Obviously there’ll be more stuff this year. Some of the stuff I’ve got lined up: U900, Garfunkel and Oates, Zee Avi and Half Man Half Biscuit (about bloody time).
I’ve had a couple of half-hearted attempts at working up a version of this myself but never came up with anything that I thought really worked. Lucky for me, David nailed it and he’s kindly let me share the tab for his version with y’all.
Videos this week from the mind-bending tUnE-YaRdS (and don’t miss FIYA from the same session), Miss Jess, Siri Nilsen (same song as last time but it’s too good), Nate Lieby (I strongly advise you close your eyes for 15 seconds at the 2:25 mark) and plenty more.
A lot of stuff I wanted to post this week – I’ve gone over my self imposed limit of ten and there were more I wanted to post. If you’re still gagging for more after these check out Kate Sloan, Wilfried Welti and The Corner Laughers (thanks to Ron Hale for that last one).
We should definitely have Thanksgiving in the UK. How could we turn down a day of over eating? And a day of over spending afterwards? If you’re looking for a Black Friday deal, you can get 15% off at Guitar Center today (Friday) using the code BLACKFRIDAY. I think I’d use it to pick up an Ibanez quilted maple (they seem to using the spalted mango picture there).
Pono seem to be the ukulele of choice for musicians realising they need a better ukulele. Recent upgraders to Pono include Dent May, Amanda Palmer and Sophie Madeleine.
With guitar makers like Ibanez and Fender leaping on to the ukulele bandwagon, I thought Larivee might be returning to the fold. But they’ve gone and sold their koa wood to Kala.
The Ukulele Festival of Great Britain is going to take place in Cheltenham on 19th and 20th June next year. The bill is rumored to include GUGUG, Uke Box and Ukulelezaza.
I regard myself as being pretty near unshockable when it comes to lyrics but I did have a ‘Can he say that?’ moment in this song (I won’t spoil it if you haven’t heard it yet).
I wasn’t expecting ukulele riffery from Jamie T but this is a damn fine bit of work. And quite tricky to work out – not sure how much use the G string is getting.
Verse
The tab is in D-tuning (aDF#B) or you could put a capo on the second fret.
Chorus
Not Twiddly Bits
In the, “Hustle and the bustle…” section the chords are:
If you’re a regular on the blog, you’ll have noticed I’ve linked to quite a few of Jim D’Ville’s posts on Play Ukulele By Ear. His posts are always interesting and informative and I think ear training is essential for any musician. So when Jim was kind enough to send me a copy of his DVD on playing ukulele by ear I chucked in straight in the DVD player and got down to business.
The Lowdown
Play Ukulele by Ear is a 52 minute DVD introduction to musical intervals and using your ears to tune your ukulele and pick out chord progressions.
Chapters:
The C Tone
Tuning By Ear
C The Home Key
F The IV Chord
Chord Progressions
Intervals
Diatonic Chords
Price: $22 + $4 international shipping from Jim’s site or eBay.
The Good Stuff
Simply and Effectively Explained: Jim puts the information across in a very straight forward and effective manner. He’s obviously taught a lot of people this stuff before and knows what works.
No Prior Knowledge Needed: If you don’t have any knowledge of musical theory at all, you’ll still be able to follow along with the DVD and learn from it.
Interval Recognition: I think this is the strongest part of the DVD. Jim demonstates the sounds of different intervals and relates them to specific songs to help you recognise them more easily. And he has a great way of explaining the moods of the different chords in a I – IV – V progression to help you spot them in songs (and it’s very useful to be able to do that).
Interesting Titbits: Jim throws in plenty of interesting factoids such as harmonic resonance and ambulance sirens using 7th intervals.
The Beret: Every pro uker needs their trademark headgear and Jim now owns the beret.
The Not So Good Stuff
Filmed Lesson: The DVD is a filmed group lesson (although you don’t see the group apart from the occasional Fluke headstock invading the screen). It’s a bit disconcerting to watch because he’s looking everywhere but at the camera.
