Ukulele Hunt

Tag: Folk

  • Bon Iver – 00000 Million (Tab)

    Bon Iver – 00000 Million (Tab)Download

    A new Bon Iver album means a new Bon Iver post. It’s another great record. This time with very strange song titles. 00000 Million immediately struck me as being great for ukeing with its strong melody and simple chords. And it does transfer well. It even works out nicely in the original key.

    It wouldn’t be Bon Iver without a bit of weirdness. And this song’s weirdness is changes in the time signature. Bar two switches to 5/4 time (i.e. there’s an extra note in that bar). And there’s a bar of 2/4 leading into the Fionn Regan sample. But these fit so naturally into the song that if you know the melody well you won’t have any problems with timing.

    The brackets around some of the notes indicate they are played softly (they’re backing notes rather than part of the melody).

    Links

    Buy it on iTunes
    More folk tabs
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  • Nick Drake – Horn (Tab)

    Nick Drake – Horn (Tab)Download

    It’s not often I break with my schedule but Nick Drake’s Horn popped into my ears this morning and I felt compelled to get my own up.

    It also fits well with the real post today about pieces suitable for solo ukulele beginners. It’s the sparsest track on Drake’s sparsest album. For my version there’s just a droning open C-string (plucked with the thumb) and the slow melody mainly on the A-string (middle finger) and occasionally on the E-string (index finger).

    The only downside is that it requires a ukulele with at least fifteen frets. If you don’t have one you can play this version in G:

    Horn (Tab in G)Download

    This moves the drone to the g-string. Making it an octave higher (unless you’re using low-G tuning). So it doesn’t fit perfectly but it does still work.

    Links

    Buy it on iTunes
    More folk tabs
    Uke Hunt Patreon

  • Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah (Tabs)

    Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah (Tabs)Download

    I wrote up the chords for Hallelujah way back in 2008. But, since it’s a huge hit with ukulelists, I wanted to do an instrumental version as a little tribute to Leonard Cohen. And a tribute to Jeff Buckley since the intro is completely ripped off from his incredible version.

    I try to keep most of my tabs fairly disciplined and work them up fully beforehand. It’s easier for people to read and learn that way. But be warned: this one I played pretty freely then tabbed out what I played. So the fingerpicking is all over the place.

    In the verse the melody is everything played on the A-string plus the third fret of the E-string. Everything else is backing so should be played a little more softly. The chorus is more strange since the melody notes are played on the g-, C- and E-strings. I’ve notated all the melody notes with an accent > above them.

    Links

    Buy it on iTunes
    More 80s tabs
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  • Tallest Man on Earth – King of Spain (Tab)

    Tallest Man on Earth – King of Spain (Tab)Download

    I did a tab for the intro of King of Spain a few years ago. But I love that song and had to extend it out into a full instrumental version of the song. The song can be played with mostly strums and barrels along at a good pace so it’s perfect for a ukeing.

    Tuning

    I’m using open-F tuning to mimic the open-C version of the original. You get that by tuning the g-string down to F and the E string up to F.

    The main chords used are F (0000 and 0003), Dm (0200), Bb (0201) and Cadd11 (0403).

    Trickiest Bit

    In bar 5 there’s a chord played with 7th fret harmonics. If you’re having trouble hitting that cleanly try playing the harmonics at the 12th fret. There’s more room for error there and you get the same effect.

    Other than that I’d recommend barrelling along with it and not worrying to much about the occasional flub (as demonstrated in my version).

    Links

    Buy it on iTunes
    More folk tabs

  • Sufjan Stevens – Death with Dignity (Tab)

    Death with Dignity is a beautiful song by Sufjan Stevens about the death of his mother (a subject that clearly resonates with Kanye West). The song is heavy with grief backed with sparse, shimmering ukulele. And idiots will still tell you it’s impossible to be sad when playing a ukulele.

    Main Uke

    Death with Dignity (Main Uke Tab)Download

    I think he’s using open C-tuning for this which is gCEG (i.e. tune your A-string down so it’s the same pitch as the g-string). Then capo at the fourth fret.

    The picking uses one finger per string in an AMIP pattern (going down the strings).

    Baritone Uke

    Death with Dignity (Baritone Uke Tab)Download

    This part is really quiet on the record so I’m making it up about half the time. Take that as a free pass to mess around with this part and play it how you feel it. I’m guessing it’s played on a classical guitar but it works perfectly well on baritone.

    Solo Ukulele

    Death with Dignity (Solo Uke Tab)Download

    Here’s a ukulele version of the piano solo from the song. It’s played in standard tuning without a capo.

