I had never heard this tune from the visual novel Clannad until I got a request for it. Even though I found it pretty damn irritating I couldn’t get it out of my head and had to work up a version.

It’s been a while since I made it hard on myself and did a full-on campanella version but it suits this tune really well.

I’m not sticking to any strict pattern for the picking hand. It’s mostly either thumb on g and one finger per string. Or thumb covering g and C with index and E and middle on A.

Make sure you let the notes ring into each other as much as possible.

Single Note Version

The campanella version is way more difficult than it needs to be. So here’s a simple version of the melody.

Buy the Clannad DVD

I love making things and I love the things that people make so the internet has been a huge boon for me. But the collision of copyright and the internet has thrown a few problems in the way. Things that used to be no big deal – like covering a song on your ukulele – can land you in trouble. Creative Commons is a way to solve that problem.

I’ve put a few things up under a Creative Commons (CC) license (like I did earlier today and with the First Ukulele ebook – there’s a full list of my CC licensed stuff here). When I do I usually get a few people asking what the hell Creative Commons is. So I thought I’d do a post explaining it with the help of three ukulelists who use it: Craig Robertson, Kahiwa Sebire and Howlin’ Hobbit.

What is a Creative Commons license?

Creative Commons sits alongside copyright but waives some of the restrictions. When something you make is under copyright other people have to ask your permission before they can use it (the “all rights reserved” thing). But if you give it a Creative Commons license you tell everyone they’re allowed to use it in various ways without asking (“some rights reserved”). And you can choose what people are allowed to do with it and what they aren’t.

There are four main restrictions you can put on it:

Attribution (BY): people can use it so long as they give you credit.
Non-commercial (NC): People can use it so long as they don’t make money from it.
Non-derivative (ND): People can use it so long as they don’t change it in any way.
Share Alike (SA): People can make derivative works but if they do they have to give it the same Creative Commons license.

You can choose to combine these.

For example, Amanda Palmer’s Ukulele Anthem has a BY-NC-SA. The BY part means you’re allowed to put the MP3 up for download so long as you credit her and don’t make money from it. Because she hasn’t put a non-derivative on it that means you’re allowed to cover it and put it on YouTube. And it means I was allowed to write up the chords. But because it’s got a ‘Share Alike’ you have to put a Creative Commons license on your version too. YouTube makes that very easy to do.

And you don’t have to be Amanda Palmer famous for people to use your music.

Kahiwa: “Someone chose to use my song Lovestruck as the soundtrack to their short stop-motion animation video about making yoghurt. I love yoghurt. It was so out of the blue, I was chuffed!”

Why Give Your Music a Creative Commons License?

There are a whole range of reasons why you might want to. Although it seems like copyright gives you more control, Craig and Kahiwa both (in their very different ways) like the extra control it gives them over how their music is used and by who:

Craig: “I pretty much dislike the entire copyright process anymore. It started out to protect ‘creative property’ but has just become another way for the suits to control things. I don’t believe most creative people (myself included) care about the ‘business’ side of art, music, whatever; as much as they care about the creative side… Creative Commons offers an alternative to the protecting creative property… and it is based on common sense, which first attracted me. If you play a song of mine, fine, if you make money doing it… well, give me some.”

Kahiwa: “I’m quite happy for people to share my music, do stuff with it, so the CC licensing process seemed like a good compromise between retaining some ownership (in the form of attribution and restriction on commercial use) and allowing the legal distribution of my music.”

Hobbit was inspired by others’ use of Creative Commons:

Hobbit: “Mostly a desire to avoid feeling like a hypocrite but also an extreme disgust with what’s happened to copyright law. Many of my personal heroes in this new musical landscape we’re living in use CC (and the pay-what-you-think-it’s-worth model) and I have long been singing their praises. I thought it was about time to walk my talk.”

Although I agree with Craig and Hobbit that copyright laws are dangerously restrictive, I have other reasons. There’s a lot of CC licensed stuff on the site (like photos on Christmas quizzes and on ebook covers, and music on the podcast) and I build on stuff that’s in the public domain. So it’s only fair that I give something back.

And giving my the First Uke ebook a CC license has definitely helped it spread. Every year the Uke for Xmas? post gets lots of attention, tweets, mentions, likes. And it gets sent to people who are just picking up the ukulele. Getting the site in front of people like that is worth much more to me than whatever I could charge for it.

Plus, it makes things easier:

Craig: “It actually relieves a lot of stress connected with ‘copyrighting’ my songs. And headache. It makes recording songs and putting them out more reasonable. I don’t worry about other musicians stealing my songs…I worry about businessmen stealing my songs.”

So How Am I Supposed to Make Money?