It’s a DVD: It’s just my personal preference and I know there are plenty who disagree – I’m probably in the minority – but I find it hard to learn effectively from DVDs. I can’t dash through the parts I understand already and it’s difficult to go over the bits I don’t grasp again. I find that DVDs/online videos are good at conveying an interest in the subject but I usually find I’ve forgotten everything by the next day. Probably a bad habit picked up from watching to much television.
It’s mostly down to my learning style. If yours is different, you might prefer a DVD.
Bringing it back to an actual review of this DVD in particular, I think it could do with being chopped into smaller sections to make it easier to find certain parts. There’s a lot of information on the DVD – too much to take in one go if it’s all new to you – so it would be useful to have smaller sections.
Overall
Play Ukulele by Ear is great for anyone who wants to know the basics of harmony and how to recognise intervals. By the end of it you’ll be able to spot a I – IV – V progression a mile off – which is worth the price of admission alone. But don’t expect it to turn you into an expert able to reel off tabs after one listen. If you’re already sound on the basics and looking to develop your ear to a more advanced level check out Ear Master.
Here’s another top-notch song from Sophie Madeleine and another one for ukulele-tabs.com to steal (unless they made exactly the same screw ups with the passing chords I did). And they butcher the stuff they nick: they even keep the G’ notation in this which makes no sense since all their chord shapes are auto-generated.
Anyway, enough bitter ranting, on to the song.
Suggested Strumming
For the verses:
d – d u – u d u
For each chord except the last C in the verse.
For the middle do all down strums for the first two chords then d u D u d u D u for the next two.
(Not So) Twiddly Bits
For the intro you play the chords just the same as the verse but take your finger off the A string and play it open for the last strum on the C’, C5- and Csus4 chords.
There aren’t many people in the ukulele community I have more respect for than Craig Robertson. He’s been a massive supporter of new ukulele talent through his Ukulele Noir and Ukulele Caravan shows, he’s the original ukulele blogger and, of course, he’s a killer songwriter.
Craig has just released a new album, Under the Mystic, so I took the opportunity to fire some questions at him.
How would you describe the new album?
I’ve always struggled with how to describe my music. This CD is definitely more personal and punchier. I dunno; this CD is full of music that looks at what and who you probably hadn’t thought of looking at. Or, maybe you didn’t want to look at. I’ve tried to take more song subjects by the throat and shake them. Standard pop fare kinda makes me cringe.
Many of your songs are character based, what draws you to certain people?
Something that transcends the normal. Something that makes them blossom into their own reality.
What was it like playing the ukulele before it was fashionable?
The audiences were more patronizing. Of course, they’re still that way occasionally. Is it fashionable now? It always went well with my fedoras, so, to me, it was always “fashionable”.
Who would be on your dream Ukulele Noir bill?
James Hill, Folk Uke, Bliss Blood and moi. I guess. Oh…yeah, and to get paid.
Blah blah blah branding, blah blah stage persona…Yeah, it’s a consideration, but I’ve pretty much always dressed this way. There IS a stage persona I put on, but it’s probably just the other side of the mirror. That alternate reality where I get to be a private detective who plays ukulele.
What can you tell us about your up-coming European tour?
Still in the negotiations stage. Sigh. This being the “holiday season”, everything and everyone grinds to an agonizing, screeching, emotional halt until after the new year. There are a lot of people in Europe I’d like to meet again for the first time, so I’m working on it.
With this video heading for a million views, this one’s getting so huge I just have to put it up.
The song reminds me of MJ Hibbett: lo-fi uke, unpredictable scantion, addressing himself in the second person. Perhaps if MJ got Stephen Fry to do an outro for him he’d have as many fans as he deserves.
Suggested Strumming
Most of the way this will suit you fine:
d – d u – u d –
Although you can add an extra strum in occasionally:
