I might not have thirty years of special effects experience, but I still want to tackle a few myths and misconceptions I see crop up now and again.

If you’ve got any you want to tackle, leave them in the comments.

There’s only one way to play each chord

The chords you see in chord books and at the top of sheet music are only one way of playing them. There are many other ways you can play them (known as inversions).

Uke chords are made up of three or four notes and any combination of those notes will give you the chord. You can play the notes higher up the neck. Or you can switch the string you play them on. It’s still the same chord.

For example, a C7 chord has the notes C, E, G, Bb. So you could play it 0001 (G-C-E-Bb) or 3433 (Bb-E-G-C).

There are good reasons to play a different inversion of a chord:

– It fits better with the chords around it.
– You’re playing with other ukulelists and want to stretch out the sound.
– You want to give it extra emphasis by playing higher up (or lower down) than the other chords in the sequence.
– It’s easier to play. Which brings us to.

Fmaj7 is impossible to play

I don’t know who decreed that all chord books would list Fmaj7 as 2413 but there are two possibilities:

1) They were so impossibly good at ukulele they forgot mortals can’t twist their fingers into a shodow puppet of Hogwarts.
2) They’ve never played an Fmaj7 on a ukulele in their life.

The vastly easier way of playing it is 5500. But you can usually get away with playing it exactly the same way as Am 2000.

Chord charts are “tabs”.

This one is infuriating to me. Not because I’m a grumpy pedant (although I definitely am). But because you want to know what you’re going to get. If the there’s no distinction it makes it harder to find what you’re looking for.

You have to play things the way they’re tabbed

It’s best to see tabs as suggestions. You can always play the same note on a different string, change a chord inversion, use a different strumming pattern. Or change things completely, call it an original composition and hope no one notices.

There’s a ukulele on I’m Yours

There no ukulele on Jason Mraz’s released version of I’m Yours (or any version I’ve ever heard by him for that matter).

The chugging instrument goes as low as the F# on the bottom E string of a guitar. Much too low even for a baritone ukulele.

The higher instrument is much closer to standard ukulele range (he’d only have to tune down a semitone to fit it on). But it sounds a lot like an electric, steel-strung instrument to me. There aren’t many steel-strung electric ukuleles around, even fewer in 2008. Seems very unlikely.

The entire world seems to be against me on this one. So if you have any evidence either way let me know.

UPDATES

Some more myths from the comments:

Any uke made of laminate will sound rubbish: Suggested by Lizzie. Cheaper ukuleles are made with cheap wood underneath and just a thin layer of nice wood on top for looks. Can you tell the difference between that method of construction and a solid wood ukulele? Here’s a – not entirely fair – test by Musicguymic. (The answers are here.)

Three Things I’ve Got Wrong

Of course, I’ve spread a few myths of my own. So, in the spirit of the meme that’s been knocking around the UK politblogs, here’s just three of them.

1. You can never have too many ukuleles

I was fully in the grip of UAS. Coming up with any excuse I could think of to buy another uke. But I finally hit rock bottom when I wasted far too much money on this ridiculous monstrosity.

Despite a huge collection of ukuleles, I only play two or three regularly. The rest collect dust. And now I wish I had fewer ukuleles.

2. You should start on a soprano

I’ve never been quite sure of the best advice to give when asked what size ukulele they should start with. So I went with soprano since that’s what most people mean when they think of a ukulele.

When I started, it took a lot of stumbling around before I settled on which ukes I preferred for which purposes. And I don’t really think there’s any shortcutting that process. So now I’d say try a few out if you can. Otherwise just buy whichever size takes your fancy. It’s not a big deal which you start out on. So long as it’s not a baritone.

3. I didn’t give Hawaiian culture enough repect

While I don’t agree with the, “Hipsters playing the ukulele is horrible cultural appropriation,” thing, I do think we should keep in mind we owe the instrument’s popularity to Hawaiians and should show them and their culture respect.

I wouldn’t tab Ukulele Lady now for that reason. It’s a song that turns Hawaiians into a caricature and reduces the language to nonsense.

And I’m going to try to combine points 3 and 1 by only buy ukuleles made in Hawaii from now on. I’m not sure if I’m capable of sticking to that though.

If you’ve got any myth corrections or something you’ve changed your mind on, leave it in the comments.

