Ukulele Hunt

Tag: 2020s

  • 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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  • Harry Styles – As It Was (Tabs)

    Harry Styles – As It Was (Tab)Download

    I  hadn’t heard Harry Styles’s As It Was before it cropped up as a Patreon request and my hopes weren’t high. Turns out it’s a pretty great song. Very catchy with a melancholy edge.

    Intro: A bit of Take On Me action with this riff. Once the chords kick in at bar 2, prioritise keeping the energy up over hitting exactly the right strings. As long as you’re holding the chord, it’ll sound great.

    Verse: Mostly one finger per string picking here but I’m alternating index and middle finger to pick the C notes in bars 7 and 11.

    I snuck in a little lick at the end of bar 8 to fill up the bar. You’re welcome to use your own ideas here.

    Chorus: Just strumming for the chorus. The trickiest part is hitting the F chord just before the end of bars 15 and 19. Don’t worry if you hit some of the open strings when you play the A-string, 7th fret the note before.

    You could always extend that note at the 7th fret and hit the F chord at the start of bar 16/20. I doubt anyone will notice.

    Bridge: A whole mess of notes here. Definitely need some alternate picking to get through it.

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  • Phoebe Bridgers – I Know the End (Tabs)

    Phoebe Bridgers – I Know the End (Tab)Download

    This is one of my favourite songs of last year and no amount of boomer wailing is going to convince me otherwise. I’m also a big fan of her policy of wearing her jammies for every media appearance for the last year.

    The song starts out very simple with an F-Bbmaj7 chord progression in the verses. The picking pattern is very ramshackle. I’m just using whatever falls nicely. With the melody mostly played with alternate picking. The rhythm of the melody does get a little complex. So I recommend listening to the original recording and following that rather than trying to read the rhythms.

    Once the middle hits, things speed up but get much more simple rhythmically. I start introducing more strums here with just the melody notes picked.

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  • Kerry’s Song from Cyberpunk 2077 (Tabs)

    Kerry’s Song from Cyberpunk 2077 (Tab)Download

    The hullabaloo around the game has stopped me from playing Cyberpunk 2077, but when Kerry’s Song from the game was requested by a Patron I was really taken with the chill tune.

    What isn’t so chill is trying to play it on the ukulele. There are a lot of big, quick leaps up and down the fretboard to contend with. A good tune to try if you’re practicing your fretting accuracy.

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  • Sylvan Esso – Rooftop Dancing (Tab)

    Sylvan Esso – Rooftop Dancing (Tab)Download

    There’s been a healthy crop of great albums this year. My current favourite is Sylvan Esso’s Free Love. So I grabbed my uke and put together a cover of Rooftop Dancing.

    The song fits nicely on uke. The chords are simple and the melody is contained in the first five frets. There’s only one trip up the fretboard in bars 15-18. This section is essentially the intro moved up an octave. So you can substitute the intro there if you prefer.

    The challenge in the song is the speed of some notes in the melody. I’ve made things a little easier by removing a few notes. But you’ll still need to do some alternate picking to keep up.

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  • Taylor Swift and Bon Iver – exile (Tab)

    Taylor Swift and Bon Iver – exile (Tab)Download

    Being a huge fan of Bon Iver and not such a fan of Taylor Swift, I was curious to find out how this collab between the two would work out. And, while it lacks the musical and lyrical layers of a Bon Iver song, it’s very catchy. Certainly good enough for a tabbing.

    I’m not too strict with the fingerpicking in this one. The intro is one finger per string picking. The verse and chorus have some rapid melody notes. So I switch to alternating between index and middle finger picking for those. Then I start using more strums when things get more strident in the bridge.

    There’s nothing too challenging as far as the fretting hand goes. The chords will mostly be familiar to you, and it’s almost all played in the first position. The only exception is the little hop up to the fifth fret for the Dm in the bridge. There’s also a bit of a stretch for the Csus4 with the A-string, 5th fret on top.

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

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

    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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  • Dua Lipa – Don’t Start Now (Tab)

    Dua Lipa – Don’t Start Now (Tab)Download

    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 what 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

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  • Lizzo – Truth Hurts (Tab)

    Lizzo – Truth Hurts (Tab)Download

    Starting up the Uke Hunt Patreon has really lit a fire under me to do some tabs. So much so, this is an extra week of tabs to ease the backlog a little. Starting with a request from Patron Daniel who wanted a Lizzobanger.

    This arrangement uses a few elements from the SNL version of the tune featuring Celisse Henderson wailing on the guitar. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw her. Celisse is a uker and a Uke Hunt favourite from way back.

    Firstly, the arrangement starts off with a lick adapted from Celisse’s intro. And, secondly, the bridge is also follows the SNL version. Other than that, it sticks pretty closely to the original.

    Links

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