You might think that giving your music away for free would mean you didn’t make any money. But all three had plenty of people happy to pay for their music:

Hobbit: “Often they pay *much* more than I would have put my “set price” at. Your fans are going to want to support you, so get out of your own way and give them the opportunity.”

Kahiwa: “I was blown away that people would pay for it (or individual songs) when they had the option of a free download from bandcamp or soundcloud. Most of those people I know and they’re music-related friends/acquaintances from the internet. None of my family or real-life friends have paid though ;)”

Craig: “People have a tendency to buy music that they have already heard. That is the way pop music has always been marketed. People would hear it for “free” on the radio, and then go out and buy it if they like it.”

And getting your music out there helps you make money in other ways:

Kahiwa: “I got more for an appearance at a community ukulele festival in the Blue Mountains (NSW, Australia) than all of the song download proceeds put together.”

And they’re not alone. Nine Inch Nails and Jonathan Coulton have made serious bank from CC licensed music.

As Craig points out:

Craig: “A Creative Commons license, intelligently applied will actually protect the songwriters financially.”

How Do You Give Your Stuff a Creative Commons License?

Lots of sites will make it really easy to do. YouTube, Flickr and Bandcamp all give you a option to give your stuff a Creative Commons license. If you look at any of my YouTube videos that are my own compositions or works in the public domain they have a Creative Commons license. Like this one.

Otherwise you can go to this page on the Creative Commons site and make your own.

Even if you decide not to put a CC license on your music (or photos, or videos, or writing, or knitting patterns or whatever) I hope you take advantage of the stuff that does have a CC license. You get to use great stuff and not worry about infringing or getting sued. Here’s a good place to start your search.

Pick up some Creative Commons licensed music on Hobbit, Craig and Kahiwa’s Bandcamps:

Howlin’ Hobbit
Craig Robertson
Kahiwa Sebire

And, yes, this post has a CC license.

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

Ever since I put up this video of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus I’ve had a steady trickle of requests to play it at people’s weddings (not going to happen!) or for a recording they could use.

I made a recording of it that I’ve been handing out and here it is:

The Bridal Chorus – MP3 Version (quick download)
The Bridal Chorus – WAV Version (higher quality)
The Bridal Chorus – AIF Version (higher quality)

I’ve given it a Creative Commons license (more on that later today) so you’ve got full permission use it for free (even for commercial purposes). But if you want to make a donation to Ukuleles for Peace that would be nice. And if you do use it, I’d love to know.

It is a bit short. It was made for the specifications of the first person who asked it who – like I’m guessing most people wanting a ukulele rendition of Here Comes the Bride – was having a beach wedding.

I’m also giving the tab for it a CC license in case you ever get roped into playing for someone’s wedding:

It’s part of the How to Play Classical Ukulele ebook.

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

UPDATE: Here’s the little bit I tacked onto the end.

It’s official. Being a bearded, bald, chubby ukulelist is the height of itness.

I’ve written up Stephin Merritt’s solo ukulele version for this chord sheet. The album version is in the key of C (so the chords are C, Am, F and G)

Suggested Strumming

The strumming isn’t very straight forward.

In the verse, for the F:

d – d u – u d u
d u d u

Then 2 down strums for the Dm or one each for the Bb – C.

In the chorus, if you want to keep it simple you can do this for each chord:

d – d u – u d –

But if you want to be more accurate you have to have one extra strum on the first chord in each line. So you can do this for the Bb and Cs:

d – d u – u d – d

And then this for the F and Bbs:

u d u d u d u

Buy the MP3

In this week’s selection includes the smiley Vespers, the grumpy Stephin Merritt (taking some time off from crazy golf to play uke), the Dubliny acoustic hip hopping Original Rudeboys and right-angley Walk off the Earth.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jake Wildwood has a sale on for his vintage instruments. A few ukuleles available but my favourites are the Bantam guitar and the 6-string balalaika.

Some wild grain action on this Kanilea 3D curly koa. Speaking of Kanilea, their new Islander budget range has been picking up some good reports.

1939 UB01 Gibson.

Lyon & Healy Bell ukulele.

Pictures: Buster Keaton and Ukulele Ike, young flapper and her mum, Girls’ music group, Nautical band.

Rose Turtle Ertler’s recipe collection – as featured on the podcast – What Ukulele Players Eat 2 is now up for sale. It features recipes and tracks from loads of Uke Hunt friends including Bossarocker, Armelle, Herman Vandecauter, Rodrigo Lemos, Uke Box and a bunch more.

The Antiques Roadshow visits the Kamaka factory (from 20 minutes).

Pictures: Ukulele pixel art by Ben Lane, Ukulele rage comic, banjolele orgy, They Might Not Be Giants.