    Links

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  • Damien Rice – 9 Crimes (Tab)

    Damien Rice – 9 Crimes (Tab)Download

    Happy St Patrick’s Day! To celebrate I arranged my favourite song by my second favourite Irish songwriter (can’t can The Van).

    One of the things I love about arranging tunes is noticing little things that completely passed me by listening casually. I didn’t realise that the melody in the chorus shifts against the chords. The basic chords though the whole song are Am-F-C-G. The first, “Is that alright?” is on the Am and later it’s on the F chord. Of course, I completely ruin it by arranging them both exactly the same way.

    Links

    Buy it on iTunes
    More Irish tabs
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  • Langtree’s Lament (Over the Garden Wall) (Tab)

    Janet Klein – Langtree’s Lament (Tab)Download

    Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall has featured a bunch of old-timey musicians including Frank Fairfield, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton and ukulele chanteuse Janet Klein. I got had a request I couldn’t ignore for a song from the show so it was inevitable I went for Klein’s Langtree’s Lament.

    Nothing too tricky in this arrangement. It’s almost all played with strums. There are some places when you’re not strumming all the strings e.g. bar 10. There the melody switches to the g-string so you need to emphasise that string. It’s not a big deal if you don’t hit exactly the strings tabbed so long as you’re holding the chord down (in that bar Bb7).

    The notes I pick are the slides up to the fifth fret in bars 2 and 6, the one note in bar 7 and the campanella picking in bars 14 and 15. If you’re dead set against campanella you can also play it like this:

    LangtreesLament

    Links

    Over the Garden Wall on iTunes
    JanetKlein.com
    More TV theme tabs
    Uke Hunt Patreon

  • Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Paul’s Dance (Tab)

    Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Paul’s Dance (Tab)Download

    This lovely PCO tune is a duet between ukulele and cuatro. But it also stands up very well as a solo ukulele piece.

    If you do have a spare cuatro player laying around the tab is exactly the same. They take advantage of the fact the uke and cuatro are tuned to the same notes (in this case D-tuning: ADF#B) but the A- and B-strings on the cuatro are an octave below those on the uke. That means the same tab played on both creates two different melodies that fit together perfectly. It’s a neat trick.

    For my version I was too lazy to move to D-tuning so I just stayed in C-tuning and put a capo on the second fret to get the same result.

    I love this live version of Paul’s Dance so I worked from that one. There are a few differences between this and the album version. The most obvious is that the live version uses more changes in pace and dynamics.

    Links

    Buy it on iTunes
    Music for a Found Harmonium Tab

  • Gwent Flute Song from Witcher 3 (Tab)

    Mikolai Stroinski – Gwent Flute Song (Tab)Download

    I haven’t played any of the Witcher games myself, but I checked out the soundtrack after getting a tab and it’s very much my sort of thing. I immediately picked up on Gwent Flute Song as being a good candidate for a ukuleling. It’s a fun pastiche of traditional Irish music which always sounds great played campanella style.

    Unlike traditional tunes, which usually have two or three distinct sections that you switch between, Gwent Flute Song has a number of variations around a central theme. That means you’re using the same shapes throughout the tune but with subtle variations. That was a killer for me to memorize. If you want to cut down on the variation for your own version then go for it. I did that a bit myself. In my version bars 36 and 37 are the same as bars 40 and 41. Which isn’t the case in the original.

    For most of picking in the piece I use thumb and two finger picking. But using my index on the C-string when it’s played next to the g-string e.g. bars 31 and 33.

    Links

    Buy the Witcher 3 soundtrack on iTunes
    TheWitcher.com
    More game theme tabs

  • Jackson C Frank – Blues Run the Game (Tab)

    BluesRunTheGameDownload

    Blues Run the Game is the up there with World Turned Upside Down as the best modern folk song. Both those songs are widely covered and not best known for the original versions (a defining characteristic of a great folk song).

    Blues Run the Game was written by Jackson C Frank but has been more heard in its many cover versions by the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, Nick Drake, John Renbourn, Sandy Denny, Eddi Reader John Mayer and Laura Marling.

    But my favourite is Bert Jansch’s version. And that was the strongest influence on my ukulele version of the picking.

    The first thing to say about my take is that it uses the capo on the fifth fret. Usually I wouldn’t capo that high up but it was the only way I could get it onto the ukulele and keep it in the same key as Jansch’s version.

    The second thing is the alternate picking. The thumb alternates between the g and C strings thumb and two finger style.

    Links

    Buy the Jackson C Frank version
    Buy the Bert Jansch version
    More folk tabs
    Uke Hunt Patreon