I’m always keen to check out what musicians are doing on their instruments to see what I can incorporate into my uke playing.

It’s easiest to integrate techniques used on instruments similar to the ukulele such as the ukulele’s Madeiran forebears and, the subject of this post, the Venezuelan cuatro.

Full Playlist

The Venezuelan cuatro – not to be confused with the Puerto Rican cuatro – has four string, is usually tuned ADF#B (like a D-tuned ukulele) and appears to have been strung by an idiot. It is re-entrant like the uke but re-entrant the other way round. The outside strings (A and B) are both an octave lower than they are on the uke. So the outside strings are lower than the inside strings.

That means both instruments use the same chord shapes. It also makes for an interesting duet with the ukulele. In the Penguin Cafe Orchestra clip the ukulele and the cuatro are both playing exactly the same thing. But the difference in tuning makes it much more interesting.

The current kings of the cuatro are the C4 Trio who are as spectacularly explosive as their name would suggest. They demonstrate the riotous strumming that is a feature of cuatro playing (if you thought Jake had a great right hand check out Danny Orduño Barines). The clip I’ve included is long but there’s always something interesting and entertaining happening.

Before the C4 trio, the master of the cuatro was Fredy Reyna. He took up the cuatro in the 40s when his guitar was stolen and went on to play, teach and popularise the instrument and give it a new respectability.

The popularity of the cuatro spread to nearby Trinidad and Tobago (turns out it is way closer to Venezuela than I realised). Which saw a blend of the Venezuelan style (more heavy in the Robert Munro clip) with Carribbean influence (Busta Theodore) creating a genre known as parang. Parang is particularly associated with Christmas – hence the last clip.

I hope watching these gives you a few ideas and plenty of inspiration.

Thanks to Gerardo Gouveia for suggesting many of these videos and inspiring me to write this post.

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I finally recovered enough from the Asylum Street Spankers split to post this. It was made famous by Ukulele Ike and covered by the Spankers on their Dirty Ditties EP. But the version I’ve written up is the uke-only performance by former Spankers Pops Bayless and Mysterious John.

The other two versions are broadly similar but the Ukulele Ike version is one fret higher and the Spankers’ version is two frets higher.

Suggested Strumming

This one is a bit too complicated to go in depth but you can use this as the main pattern:

d – d u d u d –

Twiddly Bits

The intro and the move from the C to the A7 use this little run:

There’s an ascending bit on the G7 in the ‘thick of the fight’ bits:

And on the G7 after that (“mostly at night”) he cycles through some G7 inversions:

Buy the Asylum Street Spankers version

Buy the Ukulele Ike version

Some superstar guest appearances this week: Jontom is joined by Hawaiian guitar slinger Jeff Peterson, Ashton Kutcher provides bass for Snorri Helgason and Amanda Shires is backed by House.

Full Playlist

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Aquila have got a new set of strings the red series. These are low-G but the G string is unwound (i.e. they don’t have the metal wrapped round) so it’s just like the other strings (other than being red). I’m going to have to get a set of these. I’m not a fan of the sound or the feel of wound strings.

Luna are known for their… let’s say striking designs. So it’s no surprised that the vellum of the Luna banjolele is heavily filigreed. And if you’re into fancy banjoleles you might like the Valencia’s carriage clock shaped body.

Celtanowoodworks continue the crazy with a sharkulele

Giraffe bass ukulele (thanks to Phredd).

Looks like someone slipped on the ‘0’ key when pricing up some of these baroq-uleles.

Pictures: Sexy man plays ukulele to lovely woman, Popularity follows the ukulele

No shortage of ukulele book releases at the moment. Here are some of the more promising ones:

Mark Nelson (who you might know as the writer of the essential Fingerstyle Solos for Ukulele) has a tab book of his latest album featuring blues, ragtime and hokum tunes. There’s a tab from it and a video tutorial here on Uker Tabs.

Ian Whitcomb’s latest is Ukulele Heroes. There’s a podcast about it here.

Left handed chords for ukulele and other instruments.

