Ukulele Hunt

Tag: Rock

  • U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday (Tabs)

    U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday (Tab)Download

    U2’s song against violence and occupation, Sunday Bloody Sunday, is depressingly relevant again. So time for a tab.

    Intro: The perfect example of how simple but effective The Edge’s riffs can be. It’s the easiest bit of the song and worth learning even if you’re not tackling the rest of the song.

    Verse: The song has an odd structure at the beginning. There’s just half a verse before it dives into the bridge. This short verse is just fingerpicking. Whereas later verses are fuller with more strums.

    Bridge: The first bridge starts out fingerpicked before switching to strums at the end of bar 12. Second time around, the whole bridge uses strums.

    Chorus: The first chorus features a Bb chord, which you wouldn’t expect in the key of E minor. That short section (bars 30-33) provides a brief respite before the militaristic muted strums come back in.

    Solo: A typically jingle-jangle Edge solo. The first half of the solo in this arrangement is faithful to the original. But the second half is faithful to the spirit rather than the exact notes. So long as you keep all the strings rattling, there’s plenty of scope for your own ideas here.

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  • Foo Fighters – Learn to Fly (Tabs)

    Foo Fighters – Learn to Fly (Tab)Download

    As you expect from the Foos, Learn to Fly is a straightforward rocker. So a lot of strumming and nothing too intricate.

    The trickiest part comes in some of the quick switches from G to Dm. One of these shows up for the first time in bar 5. Here there’s an open-G used as part of the melody to give you a little extra time to change chords. The second comes in the chorus (at the end of bar 13). Here you strum all the strings open and hammer-on an entire Dm chord.

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  • Queen – Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (Tabs)

    Queen – Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (Tab)Download

    Intro: The hardest part of the whole song is the chromatic run between bars 3 and 4. I spread the notes between the strings to make it a bit easier to play but it’s still a big challenge.

    Verse: Lots of jumps up and down the neck to deal with. Bars 9-12 are fun to play (once you’ve practiced it enough not to have to think about it).

    Bridge: The tempo slows right down here which helps to make it easy to play.

    Solo: Another section that’s difficult to play. But I mostly ditched the chords for this section so it’s just single notes.

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  • The Band – The Weight (Tabs)

    The Band – The Weight (Tab)Download

    A version of The Weight in tribute to Robbie Robertson. Robertson appeared on the Playing for Change version alongside some uke from Taimane.

    Intro: Usually, you’re free to play around with the intro. Not in this case. Robertson’s intro is iconic and doing anything other than playing it as close to the original as possible is sacrilege.

    Verses: The melody in the verses is a little fiddly, but it’s the third verse that’s most challenging. There’s an extra campanella bit in bar 37 (“Waitin’ on Judgement Day”) and a trickier ending to the verse.

    Chorus: I haven’t tried to cram in all the vocal lines in the chorus in order to keep things clear. Most obviously, the arrangement doesn’t include the overlapping “you put the load…” lines (bar 46).

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  • Placebo – Pure Morning (Tabs)

    Placebo – Pure Morning (Tab)Download

    Placebo’s Pure Morning is hilariously unsuited the ukulele. But it’s always fun to have a go at those. You can decide for yourself whether it actually works because I’m not sure.

    There’s no chord progression at all in the song. It’s just an E drone the whole way through (Eb in the original). To emphasise that, I’m playing an E on both the open E-string and on the C-string 4th fret whenever I get the chance.

    As the song builds, the arrangement moves up the neck and uses some octaves. If you don’t have a 14th fret, you can always just mute the A-string. Or playing it open will work.

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  • Rod Stewart – Maggie May (Tabs)

    Rod Stewart – Maggie May (Tab)Download

    Intro 1: The album version of the track starts with Martin Quittenton’s (completely out of place) little contrapuntal piece in 3/4 time. I almost skipped it but it’s a fun tune that’s worth learning by itself.

    Intro 2: The second intro is much more in keeping with the song’s melancholy mood.

    Verses: The verses are fairly straightforward. It’s mostly strummed with a few notes picked out here and there.

    Solo: Loosely based on the original with lots of sliding around the fretboard. As always, throw some ideas of your own in here.

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  • Nirvana – All Apologies (Tabs)

    Nirvana – All Apologies (Tab)Download

    Sinead O’Connor’s cover prompted me to knock up a quick version of Nirvana’s All Apologies.

    Intro: It’s a fun riff to noodle away on. I recommend learning this bit even if you don’t learn the whole song. (Put a capo on the first fret to play along with the original.)

    Verse: The intro and verse are all fingerpicked with thumb on the C-string, index on the E and middle on the A. The verses are very repetitive, so I cut the second verse down to half. You might want to do the same with the first verse too.

    Chorus: Like every Nirvana song, there’s a quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic going on. So switch to strumming and bash out the chorus.

    Outro: The riff again. This time played with a bit more abandon and hitting the open C-string any time you feel like. Then a dead simple ending.

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  • The Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning (Tabs)

    The Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning (Tab)Download

    Sunday Morning is the poppiest song The Velvet Underground’s debut album. It has a laid back, easy going vibe. And you have two days to learn it so get to work. Watish!

    Intro: Played high up the neck to give a music box feel. But if it’s too cramped up there or your uke doesn’t have enough frets, you can play the same picking pattern with any inversion of F and Bb and it’ll work.

    Verse: Switching from thumb and two finger picking in the intro to one finger per string for the start of the verse. It’s tricky to bring out the melody in bars 13-16 with the melody switching from the A-string down to the C. So emphasise those as much as you can while keeping the chill vibe.

    Back to thumb and two finger picking from the Fmaj7 in bar 17 to bring out the descending low notes.

    Chorus: Bringing in a few strums in the chorus for contrast.

    Solo: The original solo has a bunch of hammer-ons, pull-offs and double stops. So I’ve used that concept for this solo rather than recreating it note for note.

    Outro: Similar to the first bars of the verse. But here there’s a slide up to the fifth fret instead of the open A-string. I toyed with playing it this way in the verse and decided to hold it back for the outro. But give it a go in the verse and see how you feel about it.

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  • Green Day – Good Riddance (Tabs)

    Green Day – Good Riddance (Tab)Download

    This arrangement of Green Day’s Good Riddance is played with fingerpicking the whole way through (one finger per string picking style). I love the way the intro sounds played that way and fingerpicking brings out the melody.

    But I originally arranged it strumming so it’s closer to the original and it works well. Plus it’s easier to play that way. So you have my full permission to play it that way (not that you need it).

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  • Warren Zevon/Steve Winwood – Back in the High Life Again (Tabs)

    Warren Zevon/Steve Winwood – Back in the High Life Again (Tab)Download

    Back in the High Life Again was originally by Steve Winwood but my version is much closer to Warren Zevon’s cover.

    To emphasise the Zevonness, my arrangement kicks off with a loose interpretation of Life’ll Kill Ya‘s intro. So long as you’re working within the F-Bb-C chords, there’s plenty of scope for your own ideas in the intro.

    From there, I’ve tried to keep everything very simple and easy to play.

    The only tricky bits are some fast hammer-ons and pull-offs at the end of bar 24 then into the Break section. Again, you can adjust this section to your taste. If you pick out notes from the chords and melody, you can’t go wrong.

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