You might already know I’ve been working on a new Christmas ebook. The proper release will be on Wednesday. But it’s December already and I’ve had a fair few people wanting to buy it. So I’m doing a bit of a pre-release for the people who want it right now and don’t need to know all the details. I recommend buying this now only if you’ve bought one of my ebooks before and know what you’re getting.

The full price is going $9 (like the first Christmas ebook). That price is only going to last until the proper release post goes up on Wednesday. So don’t shilly-shally.

In the ebook there’s tab for eleven simply-arranged Christmas carols. There are two versions of each: a full version (which you can hear in the videos) and a melody-only version (for easy playing).

Full Arrangement Videos

Don’t buy it now if you haven’t bought one of my ebooks before! I’ll be explaining the whole deal much more thoroughly on Wednesday.

Videos this week include Ukulollo hooking up with Craig Chee and his cello, a live song from Bosko and Honey, the Dreamland Faces and plenty more besides.

In unrelated news: Amazon UK is selling my book Ukulele for Dummies for a super cheap £6.40 at the moment. That’s 40% of the sticker price (and less than the second hand price – people are clearly loath to get rid of their copies).

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

Wilfried Welti has a new Christmas ukulele ebook out: Christmas Music with the Ukulele. If, for some inexplicable reason, you’re in any doubt about buying it take a look at his previous free Christmas ebook Weihnachten mit der Ukulele.

Beck’s album of sheet music with ukulele chords is imminent and he has released the score to the song Old Shanghai which you can download on SongReader.net and make your own version of. There’s excellent uke version here and here’s my instrumental version.

For Sale:
– Pre-order Helen Arney’s ukulele chord book.
– Gregorian Chant for Ukulele

Freebies:
– Lots of familiar voices from the old podcast. Bossarocker’s band Lou and the Llama have a session for ALL FM here, Podcast sessioneer Uke Punk has a new song available for download, as does Damon Hill.
– Dookielele Green Day cover project.
– Ukulele Clan Band’s The Sun
– New Navy’s Regular Town.

Videos:
– Johnny Ukulele (via UkulelePorn).
– Rudy off of E4’s Misfits shared some life experience: “When you’re locked in a prison cell 23 hours a day there’s not much else to do than masturbate and play ukulele.” Watch it here if you’re in a suitable geographic area.

Photos:
– Flea necklace
– Eddie Vedder

Carol of the Bells (MP3)

This tab was originally part of the How to Play Christmas Ukulele ebook (use the code “hamhand” – without quotes – before December and get $2 off) But it turned it out was a nightmare to play and didn’t fit with the easier tabs in the ebook. So here it is for anyone brave enough to attempt it.

But if you find this version far too easy for your vast talents, have a go at the John King version.

This work by Ukulele Hunt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Time to start practicing a Christmas song or three for any occasion you might be called upon to bust one out. Here’s a selection of the Christmas tabs and chords on the site.

There’s also my How to Play Christmas Ukulele ebook with easy arrangements of eleven carols. If you use the discount code “hamhand” (without the quotes) before December and you’ll get $2 off.

And there’s a brand new Christmas ebook on the way.

Chords

12 Days of Christmas
A Christmas Duel – The Hives and Cyndi Lauper
All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
Christmas for Cowboys – John Denver/Ballard C Boyd
Cold Outside – Julia Nunes & Wade Johnson
Fairytale of New York – The Pogues
Give the Jew Girl Toys – Sarah Silverman
It’s Cliched to be Cynical At Christmas – Half Man Half Biscuit
iPod X-mas – Hello Saferide
Let It Snow
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight) – The Ramones
Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade
No Christmas – Zee Avi
Present Face – Garfunkel and Oates
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Run, Run Rudolph – Chuck Berry
Santa Baby
Silver Bells – She & Him
The Christmas Song – Weezer
The Christmas Song Song – Rocky and Balls
White Christmas
Winter Wonderland
Year End Letter – Garfunkel and Oates
You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch

Tabs

Away in a Manger
Christmastime Is Here – Charlie Brown
German Christmas Carols
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Instrumental)
Jingle Bell Rock
Jingle Bells
Mele Kalikimaka
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
O Christmas Tree (Single Note Version)
Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer
Silent Night (Harmonics Version)
Silent Night (Single Note Version)
Sleigh Ride – U900 / The Ventures
White Christmas

You can always rely on Sufjan Stevens to release a few Christmas songs each year. But he’s really outdone himself this year with a giant collection of Christmas songs including a couple with ukes. Obviously it’s got some filler in there, but I think I’ll be playing this a fair amount this year. And if you don’t want to buy it yet you will do after you’ve watched the ads.

The Lumberjack Christmas part of the song is a pretty simple hoedown but things get a bit difficult in the second half. I’ve split the chord sheet into two and I’ve included different inversions of some of the chords for the second half (and I’ve missed off the piano outro).

Suggested Strumming

For the Lumberjack part, do this twice for every chord:

d u D U d u D U

Slowed down a bit, it sounds like this:

Strum MP3

With the emphasis on the capitalised D and Us.

For Christmases Past you can switch to a laid-back half-time strum and use this:

d – d u d u d u

Which sounds like this:

Strum MP3

Twiddly Bits

Here’s a version of the guitar and uke intro combined:

And you can play the fiddle bit that comes after that like this:

Here are those two parts slowed down a bit:

Intro MP3

And there’s a ukulele in the background of No One Can Save… doing this with varying degrees of loudness and softness:

Twiddle MP3

Buy it on Bandcamp

New video from Eddie Vedder’s Ukulele Songs with a trip to the Kanile’a factory. There aren’t may people that can match vocals with Vedder but Ali Ingle sounds just as great. Also up this week are some Halloweeny videos from Craig Robertson and Holland Greco, ridiculousness from Sid Laverants and Walk off of the Earth continue their run of striking videos with an increasing budget and Ben Harper (not the one off of My Family).

Full Playlist

Read the rest of this entry »

This KoAlana Special boxset from KoAloha looks so great. The downside is that it seems like it will only be available in Thailand.

1928 National Style 2.

1929/1930 Gibson Poinsettia.

Photos:
– Ukulele Group
– Ukulele Quartet
– Griswold Trio
– 1920 doll party

Sick of memorising the chords for songs? Lil Rev has a list 101 two chord songs.

Ukulele for Dummies is now available in German.

3D printing a ukulele.

Original Rudeboys turn down Chris Brown support slot because of their stance on domestic violence.

Sales of Martin ukuleles for their first 20 years.

New Releases:

– Joe Brown is capitalising on the popularity of I’ll See You in My Dreams with a full album of ukulele covers.
– Buke and Gase have released Hard Times and Blue Monday to benefit Sandy relief in Red Hook.
– New Person by Craig Robertson

On Video:
– Over Halloween I Tumblred a bunch of spooky ukulele stuff.
– Most popular ukulele videos for October 2012.
– Romney takes solace in his enormous piles of cash and a ukulele.
– Compilation from the Newcastle Ukulele Festival 2012

Photos

– Winter ukuleling.
– Kimo Hussey.
– Reading Tolstoi under the sun.

Some suggested I do an instrumental cover of this one and my immediate – and correct – reaction was, “Hell no!” But the more I thought about it the more I fancied the challenge of marrying the guitar and vocal parts together on the uke. Because of that, I didn’t make too many compromises in the arrangement. So it’s pretty tricky.

I’m using a few different picking-hand techniques:

Intro and verse: I’m picking with thumb on the C-string, index on the E and middle on the A.

Toni-i-i-i-ight bit: One finger per string with thumb on g, index on C etc.

Chorus: I’m using my thumb for the notes on the g and C; and flicking up with my index finger for the E and A strings.

Middle: Mostly flicking up with the index finger with some strumming on the full chords.

You also need a bit of thinking ahead on the fretting hand. I’ve included some fingering in suggestions in bar 5 and they apply to the similar moves that happen through the song.

Remember to the notes in brackets more softly so they fade into the background.

Buy the MP3