This video made both me and L.bo Marie cry. She because the music is so affecting. Me because comparing their fresh-faces to my craggy, careworn flesh reminded me that my death is but a blink away.

Two things to bear in mind before you set out on this one. Firstly, he’s tuned down half a step to f# B Eb Ab. Secondly, I’ve simplified some of the chord names in the sheet. Technically the Em11 is Emadd11 and the F#m is F#maddb9.

Suggested Strumming

In the verses you can just do all down strums. That’s sixteen down strums for each chord (best to think of them as two groups of 8). If you want to follow what he does, he adds in a quick up-strum between the last two down-strums of each set of sixteen. So for each chord you’re doing this:

d – d – d – d – d – d – d – d –
d – d – d – d – d – d – d u d –

If you’re not doing the twiddly bit in the chorus you can continue with the down strums. Just be aware that it’s 8 then 6 down strums (not 8 then 8). So you’re doing this:

d – d – d – d – d – d – d – d –
d – d – d – d – d – d –

Twiddly Bits

The guitar part that’s played in the verse fits on the uke like this:

The fancy bit in the chorus (shown at the bottom of the chord sheet) pretty much combines that with the chords.

Requested by ukematt.

A big, fat happy half-century to Phredd for his birthday on Monday. In celebration, him and his buddies playing 42 Monkeys.

Also this week: woodland indie-folk from We Aeronauts, NSFW language from Garfunkel and Oates, some Whokulele silliness from Jo Stephenson, the new one from Sophie Madeleine and the Sophie Madeleines and plenty more.

New rule: I’m allowed to post one video a week that has a uke-related instrument in without having to apologise or explain. This week: Brazilians Sangue Brasileiro.

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Some very sad news on the ukulele sales front, musicguymic has had to shut up shop due to illness. Musicguymic was always the first person I recommended when it came to uke buying. I’ve never heard a word against the guy and he had the best selection and knowledge around. He’s really going to be missed and I wish him a speedy recovery.

The Eleuke electric acoustics are out. Eleukes have never been the prettiest ukuleles around but these really are an ugly piece of ass. Ukeku has a review (I don’t know how he could have given it 4/5 for looks).

Roper concert sized guitalele. Unusual to have a guitalele that small.

Some lustable vintage ukes: Martin baritone, Gibson baritone, Martin 3K.

I’ve been using Tumblr for a while now. There’s a lot of uke stuff, obviously, but also plenty of non-uke material. Official friend of the blog, L.bo Marie has been putting up some great uke photos on her Tumblr including these handsome ukers and a cycling ukulelist along with this insanely addictive little music maker. Also from Tumblr: ukulele pin-up, Tennessee-Virginia musicians.

James Hill has a new book out: Great Popular Songs. It contains chords and standard notation for songs like Sister Kate, Midnight Special and Roving Gambler in high-g friendly format. You can get a free sample here.

The New York Times talks ukes with Eddie Vedder, Amanda Palmer, tUnE-yArDs and Jim Beloff.

I’ve been grumbling about the over-supply of ukulele contests for a while but the Hitachi heat pumps thing going on at the moment is by far the most irritating of all time. Everyone has to record their awful jingle and the winner is the video with the most views. With a $10,000 prize, lots of schools have entered and people have badgered me to feature their videos. But the inevitable winner is the one willing to show the most tit. I’m never buying anything made by Hitachi again. Except maybe one of these – after that video I have a stiff, erm, neck?

Tab-u-learn/Tri-Tabs has moved again. It’s now PDF Minstrel.

Formby chords on Ukulele Cosmos.

Paganini and Bedouin Soundclash on Uker Tabs.

Zach ‘Scrubs’ Braff’s new play contains the role of Kim who, “Does not see how being an “escort” might not be the best path to becoming an internationally famous, ukulele-playing pop-star.” We’ve all been down that road.

You should be absolutely amazed that I’ve posted anything the last few days. This week has seen the two releases I’ve been looking forward to most this year: Portal 2 and the new tUnE-yArDs album. Both of which I’ve enjoyed even more than their predecessors.

Jonathan Coulton has written a new song for the game and if – like the first game – if it’s a ukulele song you can be sure it’ll turn up here. But I don’t want to ruin it by searching out the song before I finish the game, so here’s the standout ukulele-heavy track from W H O K I L L.

tUnInG-yArDs

She’s playing a tenor but actually has it tuned dGBE (like a baritone but with a high-D string).

rIfF 1

The song is mostly made up of two riffs. The first uses both fingerpicking and strums. For the picking use the thumb on the bottom two strings (d and G), index on the second string and middle on the first string.

rIfF 2

The second riff is all strums with a couple of slides thrown in:

sTaNdArD tUnInG

The song transfers pretty well to standard tuning (whilst keeping it in the same key). The one note I’m not entirely happy with is the open A string in bar 3. It’s an octave above what’s being played in the original and I don’t think it’s quite right. One alternative would be to play the open C-string instead. Or, since she leaves out this note late in the song, don’t play anything at all.

Here’s how the standard tuning version sounds:

Standard Tuning Version

When I posted Diane Rubio’s version of Under Paris Skies it prompted some discussion of her vibrato technique (which she chipped in on). So I thought it was about time I put up a post about it.

