Bill Withers – Grandma’s Hands (Tab)

Grandma’s Hands by Bill Withers. You might recognise the riff as the sample in Blackstreet’s fantastic No Diggity. Or maybe James Corden’s terrible England song.

This arrangement is very simple and the tempo is slow, so this is a very approachable tab to take on.

Intro: I hadn’t realised until starting on this arrangement that the No Diggity riff isn’t a straight sample of the original. In his version, Bill Withers has an Esus4 chord missing from that version. I went with the No Diggity version for this arrangement (and so did Gregory Porter’s guitarist).

If you want a more authentic version, you could play it like this:

Verse: A couple fingerings to help with the chord changes here. At the end of bar 5, play the A-string, 2nd fret with your index finger barred over all the strings. That’ll set you up for the B7 chord in the next bar.

In bars 10 and 11 (and in the repeats), play the A-string, 2nd fret with your middle finger so you have your index and ring fingers ready for the A7 chord.

Outro: A little minor pentatonic lick to finish things off.

Links

Buy the original
More 70s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Australian ukulele group banned by the council.

Attempting to spell ukulele

BoyWithUke has revealed his face to promote his latest album.

Window Shopping
– 4stringboy’s signature Flight uke.
– Pelem nano uke.
– There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
– Custom Mya Moe resonator.

Patreon

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
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Kevin finn
– Leia-lee Doran
– Loreena Humbert
– Margit Stadlmann
– Mary
– Michael Lufkin
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– Tina Knight
– Virtual Performing Arts Academy

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including October’s: This is Halloween by Danny Elfman from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Willie Nelson – Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain (Tab)

Despite the the pleas of Al Ferrier, here’s a tab of Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Dozens of people have recorded the song since Fred Rose wrote it in 1946. But this arrangement is based on the definitive version by Willie Nelson.

Intro: Matching the Willie version by following the bass notes using the thumb on the g- and C-strings. Followed by strums.

Verse and Bridge: Continuing the thumb-plucking and strums, and adding the melody line. Most of the melody line is picked with the fingers, but some notes are part of the strummed chords.

There’s a simple lick in bar 11 and a couple of lines inspired by the walking bass in bars 12 and 20.

Solo: With Willie playing a nylon string guitar, his solo suits the ukulele fairly well.

The one problem is the bends. It is much easier to do bends on a uke in the middle of the fretboard. So I’m bending the E-string at the 7th fret rather than the A-string at the second fret. That does require some shifts up and down the fretboard.

Although the song is in swing time, the descending line at the end of the solo (bars 43-44) is played straight.

Links

Buy Willie’s version
More country tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

KT Tunstall – Black Horse & the Cherry Tree (Tab)

A tab of KT Tunstall’s breakthrough hit Black Horse & the Cherry Tree.

It’s a very propulsive song even in the very sparse sections. So in the verses, where it’s just the melody line, I’m using strum blocking to keep the energy up. The verse melody is busy. But it’s fine to miss a couple of notes so long as you keep the song moving along.

Links

Buy the original
More 2000s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Watch on YouTube

Tracklist
Honoka Katayama and Jody Kamisato – Wipeout
LP – Golden
Kamakakehau Fernandez – Hanohano `Olinda
The Birdwatchers – Dream On
Mike Haysom – Brahms' Lullaby
Herman Vandecauter – La Romanesca (On machete)
BoyWithUke – Problematic
Mel Muñiz – Mi Deseo (On tenor guitar)
Kris Fuchigami – On Bended Knee

Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi (Tab)

Here’s something to play at the Big Yellow Joint this weekend: Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi.

Intro: A cool strummy riff to start off with.

Verse: Like a lot of Joni’s songs, there are a lot of words crammed in. So you’ll need some quick alternate picking to fit them in. I have cropped out a few notes here and there to make it more playable.

Chorus: A rare case of a song getting softer at the start of a chorus. Tone it down for the first half of the chorus, then start blasting for the second.

In the second chorus at the end of the song, there’s a brief pause added on “gone” to look out for.

Outro: I love the goofy ending. She knocks it up an octave for “they paved paradise,” then drops below the original melody for the rest (sadly, not room for that on the uke).

Links

Buy the original
More 70s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

Now you’ve got your lusty tram costume ready, here are some tunes you may wish to bone up on before the big night.

