The vote for Ukulele Video of the Year starts tomorrow. You’ll have to wait until then to see the nominees. One thing I will reveal: Walk off the Earth didn’t make the cut. A surprise to me given how huge a year they had last year. In order to console this huge blow to their career, here’s WOTE’s Sarah Blackwood and her Big Muff covering Weezer’s Say It Ain’t So.

I’ve tabbed up this version. But if you want to play it in the same key as Weezer play the same chords with a capo on the third fret.

Suggested Strumming

Intro

The intro combines chords and a bit of picking like this:

Verse

In the verse you’re strumming on the off-beats. Also, rest your hand on the string afterwards so they should short.

– d – d

For the F and the C at the end of the verse do the same as at the end of the intro: d u x on F then one up strum for C.

Together they sound like this:

Verse Strum

Chorus

Do this once each for Am and E:

d u x x

Once each for Am and E.

Then for F: d u x
Then C: u – u d u

Notice you’re coming in on the C on the up-strum; slightly earlier than the down strum you come in on the other chords. At the end of the intro/chorus just hold the first up-strum on the C.

Together they sound like this:

Chorus Strum

Twiddly Bits

There’s little bit of picking at the end of the verses:

And the big solo goes like this:

Links

Buy the cover
Buy the original

Don’t forget to make your nominations for your favourite videos of 2012.

This is part two of the holiday roundup, so a few of these are eligible for nominations including Blue Dean Carcione doing a track from his new album and Dennis Schütze’s playing of Handel. Other’s you’ll have to make a note for like The Seattle Castaway’s debut video and Sarah Maisel’s wonderful version of In a Sentimental Mood.

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s tough trying to sell ukuleles in 2013. The selection of ukuleles gets more bloated every year. Recent new entrants include Eastman, Godin and Lâg Guitars, Moku and AmiAmi.

Looking at Ukeeku and Ukulele Underground‘s coverage of the music trade show NAMM it’s clear it’s too late to put out a well-made, sweet-sounding ukulele and expect anyone to give a shit.

Here’s your complete guide to ukulele selling tactics of 2013:

Get them endorsed by a dead guy:
– Bill Tapia ukuleles (Ukeeku was particularly scathing about these in his NAMM roundup).
– Martin’s IZ tribute ukulele.
– Peavey’s Jack Daniel’s ukulele.

Hire musicians that can make any uke sound great:
– Benny Chong and Byron Yasui for Kamaka
– James Hill and Bakithi Kumalo for Kala
– Yuna playing for Taylor
– Sarah Maisel for DaSilva.
– Gerald Ross and Ken Middleton for Ohana.

Make it gaudy:
– The route one of making your ukulele stand out. This has been a successful tactic for Luna so they’re stepping up their game with mermaids, fairies and dragons.
– The Mahalo “art series” goes with skulls, hearts, spiders and signs of the zodiac.
– Collings go with flowers, spaceships and snakes.
– Even the tuners are getting in on the act with Swiff’s cartoon tuners featuring aliens, batman and a reindeers.

Banjoleles and Resonators:
– Magic Fluke’s new banjoleles (one designed by Janet Klein)
– Kala’s banjolele and resonator ukuleles.
– Guitar resonator specialists Beard has introduced Beard ukuleles (no match for the moustache ukulele of course)

Outdated selling techniques:
– Mahalo go with cultural appropriation, sex and dancing Gangnam style. Knock it off, Mahalo.

Shapes and sizes
– Eleuke’s peanut shape
– Kala have made their pocket uke even tinier. One day it really will fit in your pocket just like a pocket chord dictionary.

A couple of years ago Patsy Monteleone set himself the task of covering 100 songs from the Great American Song book on ukulele. He’s been recording consistently great stuff and he’s final reached 100 (and done a bonus). You can listen and download them on his website (in the Box on the sidebar) for free. I highly recommend grabbing some.

If you’ve watched TV at all in the last two years, you’ll have noticed that ukuleles are used in 73% of ads. So no surprise that the 2013 award for Music in Advertising went to a uke-featuring ad: OK Go’s bit for Chevy. Their prize? A bunch of ukuleles.

Pictures: Ukulele Photoshop Contest, Formby doodles, Bruno Mars custom KoAloha.

Ukulele dominoes. If dominoes isn’t challenge enough for you try the board game for virtuosos.

Often seen as merely a , New York Times best-selling author with a huge YouTube following,
John Green’s lasting legacy will certainly be the videos of him semi-competently playing FIFA ’11 as Swindon Town on his brother’s YouTube channel. It must really annoy him that he won a Printz Award for his spare-time work while his magnum opus goes unrecognised.

But no great work goes unrecognised on this blog. So I hastily cobbled together a medley of Swoodilypooper goal songs. In the spirit of the game, they’re with heart rather than skill.

French the Lalalalalana

I didn’t include Lallana’s song in the medley because the minimum goal frequency for inclusion is, “occasionally”. But if you’re more lax you can play it like this.

French The Lallana (MP3)

Links

John Green
Kiva Nerdfighters
Charlie McDonnell chords

Last year was another golden year for ukulele music. And it’s time again to spread the love for your favourites in this year’s vote.

For the first stage, everyone gets to nominate up to 5 videos – leave them in the comments (click here for the comments section if you reading by email or RSS). From those nominations, I’ll cobble together a list of ten (ish) that will be voted on in the next round. Use whatever criteria you like. I went with whichever videos/songs I enjoyed most.

