Intro and Verse: It starts off straightforwardly in G minor.
Chorus: A switch to G major and a busier melody make for an upbeat chorus. The octaves in 20 and 24 are tricky to play. If you’re struggling, you can play either the top or bottom line alone.
Solo: My version of the solo is only loosely based on the original. There’s plenty of room for making it your own. Bars 37-38 are a pain in the arse to play. But also the best bars in the whole song.
If you’re looking to entertain over the festive season, it’s time to start polishing up your holiday tunes and learning a few new ones. Here’s a rundown of everything Christmassy and seasonal on the site.
I hadn’t heard Harry Styles’s As It Was before it cropped up as a Patreon request and my hopes weren’t high. Turns out it’s a pretty great song. Very catchy with a melancholy edge.
Intro: A bit of Take On Me action with this riff. Once the chords kick in at bar 2, prioritise keeping the energy up over hitting exactly the right strings. As long as you’re holding the chord, it’ll sound great.
Verse: Mostly one finger per string picking here but I’m alternating index and middle finger to pick the C notes in bars 7 and 11.
I snuck in a little lick at the end of bar 8 to fill up the bar. You’re welcome to use your own ideas here.
Chorus: Just strumming for the chorus. The trickiest part is hitting the F chord just before the end of bars 15 and 19. Don’t worry if you hit some of the open strings when you play the A-string, 7th fret the note before.
You could always extend that note at the 7th fret and hit the F chord at the start of bar 16/20. I doubt anyone will notice.
Bridge: A whole mess of notes here. Definitely need some alternate picking to get through it.
Intro: Starting off with thumb and two finger picking.
I love the way this riff works with open strings on the uke. So much so, I considered inserting into the song itself. In the end, I saved it for the outro.
Verse: By far the hardest part of the song comes with the big jumps down the fretboard in bars 13-16. Well worth practicing these bars by themselves until you’ve got them down.
Chorus: Switching to one finger per string picking and moving into strums at the end of the chorus.
By far the most challenging aspect of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You is the timing of the melody. Thanks to Gen X disaffection, the melody keeps coming in later than you’d expect.
In the verses, you’d expect the melody in bars 7, 11 and 19 to hit right at the start of the bar (as it does in bar 15). Instead, it comes in a quaver late (or eighth note if you prefer).
In the chorus, it’s similar in bars 23, 27 and 31. But I found these even trickier to get the hang of.
No such problems in the solo, though. Here you can mess around however you please using the chords as a basis for your twiddling.
I’m using Teespring again. If you want one of the shirts they’ll only be available until 30th November.
I’ve been using Teespring for many years now and it’s always worked well. My shirt came here (the UK) quickly and without any hassle. It’s nice quality and is still looking good after many years of wearing it.
1979 is the Smumpkins’s biggest hit but was almost cut from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Which is confusing as that album could do with a dozen songs cutting but not this one.
This arrangement is mercifully easy after the nightmare of Send Me on My Way. This one is all strumming and nothing too difficult with the fretting hand. So you can really concentrate on mixing up the dynamics and enjoying the chill Gmaj7 chords.
There are a lot of rapid notes to get your fingers around in this one. Even at this slightly slowed tempo, it’s tricky to pull off.
Intro: The classic riff. Making use of the high-g string to avoid moving up and down the neck.
Verse: No avoiding moving up and down in this part. But it’s not too difficult until the end of bar 14 with the mabubadeesay mabubadeeum bit (lyric sheets claim he’s saying, “You know what they say about the young,” but there is no way). This includes my favourite trick: playing the same note on different strings (g and E) to allow for quicker picking.
Chorus: Busting out the strums for the chorus. Nothing too difficult here.
Bridge: The trickiest bit with the very quick “Send me on my way”s. I’ve cut down the number of notes in some of these to make them easier to play.
Solo: The funnest bit. As long as you keep the strumming up, you can play around with this section as much as you like.
Outro: Just strumming out the chords in the outro followed by a stripped down version of the riff.
A massive thanks to all Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers for keeping the site up and running this month. And double thanks go to these legendary patrons of the arts:
– Arthur Foley
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– Dan
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– Elizabeth Beardsley
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– T S
– Thorsten Neff