Addams Family Theme Tune
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Childish Gambino – Redbone (From Get Out)
Chopin – Funeral March
Jonathan Coulton – Re: Your Brains
The Cranberries – Zombie
Dance Macabre
The Decemberists – Shankill Butchers
The Doors – People Are Strange
The Fall – Mansion
The Gothic Archies – Freakshow
Halloween Theme
Harry Potter – Hedwig’s Theme
In Heaven (From Eraserhead
The Last of Us II – Through the Valley
London Bridge Is Falling Down (From Halloween)
The Misfits – Dig Up Her Bones
The Misfits – Halloween
My Chemical Romance – Welcome to the Black Parade
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (from The Exorcist)
Nerf Herder – Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme
One Night Ultimate Werewolf – Fantasy Theme
Ray Parker Jr – Ghostbusters
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
Gustavo Santaolalla – Last of Us Theme
Skrillex – Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
This is Halloween (From Nightmare Before Christmas)
Tom Waits – Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard
Twilight Zone Theme
Twin Peaks Theme
The Walking Dead Theme
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London
The White Stripes – Little Ghost

Five Halloween riffs/intros: Thriller, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Sweet Dreams, Don’t Fear the Reaper and Jump in the Line
Five More Halloween riffs: Voodoo Child (Slight Return), All the Good Girls Go To Hell, Suspiria Theme, Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, Evil Eye.

And a tutorial to spookify your playing:

Spooky Ukulele Sounds

Queen – Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (Tab)

Queen’s Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon is a very short song but it packs in a whole lot of notes.

Intro: The hardest part of the whole song is the chromatic run between bars 3 and 4. I spread the notes between the strings to make it a bit easier to play but it’s still a big challenge.

Verse: Lots of jumps up and down the neck to deal with. Bars 9-12 are fun to play (once you’ve practiced it enough not to have to think about it).

Bridge: The tempo slows right down here which helps to make it easy to play.

Solo: Another section that’s difficult to play. But I mostly ditched the chords for this section so it’s just single notes.

Links

Buy the original
More rock tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon

New Releases
– Jake Shimabukuro has a new guest-packed album out: Grateful.
– 4stringboy’s debut album Vejr is out now.
– Mark Stivvy has a new ep: 4/4 Freda.

On Video
– A group of ukers caused a ruckus at the Grand Canyon when they jumped a barrier for a precarious session.

Window Shopping

If you’re as into gawping at vintage instruments as I am, I highly recommend following luthier Jake Wildwood’s blog. Recent ukes include a 1920s Pacheco & Klemm Style 5 banjolele and an aeroplane-shaped Stromberg-Voisinet Aero uke.

There are loads of weird instruments on there too like the 1900s Strohviols Phonofiddle and the Bernie Lehmann 5-String vielle.

Patreon

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
– BigHempin
– Colleen Petticrew
– Dennis Boutsikaris
– Elizabeth Beardsley
– Ivo
– Jameson Gagnepain
– Jeff K
– Jon Kenniston
– Kelby Green
– Leia-lee Doran
– Lisa Johnson
– Loreena Humbert
– Mary
– Michael Lufkin
– Monika Kolodziejczyk
– Moses Kamai
– Pat Weikle
– Pauline LeBlanc
– Robert
– shitzbleak
– Tina Knight
– Virtual Performing Arts Academy

If you join Patreon at the Concert level or higher, you’ll get access to all previous exclusive tabs including September’s September by Earth, Wind and Fire.

Bob Dylan – You Belong to Me (Tab)

You Belong to Me was originally written by Price, King & Stewart in 1952. But I first heard the Bob Dylan cover on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. And it’s the Dylan version this arrangement is based on.

Intro: A very brief intro just to establish the key and feel. There’s plenty of room to expand this to the whole chord progression if you fancy stretching out.

Verse: There are a couple of jumps up and down the fretboard to deal with here. But the tempo is slow and it’s straightforward to play. I am very loose with the timing and phrasing in the video.

The second time around, there are a few extra twiddles to keep things interesting.

Solo: The solo is heavily based on the melody. It’s a very sentimental song, so I went a bit cheesy with it. You’re free to dirty it up in your own version.

Links

Buy the Bob Dylan version
More 50s tabs and chords
Uke Hunt Patreon