It’s been quite a while since I did any proper pop songs and risked hospitalisation. So this week I’m doing two.

I never thought I’d write up a McFly song but:

a) They’ve released a ukulele.
b) It contains a diminished chord and is therefore beyond reproach.
c) It’s insanely catchy.

The trickiest part of the song is the quick changes between the E and F#m. I’ve shown the standard fretting in the chord chart but test out some of the variations to see which feels best to you. I went with number 4 and blocked the g-string with my thumb.

Suggested Strumming

You can use this as the main strumming pattern:

d – d u d – d u

Which sounds like this:

Strum (MP3)

And vary it up with this:

d – d u d u d u

Use one of those patters –

Doo sections: Twice for the A’s and F#m and once for the D and E.
Verse and bridge: Twice for each chord.
Chorus: Once per chord except the quick F#m – E change. Do two downstrums each for those (or just one if you want to make it a bit easier).

Twiddly Bits

Tom might have taken up the uke but Danny remains my favourite McFly. Even if he’s not a ukulelist he was still kind enough to make the solo ukeable. Here’s a quick tab of the solo/outro lick for uke:

Here’s how (half) the solo sounds this on uke:

Solo (MP3)

Buy the MP3

The History of the Fall-feit: Back in 2009 I caved to pressure to write up Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours. About an hour after that post went up I was laying unconscious on the floor with a head injury before being taken to hospital. (I’m leaving out the details in hope you’ll assume I was doing something sexy and dangerous.)

This was clearly beyond a coincidence. The only rational explanation was that the wrathful Indie Gods were displeased with me writing up a song people liked and decided I must be punished. To placate them, I had to write up tab for the most indie and least popular band in history, The Fall.

Since then I’ve been required to tab a Fall song whenever doing anything vaguely populist. There are two pop songs this week so I’m getting my Fall-feit in early. And, since it was Halloween, I went with their spooky instrumental Mansion.

More Mighty Fall

Blindness
How I Wrote Elastic Man
Theme From Sparta FC

Buy the MP3

I absolutely love Keston Cobblers’ Club’s new album One, for Words. It’s the best British album of the year. (This one would have been close if the second half was as good as the first.)

The Cobblers kick off this week’s selection looking much better dressed than usual in a session for Burberry. Joining them are Daniele Andrade, LP, Ali Ingle, McFly and plenty more besides.

Full Playlist

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Gary Jugart has put together a great (and free) ebook of fingerpicking studies Ukulele Arpeggiator. I’ve really enjoyed playing through them. Here’s a video I made of one of the studies. The difficulty ranges from straightforward to very tricky. If you’re looking to improve your picking you’ve got to grab it.

There’s a new DVD in Jim D’Ville’s series: Play Ukulele By Ear Vol. 3.

New free album from Nicholas Abersold Fillers including some that have been featured on Uke Hunt and one that mentions it.

On Video: Making KoAlana ukuleles (speaking of The xx), A bunch of excellent performances from the Paris festival.

Photos: Mobile ukulele school (via beginnersuke), UOGB in Lego, This one time at ballet camp (via Ukulelia).

I’ve been without a TV for a long time. It’s only now that Netflix has come to the UK that I’ve been catching up on things. One show that passed me by until recently was Bob’s Burgers. Turns out it’s packed with ukulele music (by the man behind the show Loren Bouchard) and stars America’s ukulele sweetheart. So here’s a belated tab of the show’s theme.

The whole thing is strummed. I’ve indicated the strumming pattern in the first bar and you can use that pattern all the way through.

I tacked one of the little interludes that crops up in the show at the end.

Bob’s Burgers on Amazon Instant

Here’s an update of my list of songs with beginner level chords. So no matter how few chords you know you can still bash out a few songs.

C, F and G

If you prefer, you can use G7 in the place of G or vice versa for any of these songs.

