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  • Guns N’ Roses – Patience (Tabs)

    Guns N’ Roses – Patience (Tab)Download

    Guns N’ Roses – Patience (Tab)

    While not quite in the league of November Rain, Guns N’ Roses’ acoustic lighter-swayer Patience is still a bit of an epic. So for this arrangement I’ve trimmed down the intro and outro and skipped the repeat of the verse and chorus.

    The intro follows Axl’s whistling for the first four bars before playing the first solo section. Just a bit of bending to deal with here.

    The main solo section starts in bar 28 with some sliding around. My favourite part is the lick in bar 32-33. I wasn’t sure if this bit was going to work on uke, but it ends up fitting neatly.

    Things switch up in bar 39 for the outro with some loose strumming and a fun sliding solo section.

    I found the melody in the outro (from bar 47 on) tricky to arrange. Usually, you’d have a G note over the G chord somewhere. But the melody sticks with the F# (E-string second fret) and A notes from the D chord. That makes it hard to pull out the chord changes in this section clearly. But if you keep the chord changes clear in your head you should navigate it okay.

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    My tabs of Sweet Child O Mine and November Rain are both on the Uke Hunt Patreon for concert level backers and up.

  • Travis – Why Does It Always Rain on Me? (Tabs)

    Travis – Why Does It Always Rain on Me? (Tab)Download

    It’s always fascinating to see how bands deal with the death of musical fads and Travis are a prime example of it. Their debut album Good Feeling was full of Oasis-y rockers about good times and picking up girls. Which would have flown off the shelves if it had been released in the Britpop era rather than in 1997, the year Radiohead killed off the genre with OK Computer. After the lukewarm success of the album, they shamelessly reworked themselves into a Radiofriendlyhead sounding band on The Man Who (even slagging off Wonderwall on the first verse of the album) and had a breakthrough Why Does It Always Rain On Me?. Setting the scene for Coldplay who released their debut a year later.

    The chords for this one are very easy. The only challenge is some rapid picking (which you’ll need to do some alternate picking) and pull-offs.

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  • R.E.M. – Losing My Religion (Tabs)

    R.E.M. – Losing My Religion (Tab)Download

    The opening riff for REM’s Losing My Religion is a blast to play and fits nicely on the uke. I particularly like the riff on the G chord leading into the verse which I play campanella style.

    At first, I was playing the chords with strums. But I switched to fingerpicking for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it makes the chords sharper and more mandolin-like. Secondly, it means you can keep the chords very short (by immediately stopping the strings ringing with your picking fingers) making the sound punchier. Even so, strumming is a perfectly legitimate way to go and lends the tune a different feel.

    Things get a lot more miserable once Stipe turns up. I mostly play the verses and choruses with one finger per string picking. You can be fairly loose with these sections and don’t need to play everything note for note.

    My second favourite part is the riff right at the end. It’s ultra simple but very effective. Well worth learning even if you don’t bother with the rest of the song as it’ll fit in many situations.

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  • Louis Armstrong/Sam Cooke – What a Wonderful World/Wonderful World (Tab)

    Louis Armstrong/Sam Cooke – What a Wonderful World/Wonderful World (Tab)Download

    A pairing of two almost identically titled songs: Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World and Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World. One because of a Patreon request and the other in tribute to Maple the guitar dog.

    The arrangement starts with the beautiful melody of What a Wonderful World. Nothing too difficult here. Be sure to make the melody notes stand out against the backing note. And prepare for bar 13 by barreing across the strings for the notes on the E-string, 1st fret in bar 12.

    Things speed up for Wonderful World but the chords get simpler. I must have heard this song hundreds of times, but I didn’t have any recollection of the bridge section. It’s certainly more forgettable than the earworm of the verse and chorus.

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  • Beyonce – Halo (Tabs)

    Beyonce – Halo (Tab)Download

    My favourite part of Halo to play is the intro. It fits so nicely on the uke I decided to use it as the outro too. Things stay fairly straightforward to play in the verse. All that is played with one finger per string picking.

    But in the bridge and chorus Beyonce stretches her vocal range which means a trip up the neck. The arrangement goes as high as the 14th fret where it’s tough to play cleanly. You’ll also need to pick more forcefully so to keep the volume of the note at the same level as notes lower on the neck.

    The picking in the rest of the song is more haphazard. For the quick notes, I’m using alternate picking to keep up.

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  • Ryan Adams – Stars Go Blue and Semisonic – Closing Time (Tabs)

    Ryan Adams – Stars Go Blue/Semisonic – Closing Time (Tab)Download

    Following up Bob Dylan with another “Blue” song: When the Stars Go Blue by Ryan Adams (one of the many sensitive singer-songwriters I listened to who turned out to be a full-time shithead). Although it was a bigger hit when Bono and The Corrs covered it.

    I’ve paired that with Semisonic’s only hit Closing Time as they have almost identical choruses.

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  • Bob Dylan – Tangled Up in Blue (Tabs)

    Bob Dylan – Tangled Up in Blue (Tab)Download

    There are at least five options when it comes to the best Bob Dylan album. And I’ve cycled through all of them. But currently it’s Blood on the Tracks. So here’s an arrangement of the opening track.

    This tab is very straightforward. It’s mostly strummed with a few notes picked out here and there. The only big challenge is the stretch up to the 7th fret in bars 11 and 13. If you’re struggling with that, you can just play the note at the 5th fret and no one will notice.

    The arrangement plays through the verse twice and ends with a solo. The solo is very loosely based on the harmonic part at the end of the original but is mostly just me bashing out whatever I feel like.

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  • Mouse Rat – 5,000 Candles in the Wind (Parks and Rec)(Tabs)

    Mouse Rat – 5,000 Candles in the Wind (Parks and Rec)(Tab)Download

    I hope you brought a change of clothes because your eyes are about to piss tears thanks to Andy Dwyer’s heartbreaking tribute to Li’l Sebastian.

    The trickiest part of playing this is fighting through the tears. There are also some quick bits of picking and a rogue bar of 2/4 on “horsiest friend” near the end.

    If you want to play along with the original, put a capo on the second fret.

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  • Joan Osborne – One of Us (Tabs)

    Joan Osborne – One of Us (Tab)Download

    Back when I spent entire days watching MTV, this song and More Than Words made up a good 30% of the airtime. I got heartily sick of it at the time. But I’ve mellowed on it.

    The tune is very simple. Four chords and the melody doesn’t go higher than the third fret. The only slightly unusual part is on the “Yeah, yeah”s in bars 13, 15 and 17. If you want to make that super-simple, you can replace 5500 with 2000 and 543x with 003x and it won’t sound much different.

    The original starts with an instrumental version of the chorus. But, since we’re playing that later, I came up with an intro based on the chords. Feel free to ditch it and come up with your own.

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  • The Kinks – Sunny Afternoon (Tabs)

    The Kinks – Sunny Afternoon (Tab)Download

    I had always assumed the first verse was mocking George Harrison’s Taxman. But it appears Sunny Afternoon was released a couple of months before Taxman. So phenomenally rich people moaning about taxes must have been the rage at the time. Thank god that’s over.

    The tune starts off with a bit of a stretch but an otherwise simple descending riff. Be sure to release the pressure with your fretting hand shortly after playing to keep the notes short. The melody is reasonably straightforward as well.

    The problems only start when you have to combine the descending run with the melody notes in bars 35 to 40.

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