Gustavo Santaolalla – Beyond Desolation (Tab)

The third and final of my tabs from the game The Last of Us Part II.

The piece is unadorned and mournful. It’s an excellent piece for anyone practicing their fingerpicking. It’s nice and slow but there are plenty of switches in the picking pattern to get used to. But all the patterns use one finger per string picking.

The finale of the piece is very intriguing. The original and the tab are both in Gm. But the song ends on Cm7 making the song feel incomplete. I haven’t played the game yet but, since this is the last piece on the soundtrack, I’m guessing that means there’s unfinished business at the end of the game and there will be a Part III.

Links

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More game tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Gustavo Santaolalla – The Last of Us Part II Theme (Tab)

Another Last of Us video. This time the theme tune by the master of the Bolivian super-ukulele Gustavo Santaolalla.

Mercifully, it’s much easier to play than the theme to the first game. That means you can focus on putting emotion into your playing using dynamics and pacing. The pacing in the original is so varied I was at a loss of how to write up some of the rhythm. So take what’s written in the tab as only the loosest guide.

You can also play with the timbre. For example, in bars 6-13 I pick closer to the bridge and use my fingernails more to make it sound closer to the banjitar used in the original.

Links

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More game tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine (Tab)

Following on from Lean on Me with another much-requested Bill Withers song.

The song itself is neatly split between the melody and the strumming. Which makes for an easy transition to uke. So you have only melody notes in bars 1 and 3 (played with the index and middle fingers). Then the open g-string which functions as both the melody note (on “Gone”) and the root note of the Gm chord.

For the chord bars (e.g. two and four) I’m plucking the individual notes with my thumb, then strumming the chord.

Bars 5, 6 and 7 start out with chords then switch to melody notes. In bars 6 and 7, I’m bending the Bb note (A-string, 1st fret) slightly sharp to give it a bit of feeling.

That’s it for the verses. The only other part of the song is the “I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know…” section which I’ve cut down to just two bars. That’s topped off with a bluesy pentatonic run up the neck before returning to the verse.

Links

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More soul tabs and chords
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Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Charming Disaster – Baba Yaga
Annier Trio – Indifference
EatMyUke – Bon Iver, Bon Iver Medley
Billy & Scott & Ernie Mack At The Broadway 1967 via @ukeist
Ana Claudia Vaz – I'll Be There For You
Lady Ri – Supermodel
Danny Yau – 40oz
The Little Things – Need You Now
Locum – Dreamer
Ukulele Death Squad – Shadows on the Street

Last of Us Part II Medley (Tab)

In this month’s Patreon request thread, I got a total of five requests for songs that are featured in The Last of Us 2. So I thought I’d put them all together in a medley. Although Wayfaring Stranger and Take On Me are by far the longest sections.

Wayfaring Stranger: I first wrote this song up in Ukulele for Dummies, so it was nice to revisit it with the freedom to add in some more twiddles. Just be sure to pick the melody with more force than twiddles so the two are clearly separated.

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here: A very brief blast of the intro. It fits perfectly with Wayfaring Stranger.

New Order – True Faith: No one requested this one but I loved the version in the trailer and it fits nicely with the other songs. Through doing this I found out that True Faith slowed down is uncannily similar to Mad World.

Pearl Jam – Future Days: Played almost exactly the same way as it’s done on guitar (making it five steps higher than the original).

A-ha – Take On Me: The request was for the slowed version A-ha did for MTV. So that’s the version I worked from (but it’s not far removed from the Last of Us version). The last few bars of this involve notes above the 12th fret. If your uke doesn’t go that high, you can move all the notes at the 12th fret and above down 12 frets. Then it will match the Unplugged and Last of Us versions which both switch an octave down from the original there.

Links

The Last of Us Part II Soundtrack
Gustavo Santaolalla – The Last of Us Theme (Tab)
More game theme tabs
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

It’s the halfway point of the year and time for a roundup of my favourite videos so far. And it’s been a weird year. Which is reflected in the videos which are split between live clips and socially distanced edited videos.