Vibrato is making the note quiver by varying the pitch slightly. You hear it a lot in the big diva singers. They’ll hold a long, high note then make it wobble. Rather than singing the note straight they glide between singing slightly higher than the note to slightly lower than it. Recreating that effect on an instrument gives it a more expressive, human feel. One you’ll hear all the time in blues guitar solos. If you’re wanting to do any solo work on the ukulele, it’s well worth learning a couple of vibrato techniques.

Classical Style

Players of classical string instruments like cello and violin will create vibrato by moving back and forth slightly along the string – making the pitch go from slightly higher than the note to slightly lower than the note just like the vocal vibrato. It works very well on fretless instruments, but is also used on classical guitar and ukulele.

You do it by rocking your finger back and forth with the fret. Here’s the technique done slowly then more rapidly.

There are plenty of advantages to playing vibrato this way. It’s very suited to the uke’s nylon strings, it’s a subtle effect and it can be done with full chords like this:

Guitar Style

In guitar playing, vibrato is created by bending and releasing the string. You do it by pulling the string down (for the C-string – as in the video – or the g-string) or pushing it up (E- and A-strings). Here it is slow then fast:

This technique isn’t quite so friendly with the nylon strings. It creates a bit more noise. On the upside, you can get a much wider and wilder vibrato with it by doing larger bends more quickly. It’s also the ideal vibrato to use on bends like this:

When to Use Vibrato

Don’t go too overboard with the vibrato. Like most techniques, it’s most effective when you use it sparingly. The best place to bust it out is on the long notes at the end of a phrase. Also vary the speed and, with the guitar-style vibrato, width of the vibrato. You can do that even on one note. Try starting with a slow vibrato then speeding it up as the note fades.

Me a year ago: “That’s the second ukulele-based cover of the entire In the Aeroplane Over the Sea album I’ve ever heard (after this one). I should write up a song from that.”

Me a week ago: “I should probably get round to that now.”

So this is long overdue and now fairly irrelevant but it’s still an excellent song. And pretty easy since it’s only three chords. I included the soprano version of the chords in the chart above but the song is played on baritone so here’s that version of the chord shapes.

Suggested Strumming

For the main strumming pattern you can use this:

d – d – d u d u

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

Main Strum

Do that twice for the F and once each for the C and Bb in the first two lines. Then twice each for the C and Bb in the next line.

The only tricky bit is the quick change in the intro, verse ends and instrumental parts. Here you strum like this:

Tricky Strum

After that, you’re back to the easy pattern for C and Bb.

Twiddly Bits

I’ve included tab for the two accordion/trumpet/melodica parts in the chord sheet. The first part is pretty simple and sounds like this on uke:

Break

It’s played twice through (as here) on the original but only once in the NUH version.

The outro section is a bit more tricky. It’s played higher up the neck. Try to use your pinky for all the notes on the 8th fret. That way your other fingers will be in the right position for the other bits.

Outro

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When they get round to writing the history of this ukulele revival Craig Robertson‘s name should be up there with Jake and IZ in importance. One thing’s for certain, if it hadn’t been for his involvement in Ukulelia and Ukulele Cosmos there wouldn’t have been a Uke Hunt.

Craig’s just put all his albums up on Bandcamp where you can buy them or listen to the full tracks. With there being seven albums to negociate, I thought I’d select ten of my favourites as a starting point for people who are new to his music. If you think I’ve left something out, feel free to leave your own selections in the comments.

Practical Hypnotism

Staten Island Slide

An instrumental track from his debut album. It’s become a ukulele standard and is my favourite tune to mess around with. You can pick up Dominator’s tab here (PDF link).

That Dress

That Dress
She Likes to Pull the Wings off Flies

Possibly the most prominent of Craig’s themes: femme fatales. Usually to be found in bars.

Houdini’s Perspective

Houdini Never Hung Around in Bars

Another one of his recurring themes: performance magic. This time a series of escapology based puns.

DeChirico Street

The Leopard – My all time favourite Robertson song. Don’t listen to a word he says, this song is definitely about his penis.

Goodbye Paul Tibbets – Craig’s next album will be a collection of protest songs. If they’re all as good as this one, it’ll be a fantastic record.

Read my write-up of DeChirico Street

Under The Mystic

The Ballad of Blanche Barrow

A story song about a real-life femme fatale. Blanche Barrow was the sister-in-law of Clyde Barrow (as in Bonnie and Clyde).

Read an interview I did with Craig when this came out.

Better Liar

Narcissa
Better Liar

You might recognise the Shiny and the Spoon featuring Narcissa from the very first Uke Hunt podcast.

Perfect Wife

Ghost of a Chance

Burberry are throwing a lot of nice clothes at ukers: Misty Miller, General Fiasco, Acoma and, this week, Pegasus Bridge. If this is general policy, can I put in an order for one of these? Size: the fattest one you make.

Not quite so well dressed but just as entertaining this week are Hawaiian soloist Benny Chong, Irish troubadour Peter Delaney, Japanese jazz-nutters Bliki Circus and many more besides. I should warn you, there’s lots of extended jazz noodling this week.

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Some stiff competition for my affections this week: Les Reitfors concert, Kumalae Style 5, 1928 tenor Gibson, Jose Do Espirito ukulele.

But for this week, it’s not a ukulele I want. It’s this strange, jumbo tenor guitar thing.

(Over-Keyworded) Pictures: 3 Handsome Ukulele Banjo Boy Pretty Girls Ocean Grove, ukulele pretty teen girl, 2 boys