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  • The B-52’s – Love Shack (Tabs)

    The B-52’s – Love Shack (Tab)Download

    Love Shack isn’t the most uke-friendly song but it is a ton of fun to play.

    Intro: Playing the melody using strum blocking i.e. strumming but muting everything but the string that’s playing the melody. That means you can play single notes but still keep things energetic and forceful.

    Verse 1: Starting with Kate Pierson’s part played high up the neck before switching to Fred Schneider’s part lower down the neck. Schneider’s part is very talky so the melody here is somewhat created.

    Pre-Chorus: A nice easy little section.

    Chorus: The section I had most trouble playing. It’s tricky to combine the guitar riff and the vocal line smoothly. The second chorus is a little different from the first and third.

    Verse 2: Four bars of talky section, four bars of strum blocking then some simple strumming to finish with.

    Bridge: The section that works least well on the uke. I thought about leaving it out but it’s too iconic. It’s starts with a reworking of the bass riff then goes into a shortened version of the “Bang, bang, on the door” bit. I’ve even included an attempt at the “Tin roof, rusted” bit. Although I wouldn’t blame you for missing any of this out.

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  • Iggy Pop – The Passenger (Tabs)

    Iggy Pop – The Passenger (Tab)Download

    Iggy Pop’s The Passenger is a straight-forward basher. There’s the same chord sequence the whole way through:

    Am – F – C – G

    Am – F – C – E7

    The E7 chord is a bit of an oddity. In my arrangement I’m avoiding playing the g-string (by muting with my thumb) to keep the chord ambiguous as the whether it’s major or minor.

    Later in the song (starting on bar 48) the melody hits a G note which clashes with the Ab in the E7 chord. So in those cases, I’ve substituted in a G chord to make it sound more natural on the uke. And I’ve stuck with that G chord in the final chorus as well.

    The one slightly fancy touch comes in the second half of the intro (bars 5-8). This riff based on the lead guitar part which I thought it deserved showcasing.

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  • Koji Kondo – Zelda Medley (Tabs)

    Koji Kondo – Zelda Medley (Tab)Download

    Shamefully, I haven’t played a Zelda game since A Link to the Past. So these arrangements are heavily influenced by that era.

    Zelda’s Lullaby: A chill start to the medley with gentle picking and a soft Cmaj7 chord. There is a big leap up the neck in bar 6. But this part is slow enough that it’s not a big challenge.

    Main Theme: Ramping up the pomposity and changing the key to F. There’s another big jump in 16. This one is at a quicker tempo so it’s more of a challenge. From there, you get the descending note until you hit the C.

    Ilia’s Theme: Back to a more relaxed feel. This time, the challenge is a big stretch between the 4th and 10th fret in bar 23. If you’re struggling there, you can change the A-string, 10th fret to A-string, 7th fret in bars 22 and 23. It changes the feel a little but it still sounds nice.

    Kakariko Village: The challenge here is to emphasise the melody notes so it doesn’t just sound like a melody-less picking pattern. Otherwise, nothing too difficult.

    Hyrule Castle: Switching to C minor and more pomposity. Where the Main Theme is grand, this one has some menace with the chromatic notes on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th frets. 8-Bit Music Theory did an excellent video on this tune.

    Song of Storms: A final key change to E minor and the trickiest section of the piece.

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  • Green Day – Basket Case (Tabs)

    Green Day – Basket Case (Tab)Download

    It’s a very simple song. Other than bars 27-28, it’s all first position beginner chords and a straightforward melody. The only thing that makes it difficult is the tempo. So be sure to practice slowly and gradually build up speed.

    One slight oddity comes in bars 6 and 15. Here there’s a hammer-on on the C-string from a note way back in the previous bar. I do this to create a subtle change to the G chord in order to emphasise the much stronger second note in the bar.

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  • Miley Cyrus – Flowers (Tabs)

    Miley Cyrus – Flowers (Tab)Download

    Hold on to you hairpieces, I’m covering a song while it’s still popular: Miley Cyrus’s recent hit Flowers.

    Intro: Just picking out a Cmaj7 chord.

    Verse: Nothing too difficult here. Mostly standard chords and a melody in the first position.

    Chorus: Here’s where it gets tricky with a lot of movement up and down the neck.

    Unusually, the chorus starts out with a rest. From there, it’s straight to the hardest bit of the piece with the hammer-on between bars 15 and 16 (I make a horlicks of it myself the second time around).

    Next in bar 16 is octave slide which is a nod to the song’s bass line.

    And another challenge in bar 22 with a hammer-on and pull-off run.

    Bridge: A mercifully easy section to recover from the chorus.

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  • Dooley Wilson – As Time Goes By (Tabs)

    Dooley Wilson – As Time Goes By (Tab)Download

    As Time Goes By is most famous for its inclusion in Casablanca. But the song was written a decade earlier by Herman Hupfeld for the long forgotten musical Everybody’s Welcome.

    Intro: A quick campanella intro. There are a million things you could do here.

    Verse: The slow pace of the song make this fairly simple to play. Just a trip up the fretboard in bar 7 to deal with. Another opportunity for your own spin at the end of each verse. I went jazzy in the first verse and bluesy in the second.

    Bridge: Bringing out the strums for the bridge.

    Solo: The solo is based on the melody shifted up an octave. With a few passing notes, a pre-bend (i.e. bending the note before plucking it then releasing) and a descending-ascending run in bars 23-24.

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  • Johnny Nash – I Can See Clearly Now (Tabs)

    Johnny Nash – I Can See Clearly Now (Tab)Download

    Here’s a rare cheerful songs I like: I Can See Clearly Now. I worked from the original Johnny Nash version but I’m more familiar with the Jimmy Cliff version so a bit of that might have snuck in.

    I’ve tried to keep the arrangement loose and breezy to match the song. So focus on the mood when you’re playing rather than nailing down every note exactly. 

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  • Burt Bacharach – I’ll Never Fall in Love Again (Tabs)

    Burt Bacharach – I’ll Never Fall in Love Again (Tab)Download

    Burt Bacharach is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. So I had to do a little tribute to him with I’ll Never Fall in Love Again. For this arrangement, I worked from the Elvis Costello version that cropped up in The Spy Who Shagged Me.

    Even in an apparently simple pop tune like this, Bacharach snuck in interesting little moves. So in bar 15 there’s a B7 chord with the melody hitting Ab. Which is the minor third of F creating tension in the key is F major. And there’s a bar of 2/4 cutting the melody short in bar 17.

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  • Kung Fu Master (Arcade Game Theme) (Tabs)

    Kung Fu Master (Arcade Game Theme) (Tab)Download

    A recent nostalgia trip compelled me to knock up a version of Masato Ishizaki’s music from the 80s arcade game Kung-Fu Master.

    The tune is very quick. Even slowed down, it’s still a challenge. In order to cut the finger movement to a minimum, it’s arranged campanella style so the work is done with the picking hand and fretting hand doesn’t have to move much.

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  • Afroman – Because I Got High (Tab)

    Afroman – Because I Got High (Tab)Download

    Afroman’s Because I Got High is a very simple song. Three chords and just a verse with a bit of variation in the intro and a bit of getting jiggy with it in the outro.

    The only tricksy thing going on (other than a bunch of percussive chnks) is the campanella picking on “Coz I got high…” which first shows up in bars 6-7. I think having the notes ring into each recreates the slurred, stumbling feel of the original.

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