There’s long been a story floating around that Jimi Hendrix started playing music on a one-string ukulele. Now Jimi’s brother has gone into a bit more detail.
Herman Vandecauter has been collecting information on the machete and related instruments (the Madeiran forebears of the ukulele).
Two books for community focused ukulelists: one for teaching and leading ukulele sessions and one for making your way as a community musician.
Grace VanderWaal on NPR’s Tiny Desk.
New Releases
– Excellent new EP from Bud Sugar: Vampire.
– Marc Gallagher’s Level Up.
Window Shopping
– 1920s Martin Taropatch.
– 1930s Gibson UB-3 banjolele.
– Tasmanian Blackwood Maple Tui.
Charli XCX – Boys (Tab)
I don’t cover a lot of pop music on here but Charli XCX’s contribution to the long tradition of lusty songs about handsome boys was the song of last summer and one of my favourite songs of the year.
The arrangement is a bit tricky with a few leaps up and down the fretboard. Probably the trickiest parts are the Mario coin noises. These are created by playing a note on the E-string 10th fret quickly followed by natural harmonic on the A-string, 12th fret. If you’re still getting the hang of natural harmonics you can fret the string at the 12th fret as you usually would. It won’t have the same ringing sound but it will sound right.
Links
Time for the Uke Hunt Annual Chord Quiz. Test your chord knowledge, theory knowledge and musical ear. The method is as low-tech as ever.
– Grab a pen and paper.
– Answer the questions (using a ukulele to help you is entirely allowed and encouraged).
– Check the answers here (no peeking).
If you’re reading by email or feed reader you may need to click through to the post to see everything.
Chord Diagrams
Name the minor chord from the chord diagram.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Chord Flavour: Diagrams
All these are D chords but are they D, Dm, D7, Dm7, or Dmaj7?
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Chord Flavour: Listening
All these are G chords but are they G, Gm, G7, Gm7, or Gmaj7?
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Chord Makeup
Each of these triads of notes makes up a major chord (e.g. the notes of an F chord are F, A and C). Which one? (The notes are listed in alphabetical order starting at C to make it harder.)
16. C, E and G
17. C, F and A
18. C#, E and A
19. D, F# and A
20. C#, F and G#
Chord Progression
Match the MP3 to the chord sequence:
a) D – G – D – G – D
b) D – G – D – A7 – D
c) D – G – Em – A7 – D
d) D – F#m – G – A7 – D
e) D – A7 – G – A7 – D
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
Links
Big Chord Quiz 1
Big Chord Quiz 2
Big Chord Quiz 3
More ukulele quizzes
Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run (Chords)
I’ve been inspired by the King of Springsteen ukulele Jim Boggia and his show Bruce Off Broadway to do a Boss song. One of these days I’m going to tackle one of Jim’s amazing arrangements. But for today I’m taking on Born to Run.
The song is in the key of E so to keep things easy I’ve arranged it with a capo 4th fret. That keeps most of the song simple but there’s still the strange middle section to deal with. That’s made of a series of chord changes from the sus4 chord to the major chord. Very similar to the moves used in The Who’s Pinball Wizard.
Suggested Strumming
I use this as the main strum:
d – d – d u d u
Intro: Main strum twice on C, once on F, then two down strums each on G7sus4 and G7.
Verses: Main strum twice on C and once each on F and G7 in the first two lines (there’s a variation in the third verse where you use the strum from the intro). Then I switch to this pattern:
d – d u – u d –
Do that once for every chord except the Bb on the “OOOOOOOOOHHH” part. There play nothing for once beat followed by one down-strum. Finally, back to the main strum for the last line.
Solo: Same as before on C-F-G7. On Am, main strum once then a single down-strum. Followed by single down-strums on the rest of the chords. Here’s the timing for that last part:
Middle: I play just one down-strum per chord.
Twiddly Bits
Here’s a tab of the intro with a capo on the fourth fret:
Here’s a version of the descending lick at the end of the middle (again with the capo):
Transferring the sax solo to ukulele is pretty ridiculous. It sounds much more folky. No capo on this one.