NeverShoutNever! – Your Biggest Fan/Did It Hurt?
Noah and the Whale – Five Years Time
OK Go – This Too Shall Pass
Paolo Nutini – High Hopes
SoKo – I Will Never Love You More
The Bobby McGee’s – A Dog At All Things
The Lancashire Hotpots – He’s Turned Emo
The Tiger Lillies – Start A Fire
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra/Kings of Leon – The Bucket

Plus Am, Dm and Em

Addams Family Theme Tune
Alton Ellis – Rock Steady
Black Kids – I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend to Dance With You
Darren Hanlon – All These Things
Electrelane – Cut and Run
Garfunkel and Oates – Me, You and Steve
Florence and the Machine – Dog Days Are Over
GUGUG – California Sun
Israel Kamakawiwoíole/Jason Castro – Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Julien Dore – Cet Air-La
Kate Nash – Foundations
Kate Micucci/The Gooch – Mr Moon
Last Shadow Puppets – Standing Next to Me
LP – Into the Wild
The Lumineers – Ho Hey
Phosphorescent – Wolves
She & Him – Sentimental Heart

Plus D

Allo Darlin’ – Tallulah
Amanda Palmer – In My Mind
Antsy Pants/Bear Creek – Vampire
Belle and Sebastian – The Boy with the Arab Strap
Daniel Johnston – Living Life
Gothic Archies – Shipwrecked
GUGUG/The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop
Keston Cobblers’ Club – You-Go
Phredd – Elmer’s Electric Tricycle
The Dubliners and The Pogues – The Irish Rover
The Pogues – Fiesta
The Little Ones – Tangerine Visions
Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London

Plus A and E7

Camera Obscura – Cock Up Your Beaver
Florence & the Machine – Kiss With A Fist (don’t panic, you can use E7 instead of E in this song)
Joan Jett – Bad Reputation
Kate Micucci & Ted (Scrubs) – Screw You
Paolo Nutini – Pencil Full of Lead
The Pogues – Streams of Whiskey

Plus Bb

Beirut – A Candle’s Fire
Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (You can use C instead of C5)
Ingrid Michaelson – Be OK
Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
Mumford and Sons – The Cave
Nevershoutnever – First Dance
Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers
Noah and the Whale – Jealous Kind of Love

More…

Mastered all those? Tackle more:

Easy ukulele songs
Beginner ukulele lessons

I would have put have put good money on Beirut cropping up on the new Tribute to Caetano Veloso album alongside Beck, Devendra Banhart and Seu Jorge.

But we still have their cavaquinho cover of Veloso’s O Leãozinho. I based the chords on the Beirut version but the original is pretty much identical.

The cavaquinho is tuned DGBD (higher than the ukulele). So to put it in the same range I’ve written the chords for use with a capo at the 7th fret.

Without a Capo

It gets fiddly playing the chords with a capo at the 7th fret. So here are the open chords if you don’t want the faff.

Suggested Strumming

For a simple strum you can use this twice for each chord:

d – d u – u

The only place that doesn’t work is with the F – Fmaj7 change. If you want to keep things simple you can just play the pattern once for each of those. Or you can do something similar to the way Beirut play it:

Which sounds like this (slow then up to speed):

Strum

Buy the Caetano Veloso version.
Buy the Beirut version.

Loads more Beirut tabs and chords.

Hard to hear the music this week over all the names being dropped. Namecheckees – in descending order of awesome – include: blues-ukulelist Little Laura Dukes, God-child Jesus, particle-botherer Brian Cox and dog-judger Stacey Solomon.

Full Playlist

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The UOGB documentary The Ukes Down Under is now available on DVD. Here’s the funniest DVD extra: the Aquila String Harvest. And if that’s of interest to you then, parliamentary sketch writer, Simon Hoggart knows exactly what you’re like, “They like to watch Miranda on TV, and hold their office Christmas parties at Café Rouge. They own little cars which have nicknames. Many belong to the Liberal Democrats.”

I sometimes struggle to convey just how glamorous the ukulele scene here in Derby is. Luckily, there’s a video that displays it perfectly: Gary Wilmot ukulele flashmobs Derby Westfield Centre. In other Derby ukulele news, The Re-entrants are splitting up but reforming as Phil Doleman and Ian Emmerson and performing original songs.

New Releases: All Young Girls Are Machine Guns’ new one Here’s Hopin’ Tomorrow Never Comes, Ed Harley’s Dandelion Wine.

Kyle James Frazer did a great session for Radio Teeside.

Pictures: Custom Mo’o tenor by KoAloha. So it’s impossible to play a ukulele and not smile?

Video: Most Popular Ukulele Videos September. Documentary (in Portugese but with English interviews) about the ukulele and cavaquinho (including Ohta San, Victoria Vox and Sophie Madeleine).