On Uker Tabs: Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box, Game Of Thrones Theme and James Hill’s Lying In Wait.

New album from Madeline Ava Still Gonna Be Fine.

Bosko & Honey and UKE on Australian radio.

Eddie Vedder announces first-ever UK solo shows.

Auckland noise control seizes ukulele.

Jack White’s debut album is coming out soon so it’s obviously time to do a career retrospective with a Jack White edition of the Guitar Riffs for Ukulele series. I’ve already covered his most famous riff – Seven Nation Army – but there’s plenty more where that came from.

White Stripes – Hardest Button to Button

Riff

I’ve arranged this one in the key of C as it doesn’t fit too well on a standard ukulele in the original key. You can, however, play it on a low-G like this:

The Raconteurs – Salute Your Solution

Riff

Two great riffs in this tune. The main chord riff above and the single note riff below (which you need to play a lot higher than the original to stay in the same key). When you play the A chord in the riff make sure you do it with your middle and ring fingers so you can bring your index finger under it to slide into the B chord.

Riff 2

White Stripes – Icky Thump

Riff

This is a version of the riff that crops up at the 47 second mark in the video. It’s not in the original key.

Dead Weather – Treat Me Like Your Mother

Riff

Isn’t Alison Mosshart just fantastic? Anyway, I played this one bass guitar picking style. But it’s a good excuse for using a pick too.

Tom Jones – Evil

Riff

Third Man Records – Jack White’s record label – have put out so much great stuff. Often with Jack providing some wild guitar accompaniment to the artist’s usual sound. My favourite of these is the one he did with the Secret Sisters but this new one with Tom Jones comes very close.

This riff kicks in at 40 seconds.

Jontom from the Italian uke site YOUkulele.com has got a new ebook out A Collection of 50 Ukulele Licks. He was kind enough to send me a copy to look over.

What You Get

– Tab for 50 licks (short phrases you can use in solos) in five genres: blues, pop, rock, folk and Hawaiian. (one PDF file for each genre). I’d say they’re mostly intermediate level of difficulty. They’re made for high-g and there’s a fair bit of use made of it but most of them would work well on low-G or baritone.
– Videos demonstrations of all the licks (.mov files mostly between 20MB and 35MB which makes for a big download if you’re getting the whole thing).
– You can buy each genre individually but you buy the whole thing you also get the tab in GuitarPro format.
– UPDATE: If you buy the whole thing you now get 50 strums as well. I haven’t got a copy of that so it’s not included in the review.

The Good Stuff

Cool Licks: Plenty of cool stuff to play in here. No surprises that the blues section has the juiciest licks. I wasn’t expecting it but the pop one was my second favourite. And plenty in the others to interest me too.

Videos

Each lick comes with a video showing the fretting hand and an insert looking down the fretboard at the picking/fretting hand. The video usually shows the lick played full speed then split into sections and played slowly with explanations from Jontom.

Price: It’s $8 for the whole thing ($2 for each genre). Definitely worth the price of admission. $2 for the blues licks is a no-brainer.

Guitar Pro Files: I’m not sure how many people have Guitar Pro. But I use it all the time so this makes for a nice bonus.

The Not So Good Stuff

Lack of Theory and Context: The tabs tell you which key each lick is in (although not major/minor) and that’s about it for explanations. There’s no discussion of the scales used or a particular progression you might use the lick over.

I think when you’re improvising have a library of licks in your head isn’t as useful as knowing your scales and how to transition between chords. So more help there would have been useful.

Videos: This is a personal thing. I don’t learn well from videos. They either go too slowly and I get bored or they go way too fast and I can’t keep up. The videos here are useful for picking up fingering (which isn’t tabbed) but otherwise it’s not saying much beyond the tab.

Overall

The obvious comparison is with Lil’ Rev’s 101 Ukulele Licks (about twice as many licks for about twice the price). If you’re a video person, definitely go for Jontom’s. If I could only have one, I’d go with Rev’s. His book is stronger on the country, jazz and bluegrass areas. And I like hearing how the licks would fit against the chord changes.

But I can have both and I’m glad I do. Even if you don’t buy the whole thing, $2 for the blues licks? Why have you not got your credit card out already?

Buy it now on UkuleleLicks.com

OK Go – Needing/Getting (Chords)

I’ve had quite a few requests for the ukulele bit in this OK Go video. So I went ahead and did that and the chords to go along with the slappy-tubes and dildo-piano (dildano?). The chords are actually based on the studio version but works perfectly well with this version (and we’re spared the extended outro).

Suggested Strumming

You can use this strum all the way through.

d – d u d –

Twice for each chord. Except for the long D chords in the intro riff.

Twiddly Bit

Here’s the intro ukulele bit:

All down strums for this bit.

Buy the MP3