Links
Tracklist
BananaCactus – AC/DC Medley
Vessna Scheff – Echoes
Le Temps d’une Étincelle – Le Temps d’une Étincelle
Princess Nokia x Einer Bankz – For the Night
StarWish – Good Morning Takao
Ninebarrow – The Sea
The Jive Aces – Rock 'n' Roll Movie Star
EmiSunshine – Ragged Dreams
Jonathan Lewis – Minute 5
Lovely new album from British folkies and occasional ukers Ninebarrow: The Waters and the Wild.
Videos
– Mass Appeal’s short documentary on Einer Bankz and how he collaborated with your favourite rapper.
– Premiere of Andy Eastwood’s piece for ukulele and string quartet.
– Helen Arney sings about the space robot Philae. Helen is also on the new YouTube quiz show Lateral (sans ukulele).
– Kimo Hussey on the concept of kanikapila.
Window Shopping
– Kanile’a 2018 Platinum Solid Master Grade Tenor.
– D’Angelico MU-1E-NA-HMH.
– 1950s Favilla Baritone Ukulele.
– 1920s Lyon & Healy Camp Uke.
Frightened Rabbit – The Woodpile (Tab)
I first tried to do a uke arrangement of The Woodpile back when it came out in 2013. But it quickly joined the massive pile of tabs I’ve started but wasn’t satisfied with. But with the death of Scott Hutchison I had to dig it out and get it finished. Particularly since Midnight Organ Fight is up there with Pet Sounds as one of the great albums that have a tiny bit of ukulele on (in the later part of Good Arms vs Bad Arms).
There are a couple of things that make this tune tricky. First is the artificial harmonics played in the riff (the ones with A.H. above them). There’s a guide to playing artificial harmonics here. But if you don’t want to tackle them you can just play the tab as written without them and it’ll sound perfectly fine.
Secondly, the shifting time signature. The riff and verses alternate between bars of 5/4 and 4/4. The change isn’t jarring but it messed me up a few times when I was learning it. So it’s worth counting the bars in your head while you’re getting it under your fingers.
Links
Here are five licks adapted from blues gods to inspire your own solos. Play them as they are, change the rhythm, move them around, use the same shapes. There’s no end to the ways to make them your own.
All the licks are in the key of C. So you can move them around to fit whichever key you’re in.
There’s lots more blues stuff in my How to Play Blues Ukulele ebook if these are your jam.
Skip James Lick
Skip James might be my favourite blues musician. His music uses simple ideas but he plays them so expressively. This example is based on Devil Got My Woman.
BB King
BB King was a master of weaving together major and minor elements. This lick based on the intro to Lucille begins with a sweet phrase using the major pentatonic. Then it switches to minor pentatonic for the rest of the lick.
It also has masses of space between the notes to maximise the impact of each note.
Albert King Lick
This lick based on Born Under a Bad Sign is very versatile. The original includes a few bends. But since bends don’t work so well on nylon strings I’ve replaced them with slides.
John Lee Hooker Lick
Blues licks often repeat short phrases over and over in a lick. This one based on John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom repeats just two notes. Building up the tension until it’s released at the end of the lick.
“The Lick”
More jazzy than blues this one. But it has been played by pretty much everyone
(sometimes for five hours straight).
Father John Misty – Mr Tillman (Chords)
The new Father John Misty record is out next week. And the lead single, Mr Tillman, suggests it’s going to be a good one. He does that skeezy lounge singer schtick with much more wit and tunefulness than the Arctic Monkeys managed on their latest album.
Firstly, the arrangement uses a capo on the third fret. If you want to play without a capo here’s a version of the chords without the capo.
The song’s chord progression has an off-kilter feel to match the lyrics. That’s created by switching between major and minor sounds. The most obvious is the use of both G and G minor. The other is the D major chord that starts the progression being mismatched with the F that follows it (a D major chord includes an F# note while D minor includes an F).
Suggested Strumming
Dead easy for the strumming. You can just do this for each chord the whole way through:
d – d u
Which sounds like this:
Twiddly Bits
Here’s a little arrangement of the whistling solo and the “Ah”s in the intro.
