodies and time signatures. Not much is a direct repeat. I found keeping track of everything a bit taxing on the noggin.

Intro: I’ve tabbed the emphasised strums (the little arrows above the tab) for the first two bars. But the same pattern continues.

Verse: This is a good example of what I was talking about. It feels like the chord progression should repeat in the first verse. But it’s slightly different every time. Although the two verse fragments later in the song are direct repeats.

Chorus: Two entirely different choruses. The first has a lot of strums and is in G. The second is more delicate and is in Em.

Break: A brief key change to Bb before heading back to G.

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Yusuf/Cat Stevens – The Wind (Tab)

The Wind comes across as a gentle little ditty. But there are some fiendish time signature changes in the chorus to deal with. This version is slowed down to about 90% of the original which makes it easier to handle.

Intro: A very simple start using one-finger-per-string picking. Which is used here and in the verses.

That’s followed by the main guitar riff. You could play this all in the first position. But I moved it up the neck to differentiate it from the melody.

Verse: Nothing much to deal with here. Just alternating between the guitar riff and the melody.

Chorus: Here’s where the trouble starts. There are bars of 5/4 and 2/4 thrown in along with irregularly spaced chord changes. The second chorus has an additional bar of 5/4 as well.

I found it hard to keep track of. My approach was to break it down. I started by counting out the bars. When I had that down, I tried playing just the chords. Then adding the melody part in starting at a very slow tempo.

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A massive thanks again to the massive generosity of Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:

And extra thanks to June’s Tenor level backers:

– Arthur Foley
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If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including June’s: The Who’s My Generation

Blur – The Universal (Tab)

Here’s a tab of Blur's The Universal. Real horrorshow.

Intro: Thumb and two finger picking for the intro. PARKLIFE

Verse: Switching to one finger per string picking in the verse (with a few strummed chord stabs thrown in). PARKLIFE

Chorus: And full on strumming for the chorus. The action moves high up the neck in this section and it gets fiddly. PARKLIFE

Solo: Still high up but not as frantic. I found the phrasing here a little difficult to get the hang of. PARKLIFE

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Aphex Twin – Avril 14th (Tab)

If I’m going to tab an Aphex Twin song, there’s only one choice: Avril 14th. Which was interpolated by Kanye West on Blame Game.

A Section: By far the hardest part of the song is the artificial harmonics that start in bar 5. In these bits, I’m picking the C-string with my thumb and playing artificial harmonics on the other strings.

Take a look at 4stringboy if you want to see artificial harmonics done right. If you’re as bad at them as me, you can just skip the harmonics part and play the standard and it’ll sound fine.

B Section: AKA the section that goes on twice as long as it should. Just a jump up to the 7th fret to deal with here.

C Section: The easiest section of the song. A bit of campanella picking while holding down a single chord shape.

D Section: This is the oddest section of the piece. It’s simplified from the original. But it bounces all over the fretboard.

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Tracklist
Ukulele Death Squad – Hands Tied
The Bookshop Band – Eve In Your Garden
Peter Moss & George Elmes – Bye Bye Blues
Tiana Jennings – Palehua
Peyton Kanehiwa – Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai
kmodo – stuff we did
Gerald Ross – I Only Have Eyes For You
Natasha Ghosh – Espresso
Jenifer Cabrera – Gente humilde

The Newton Brothers – X-Men ’97 Theme (Tab)

Here’s a quick tab for the theme to the revival of the X-Men animated series. Which just so happens to be identical to the original, retaining cheesy metal widdle-fest that was the style at the time.

First thing to do is tune your g-string down to F. This is needed to play the sweep across the strings in bars 8 and 9

The tune starts out easy with some palm muted notes on the C-string picked with the thumb. From then on, there are plenty of challenges. There’s some fast picking and notes all the way up the fretboard. That’s followed by a whole bunch of triplets in bars 13 to 15.

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