New long playing record from Mr. B The Tweed Album.

Garfunkel and Oates appear on the Savage Love Podcast singing songs and dishing out sex advice. And Dan Savage talks about how he discovered G&O via Uke Hunt.

After a long hiatus the Ukulele Hall of Fame is inducting two new members: Sam and Fred Kamaka.

When You First Get a Ukulele – well worth a read even for non-noobs.

Videos: A 25 minute lesson with Jake Shimabukuro from Play Loud Ukulele, Ukulele film quiz (with very entertaining clues here if you get stuck).

Pictures: Ukulele nails, Fred, my uke and me.

I’ve started a Spotify playlist of the best ukulele tracks of 2012. Listen to last year’s list here. For non-Spotifiers, here’s the list:

LP – Into The Wild – Live
David’s Lyre – Heartbeat
Leftover Cuties – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
The Beach Boys – Isn’t It Time
OK Go – Needing/Getting – Video Version
Humming House – Gypsy Django
Katzenjammer – Cherry Pie
The Magnetic Fields – Andrew In Drag
The Vespers – Flower Flower
Garfunkel and Oates – Go Kart Racing
Mr B. the Gentleman Rhymer – A Rummy Old Day

I wasn’t as impressed with The xx’s debut album as most of the internet seems to have been, but there was enough interesting stuff on it to make me eager to hear the follow up that’s arriving in September. The most interesting being Crystalised with it’s interlocking guitar lines.

I’ve wangled the intro onto ukulele in few ways: with two ukes, with one, and a simpler version with one. The rest of the song is just Em – Bm – A. There’s also this guitar line in the chorus and the uke 1 part in bars 9 – 12 crops up later in the song.

Duet Version

Duet Version

Solo Version

Simpler Version

Simpler Version

Buy the MP3

I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on The ‘Ukulele: A History by Jim Tranquada and John King for a long time. John King’s Nalu Music has always been the most authoritative site on the subject.

When John died in 2009 it did look like it might not be finished. But Jim continued work on it and – spoiler alert – he did a fantastic job. He was also kind enough to send me a copy to review.

What You Get

An in depth and detailed history of the ukulele.

The book is 282 pages long but the main section (excluding appendixes, notes etc.) is 161 pages. There are plenty of black a white photos.

You can get a good sense of the book by reading A Strum through ‘Ukulele History on Nalu Music written by Jim and John.

The Good Stuff

Context – Finally!

Here’s how most ‘histories’ of the ukulele go: “This happened. Then this happend. Then this happened. Tiny Tim. Then this happened. The end.”

There’s never any historical, cultural or political context. They left a whole lot of questions unanswered. Like ‘why the hell did a bunch of Madeiran cabinet makers sail to Hawaii to become indentured servants?’ and ‘how did the ukulele go from being an instrument made by and for non-Hawaiians to being a central symbol of Hawaiian culture?’.

The book is great on this stuff.

Thought Provoking

Because the book doesn’t ignore everything that’s going on around the ukulele and its development, it sparks new thoughts and ideas all the time. It really gives you a sense of how much the ukulele, music and culture are a product of influences like geography, politics, the weather, economics, agriculture, religion and any number of factors. It also made me think deeper about whether it’s racist to play the ukulele, and the long history of women playing the uke.

Great Pictures

It’s not packed with photos like Jim Beloff’s The Ukulele: A Visual History but the pictures they use are fascinating and unexpected. Like that of John Phillip Sousa hanging out with a Hawaiian ukulele band in 1901.

Well Researched

There’s no blind repeating of second-hand knowledge here. Everything is meticulously researched and extensively footnoted. The notes are about half the size of the book itself (the main book is 153 pages and the notes are 74 pages long).

The Not So Good Stuff

There is more detail here than a casual reader is going to need. Which makes it hard going sometimes. I found myself getting bogged down in a few sections. So I did some judicious skipping safe in the knowledge I’m definitely going to go back and pick out stuff from it in future.