If there’s anything great I’ve missed, send me a link in a message or a tweet.

Tracklist
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Limehouse Blues
Bridge City Sinners – Song of the Siren
The Oh Yeahs – And Anyway
Clem Snide & Scott Avett – Roger Ebert
Tricity Vogue & All Girl Swing Band – Rasputin
Vinícius Vivas – There Will Be Some Changes Made
Desirée Dawson – Hey Brother
Ninebarrow (with Hart Voices and The Chantry Singers) – The Hour of the Blackbird
Dani Joy & Daniel Ho – Strange World
Ukulele Death Squad – Let Me Down
Natsuko Kitajima – Out Of Nowhere

Hank Williams – I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (Tab)

This tab was requested by Patron Fiona. She asked for a version that, “lets you play up the neck as well as in the lower end where it’s comfortable”. I don’t know if I’ve entirely fulfilled that brief. The melody is contained within an octave and I don’t like to move around unnecessarily. But for the second solo we do go adventuring up the neck. The chords for the two solos are inspired by the version Sara Evans recorded with Old Crow Medicine Show.

I’ve arranged the verse three different ways. The first time is simple G, C and D chords. The second has chromatically rising notes up from the fifth (the D on the C-string, 2nd fret). And the third has notes falling from the root note on the E-string, 3rd fret.

Links

Buy the song
More country tabs
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Claire Hastings and Grant Dinwoodie – Wild Mountain Thyme
Sho Humphries – Tears in Heaven x Blue Roses Falling
Desirée Dawson – Hey Brother
Nicolas Fingerstyle Ukulele – Wave
The Avett Brothers – Locked Up
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – The Lovecats
Natasha Ghosh – Dust In The Wind
Herman Vandecauter – 6 valses Felix Horetski

Listening
– Matt Kresling has released the ukulele soundtrack to his outstanding Madagascar Journals travel documentary and you can download it free on Bandcamp.
– A new release from The Front Bottoms Ukulele Versions.
– The Staves performed a live show from home in aid of Tiny Changes (ukulele action starts at about the 42 minute mark).
– Legendary rock journalist and uker, Sylvie Simmons has announced a new album of Joni Mitchell covers.

Learning
– Free collection of Children's Songs in the Key of C.
– Turns out you do need a license for that.

Window Shopping
– Kanile’a Kane’ohe Bay.
– The super furry animal: Kanile’a Manako Ukulele.
– Collings UT3.

Patreon

A massive thanks to Uke Hunt’s Patreon backers. And double thanks go to June’s Tenor backers:

– Ashley Hassman.
– Craig Mills.
– Dan.
– Fiona Keane.
– Joseph Freeman.
– Katherine Penney.
– Nancy.
– Pauline Leblanc.
– Potatoemagic.
– Sandi Clement.
– Trevor Mccravy.

Patreon posts in the last month include:

– Hank William’s I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
– And June’s exclusive for Concert level and up backers: Daft Punk’s Get Lucky

Dua Lipa – Don’t Start Now (Tab)

About once a year a pop song manages to pierce my grumpiness and make me grin. This year it’s been Dua Lipa’s Don’t Start Now.

There’s a lot to recommend the song: the jazzy chords, the funky bass, the cowbell. But my favourite aspect is the one-note chorus. Adam Neely recently made an outstanding video about the worst solo of all time that’s a must-watch on this subject.

Contrary to whatmorons like Ben Shapiro will tell you, not having a melody doesn’t mean it isn’t music. The static A note (in this arrangement) adds a different flavour to each chord. So it changes the Em into Emadd11, the C into C6 and G into Gsus2.

It also means there’s more room to play about with other aspects of the song. So there’s a little chromatic run-up to the root note of the chord (inspired by the bass line). And, in the second chorus, I throw in some harmonics on the E-string 5th fret to imitate the cowbell. I don’t think I entirely pull it off but it is fun.

Links

Buy the song
Queens of Pop tab ebook
Uke Hunt Patreon