It was a nice surprise to see Paul McCartney playing Oh! Darling live for the first time at the Taylor Hawkins memorial. It’s a nice blend of early-era R&B Beatles in the verses and the harder-edged, bluesier later Beatles in the chorus.
Tag: Tricky
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Petula Clark – Downtown (Tabs)
I was surprised to learn this song was written by Tony Hatch. Who is best known to me for writing the theme tunes to Neighbours, Emmerdale Farm and Crossroads.
I was inspired to tab this one when it cropped up in Girl, Interrupted and I immediately lost interest in the movie and started working it out. This arrangement is based on the Petula Clark version. Although the Groundskeeper Willie version is definitive.
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What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor? (Tabs)
I recorded the video for this ages ago and never got around to posting it. But International Talk Like a Pirate Day seems like a good occasion to get it up at last.
This arrangement of Drunken Sailor includes one of my favourite tricks: playing the same note on multiple strings. The first bar has consecutive A notes on the g, E and A strings. Followed in bar two by consecutive G notes on the g, C and E strings.
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Jim Croce – Time in a Bottle (Tabs)
Jim Croce is an artist that past me by. He never get much attention in the UK. But after Time in a Bottle was a popular request on Patreon and it’s given me an appreciation of the song.
Intro: With this song, the more impressive sounding parts are easier to play and the less impressive sounding parts are more a challenge.
Despite how it sounds, the intro is fairly easy. Just make sure you’re fretting the A-string, 4th fret in bar 5 with your middle finger. Everything else falls into place.
Verse: This is the part I found to be more of a challenge. Bars 9-12 feel cramped with the descending chromatic line on the C-string and the melody on the A-string.
Things go back to being simple and effective in bars 14-16 with a walking bass line set against the melody.
Chorus: A change from F minor to F major for the jaunty chorus. Some fun sliding around in this section.
Outro: Closing out with some artificial harmonics to emulate the original. Made even more tricky than usual as you’ll probably have to estimate where the 20th fret would be. If you’re struggling, you can just play these without the harmonics and it’ll sound great.
And don’t be a moron like me, fret the C- and E-strings with your middle and index fingers respectively for an easier stretch.
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The Weeknd – Blinding Lights (Tabs)
Here’s a tab for one of the catchiest songs of the last few years: The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights.
It’s not a song you’d immediately associate with the ukulele, but it works out pretty well. The big challenge is the speed. For my version, I slowed it down slightly from the original. But it’s still difficult at this speed. I think you could go slower and get away with it.
There are plenty of percussive elements in the arrangements. Lots of chnks, lots of muted notes and I’m plucking harder than usual and giving the strings a bit of snap.
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Radiohead – Creep (Tabs)
Intro: Starting off with a fingerpicking played with one-finger-per-string picking.
Verse: Mixing together the melody with the fingerpicked chords before switching to strums for the ck-ck bits leading into the chorus.
Bridge: Easily the funnest bit of the song to play. It gets a bit cramped at the top of the uke, though, so it requires a bit of careful fretting.
Outro: Just a stripped down version of the verse.
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The Chordettes – Mr Sandman (Tabs)
The release of the new Sandman TV show seems like a good excuse to finally get around to tabbing this classic. My arrangement is heavily based on the Chordettes version. Although not the original version, it’s by far the best known.
Intro 1: I couldn’t resist rearranging Metallica’s Enter Sandman as an intro. Feel free to come up with an intro of your own or skip it all together.
Intro 2: You can’t skip this one! It sounds fantastic and fits on the ukulele very nicely.
Verse 1: Lots of tasty chords going on. And I’ve tried to incorporate some of the bass runs.
Verse 2: I’ve added some extra elements here. There are some changes to the melody and plenty of twiddles. I made al the twiddles have are descending to give it a feel of gently falling asleep. Plenty of room for your own ideas here. The verse starts with a few “dings and pings”. These are natural harmonics.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Theme (Tabs)
Here’s an absolute banger from my childhood: the TMNT theme.
The chorus is straightforward strumming. And it’s one of the rare occasions when the melody is all on the g-string.
The verse is much more challenging. The melody is very fast so I’ve skipped a few notes to make it more playable. Even so, it’s a bit of a finger-twister.
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The Beautiful South – A Little Time (Tabs)
The Beautiful South are one of those bands that are so British I can’t imagine them making it huge around the globe. Nevertheless, they have some great tunes so I wanted to tab A Little Time. Plus what remains of The Beautiful South recent toured with, Uke Hunt favourites, Keston Cobblers’ Club.
There are a few tricky manoeuvers in this arrangement. But one simple thing is the chords. The intro, verse and solo all have just one chord: G.
There are a few challenging aspects. First is the speed of some of the notes. I use a lot alternate picking to get up to speed. Plus my version is slightly slower than the original (I think you could go even slower and get away with it).
The second bit that’s a challenge is using your pinkie to slide up from the 5th to the 7th fret. I definitely need more practice with that to be as confident as I am with other fingers.
But the part I had most difficultly with was the switch between the verse and chorus. In the original, this is where Briana Corrigan interrupts David Rotheray mid-sentence. An effective way to represent an argument in a duet but challenging to create a separation on the uke.
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Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On (Tabs)
Here’s my take on Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On. Although you could just tell people it’s Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud and no one will notice.
I recommend being relaxed and loose with the phrasing in this one. Being on the beat is not sexy! My phrasing is slightly different to Marvin’s and you should play it the way you feel it.
The trickiest parts of this arrangement are where you’re holding a Bb chord and also bending the E-string at the third fret (e.g. at the end of bar 1). You have to make sure you’re only bending the E-string and not the g- or C-strings. The good news is you only have to bend it slightly sharp. This mimics the original giving it a yearning feeling.
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