Overall

If you care about the history of the ukulele you have to buy it. It’s the definitive book on the subject. There’s no other book that comes close to it.

Buy it on Amazon US.
Buy it on Amazon UK

I’m slightly worried about the influence all this indie folk is having on my mental wellbeing. First it was the ukulele, then the flat caps, then the beard. Now those braces are looking very snazzy. This can’t be right. Nevertheless, indie folk provides a lot of ukulele-friendly songs (and it’s far too late to be worried about my mental health anyway).

As well as holding the fort until the 24th September, The Lumineers’ Ho Hey provides some excellent ukulele group fodder with its shouts, stomps, singalong chorus and simple chords.

The one downside is the tricky strumming.

Suggested Strumming

It’s so tricky I’m going to have to use slash notation to write it up.

Here’s the main strum from the intro and verses:

Which sounds like this slowed down:

Main Strum

The end of the verse goes like this:

Verse end strum

But if you find that a bit tricky you can get away with playing it like this:

Easier Strum

The chorus strumming is a lot more straight forward. Use this strum until you head back to the main strum:

d – d d u d u

Chorus Strum

In the middle section use that chorus strum once for the F. Then two down strums each on F and C. Then back to the chorus strum.

For a band that has a career’s worth of songs about lazing on Californian beaches, there’s not a lot of ukulele in their songs. But their latest album has a ukulele-heavy song and the uke slides neatly into the Beach Boys sound.

Also up this week is a blistering version of Classical Gas by sanfordandsong, some sound romantic advice from MrJnobianchi, Nicholas Abersold daydreaming of YouTube fame, Carly Rae Jepsen singing that song that’s all over the place and plenty more besides.

Warning: if you’re listening on headphones turn the volume down for Garfunkel and Oates.

The Full Playlist

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One of my favourite ukulele tunesters, Nicholas Abersold has released his album Porridge free on Bandcamp. It’s packed with top songs so grab it while there are still free downloads available.

Matt Kresling has made a travelogue about his trip to Madagascar with his ukulele and you can watch part one of The Madagascar Journals on YouTube. You may remember Matt from ukulele hits like The Beast That Swallows Its Young and Seventeen. And he makes excellent documentaries too. I loved this first part which includes him trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious death of King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho.

Lorraine Bow – off of the Ukulele for Dummies videos and LearnToUke – has released a book Ukulele Basics aimed at young folks.

Garfunkel and Oates have their own show on Comedy Central tonight (Friday).

Schoenhut used to make ukuleles in the 20s. And now they’re back in the game with a suspiciously familiar looking ukulele. UKISOCIETY has done a comparison of the fake Flea and the real thing.

On the subject of inferior knock-offs, UOGB rip-offs The UK Ukulele Orchestra are making their UK debut at the Edinburgh Fringe.

If you’re a fan of the real thing, there’s only a week left to fund the The Ukes Down Under documentary.

Also kickstarting is Joy Ike.

Tricity Vogue writes about ukuleles and women for The F Word.

Someone on Tumblr asked my advice on singing with a ukulele. I have enough trouble talking but my followers kicked in with some sage singing advice.

Most popular ukulele videos May 2012 – I switched this up so it’s the highest rated rather than the most watched. To take out the trolls.

Pictures: Creatures, I don’t know what this says but I get the message.

Jeff Lynne & George Harrison play ukuleles (via Ukulele Brasil).

UPDATE: Thanks to Peter Bulls for this translation of the comic:

“Here it is, I finally got what I lacked to be a true comic artist like Sfar, Boulet and the others… The unavoidable, indispensable ukulele!

At the start, you get the impression that your fingers are enormous, the frets are that small.

In fact, it’s a bit like playing guitar with boxing gloves.

(and after a while, it kills the fingers)

But what’s amazing is that, from the very first chord, you’re teleported to Hawaii. First class.

Then, you’re inclined to push on to Nirvana’s repertoire, like a teen that sits down with his first guitar… Hawaii can’t touch that.

*smash!*

(anyway, for The Mamas & The Papas, ukulele is fine as well)”