Ukelear Meltdown – Newcastle-Upon-Tyne’s foremost ukulele festival – is looking for suggestions on who should be a part of their 2010 event. If you want to suggest yourself or someone else get in touch with them.
MP3s: Good Cop Bad Cop release their, “instrumental ukulele rock opera about the parting of the christian church into the western Roman Catholics and the eastern Greek Orthodox,” (not another one).
In the comments: There was a lot of discussion this week about solid body, electric ukuleles and their relation to guitars both on the Kala solid post (with a contribution from the Wellingtons) and on the RISA post. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently and haven’t come to any conclusion on. And Andy has an excellent suggestion for hotels to provide ukulele rental.
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra – I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man (Chords)
Another one from the wonderful WIUO. This Prince cover is the standout track on their latest EP The Dreaming. Another good one for ukulele groups – easy chords for the beginners and twiddly bits for the showoffs. The only unusual chord in it is Ab. If you can’t get your fingers around that you can just move the whole G chord shape up a fret and reach your thumb round to stop the G string sounding.
Suggested Strumming
d – d – d u d u
Will see you almost all the way through.
In the verse: once for C, once for G and twice for F.
In the chorus: once for F, once for G and twice for F. Once for the other chords (except the final G – two down strums for that).
Twiddly Bits
There’s a lot going on in the intro. I’ve written it up for four parts:
Your Man (Intro Tab)
And here’s me playing that arrangement slowed down a bit.
The RISA solid ukulele isn’t like any other ukulele out there: it’s shaped like a hollowed out cricket bat, the tuning pegs are at the wrong end, it doesn’t have a head, its bridge is aluminium. Obviously, I had to have one.
The sound of an electric ukulele is going to have more to do with what you run it through than the uke itself. But here are a few clips of it through a Boss GT-10 to give you an idea.
First time: as it comes out of the ukulele. Second time: through pre-amp. Third time: pre-amp, EQ and a bit of reverb. Fourth time: cheesed up (pre-amp, EQ, a bit of reverb, quite a lot of chorus).
– It’s very easy to play: The neck feels very slick. The action is low. It’s very light. Unlike a lot of ukuleles that pack on useless frets, all the frets are playable with any finger. Because the body and neck are all one piece you can also do a bit of fretless playing above the top fret.
– Design: It’s not just a ukulele with pickups on. RISA have obviously given a lot of thought to what is required of an electric ukulele and designed towards that. It’s also pleasing as an object – to look at and hold (it’s very light).
My only grumble is the big RISA logo slapped on it. There’s a reason you don’t see chairs with ‘THOMAS CHIPPENDALE’ scrawled across the front of them. The design of it says it’s a RISA more clearly than the logo.
– It’s well made: No flaws in mine. And the intonation is spot on.
– It’s solid: Not just in the sense that it’s not hollow. It’s also very sturdy. As the shape suggests, you could play cricket with it.
The Not So Good Stuff
– It takes a lot of getting used to: It’s very different from any ukulele you’re used to. I found myself falling off the end of the neck a few times. The tuning pegs are on the body and it took me a while to get used to which tuning peg goes with which string and which way to turn them. You need to buy a strap to play it comfortably.
– The tuning pegs: This is the main drawback of the ukulele as far as I’m concerned. Even after getting used to the system there are problems. Like a lot of friction tuners, it’s hard to tune them accurately and they’re placed too close together for comfortable tuning.
– Aaaargh, the string is jammed: During some over-enthusiastic widdling I broke the A string. I went to take it off to find that the string was jammed in the hole at the nut end. There’s no way of getting direct access to it either. I had to bash a pin through the hole to free it. Even after setting it free, the rest of the string changing experience was also a pain in the arse.
I haven’t heard about this happening to anyone else, but the fact it can happen seems like a pretty big design floor to me.
– Passive pickups: That means you don’t get the on-board kajiggers like tone and volume controls. Not necessarily a big disadvantage. But you don’t get a headphone socket like you do with the EleUke which comes in handy for quiet practice.
Overall
I enjoy playing the RISA. The string jamming incident has soured me against it a little, but it’s a way better ukulele than the EleUke.
I must admit I had no idea who Brandi Carlile was until I saw this clip. But when I posted it on the Saturday UkeTube there was an outpouring of love from the ukers. It’s not hard to see why. This is a lovely little ukulele tune.
Laurel and Hardy Theme (Dance of the Cuckoos) (Tab)
After Steve sent me this slightly worrying video, I decided this is perfect for the ukulele. It’s simple to play, works perfectly on the uke and I’ve been strumming it the whole time.
I’m using D-tuning in the video, but C-tuning will work fine. The D-tuning does add a bit of plinky-plonky to it though.
Fewer videos than usual this week. Must be down to me being in a bad mood. I wasn’t even keen on Sophie Madeleine’s new one at first (it grew on me). And I dragged down the average by uploading five videos of my own.
If you want you fill-up of music, here are a few excellent non-uke videos:
Cordoba‘s use of the term ‘Portuguese koa’ has long had me flummoxed. I noticed recently that they’ve stopped using the term and are now just using ‘koa’. So I contacted them to find out what up and this is what they said:
There has been a big debate over Koa throughout the entire industry over many years. In our efforts to free ourselves from the inquiries about our Koa used in the 25sk, 25ck, 25tk, and 25tk-ce we are marketing these ukuleles as just koa… Just to be clear, the models that are available today are still handmade in Portugal, but we would appreciate it if you would write about our ukuleles as koa ukuleles instead of using the terminology “Portuguese Koa”.
Make of that what you will.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that the new Bugsgear EleUkes are being made by Kala. That’s the case in the UK at least. Looks like in the US the same ukulele is being branded as a Kala.
A not often seen Earnest Tululele (the one that looks like a Telecaster – as played by Eddie Vedder) on eBay UK.
If you’re reading this in the UK before 5:30PM on Friday – you might be able to hear my uke playing on Radio 4. Update: Well, they used my version, but they didn’t give me any credit for it. Here’s the MP3.
UKDad has been asked to design a new Fluke. See some of his ideas here. If you were designing a Fluke, what would you go for? I think I’d be all zeitgeist and go for a moustache.
My favourite section of the song. He uses the same chords for the, “enormous guitar solo” but with a few more fancy triplet strums and shifts between Em and Em7 shoved in the hole thusly:
Fight for Your Right Section
The main riff is E – G – A. But he throws in a B right before the lyrics.
The solo in this section is a lot of moving between B and Badd9+ with the occasional B7 thrown in.
She Watch Channel Zero Section
Chromatically descending chords. If you’re feeling lazy you could start with E played 7655 and slide it down a fret each time.
Mama Said Knock You Out Section
At the start of the Knock You Ayyyyyyt section he’s just playing D and A before the E chord comes in later.
The Magic Number Section
Dead easy two chorder. Simple enough for any stoner to play.
My Name Is Section
The whole song has been in E/Em so I’m not sure why the last bit switches up to F.