The Rules

The rules remain as ramshackle as ever:

– There has to be a ukulele in there.
– Videos must have been originally uploaded in 2012.
– Videos must be publicly available online.
– Maximum of five nominations per person.
– Post your nominations in the comments.
– Nominations close midnight Tuesday 5th February.
– Ten(ish) acts with the most nominations go into the final vote with their most nominated song going forward.
– No prize. Just the love and admiration of the heaving masses.
– No sucking up by nominating me.

Don’t panic if your comments don’t show up right away. First time commenters and comments contains a few links can get held back for spam checking.

My Nominations

Ali Ingle – Ribcage
Keston Cobblers’ Club – For, Words
Mike Love – No Regrets
Laura Marling – Not Done Travelling
Ukulollo – The Earth Under My Feet

Videos You May Like

To jog your memory, here are some more videos that have caused a stir in the comments, on the net or in my pants:

Eddie Vedder – Sleeping By Myself
Wilfried Welti – Gymnopedie No. 1
Walk off the Earth – Red Hands
Walk off the Earth – Gang of Rhythm
James Hill – Heart Shaped Tattoo
Glen Hansard – Come Away To The Water
Stephin Merritt – Andrew in Drag
Jake Shimabukuro – Island Fever Blues
Danielle Ate the Sandwich – Faith in a Man
MrJnobianchi – The Dumber They Come
Carly Rae Jepsen, Jimmy Fallon & The Roots – Call Me Maybe
sanfordandsong – Classical Gas
Svavar Knútur og Markéta Irglová – Baby, Would You Marry Me?
Daniela Andrade – Places We Should Be
War Jacket – Pour Traverser
Ewan Wardrop – In Da Club
Ali Ingle – Tornado
UkuleleTim – Tim’s Jig
Catey Shaw – Family
OK Go – Needing/Getting
Le Royal Boudoir Orchestra – Digga Digga Do
Elof & Wamberg – Øresundsreel
Krabbers – Stuff Ain’t Good
Lisa Hannigan – Somebody That I Used to Know
Sophie Madeleine, Jocelyn Mackenzie & Emily Hope Price – Bei Mir Bist Du Schön
The Vespers – Flower Flower
Jessica Latshaw – Ain’t My Friend
McFly – Love Is Easy
Ben Torres & Camryn Wessner – Banjo
Herman Vandecauter – Ukulele Blossoms
Joy Ike – Movin’ On
Elizabeth Mitchell – Froggie Went a Courtin’
LP – Wasted Love
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – This Charming Man
Ukulollo and Craig – Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Nicholas Abersold – Love Me For My Money
Peter Delaney – Pariah Chimes
The Staves – The Motherlode
Leftover Cuties – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman – Psycho

I’m a bit queezy about both hip-hop parodies and George Formby parodies. But I took a metaphorical leaf out of 50 Cent’s literal book and didn’t let fear stop me doing this Formbied version of In Da Club.

He tuned up half a step for this but I played it with a capo on the first fret. If you’re just playing for your own amusement you can keep it in standard tuning.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this as your main strumming pattern:

d – d – d u d u

And switch that up with four down strums whenever the mood takes you.

In da chorus: Do the main strum twice each for the C7 and F. For the next C7 do the main strum followed by two down strums. Then one down strum each for the Db7 – C7. Slowed down, it sounds like this:

Chorus Strum

In da verse: Main strum twice for each chord.

In da middle: Main strum twice for each chord. One down strum for the last chord.

In da intro: You can do a fancy bit of triplet strumming (the TTTs are triplets) with this once for the first F and C7:

TTT D –

Then one down strum each for the rest. Slowed down, it sounds like this:

Intro strum

Links

Ewan Wardrop’s Formby show
Buy the 50 Cent version
More hip hop tabs

A whole shed-ton of great ukulele videos since the last UkeTube. So many I’ve had to divide them up between this week and next.

The first instalment includes Ukulelezaza’s band the Oona Libens Trio, a track from Jake Wildwood’s new album (his best yet – download it), a track from Celisse Henderson’s live EP, apartment-hopper Matt Kresling and plenty more.

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

NAMM: Music’s big show-off shindig has started. Follow Ukeeku for all the important ukulele action. For starters, here’s a Lanikai USB ukulele and songwriting dice.

New Releases: Jake Wildwood Has Been Framed (it’s free to download – scroll past the burning house), Blue Dean Carcione’s Bad Things & Good People, live EP from Celisse Henderson, Kara Square’s Love Songs for Everyone Especially Uke.

Pictures: The Sea ukulele (watch it being drawn here), Johnny Marvin festooned with ukuleles, Ukulele convention by Melissa Four

Captain Beefheart’s rules for playing guitar.

Halifax Ukulele Gang’s giant songbook.

Ralph Shaw asks What’s the next chord?.

Bric-a-brac: Sloth Playing the Ukulele t-shirt, UKULELE a giclee

Videos: 3D printable ukulele test (sounds better than I thought it would but I expect 3D printers are going to be most useful for nuts and bridges in the uke world), Wilfried Welti compares the ukuleles in his collection, Miss Universe doing a ukulele cover, Carmen Electra is clearly into ukulele players.

When I got my first ukulele, I was completely clueless. This was in those dark, long forgotten days before the internet had been discovered. I didn’t even realise that the strings weren’t supposed to go thickest to thinnest and restrung it.

So, to save you from the social disgrace I experienced, I’ve put together a free mini-ebook covering the basics that every first time uke owner needs to know. Here’s what it contains:

Five Things to Know
Five Chords to Learn
Five Songs to Play
Five Websites to Visit
Five Things to Get Free
Five Things to Buy
Five Videos to Watch
Five YouTube Channels to Subscribe to

You can download it free by clicking here:

And get playing by following the beginner ukulele lessons.