This Sega classic by Masato Nakamura starts off with the hardest bar in the entire arrangement. And it’s such an iconic run there’s not much scope to change it.
The good news is that this is followed by a very easy section of just Em, Dm and F chords. And the rest of the tune isn’t too tricky. The most difficult bit are the little runs in the Em parts (e.g. bars 11 and 13).
I’ve cut the intro way down from the original version. You’re welcome to use any picking pattern and any inversion of the chords here.
The chorus is brilliant. It manages to pull of the trick of being both bleak and catchy.
The verses are angry and even more sparse than the chorus. In a case of do as I say not do as I do, let the verse breath and try not to rush the melody.
Finally, the legendary drum Phil (bar 60). I’ve gone with a descending run based on the D blues scale with the last four notes played chromatically.
For this arrangement I worked from the Cat Stevens version. But a few bits of the version I sang in primary school might have slipped in.
The two main sections of this song are wildly different in terms of difficulty. The verses are very straightforward. It’s a gentle melody with easy chords and a few supporting notes.
The section where he’s hammering away on the piano is much trickier. As well as the fast picking, the chord changes are more challenging. In the original, he speeds up considerably in these parts. I haven’t sped up anywhere near as much. And you could slow the tempo even further without spoiling the sound.
Putting it together made me realise it’s structured similar to Rhapsody in Blue (and that other rhapsody). It’s made of a few very catchy but unrelated sections that rub together and sometimes outright interrupt each other.
The song starts in that fashion with the lyrical, “I want to…” line being interrupted by them yelling bicycle. You can bring out that contrast by playing the lyrical section smoothly and the shouty section brashly and more staccato.
It then switches from major to minor for the hard-edged verse. I like to give the strings a bit of a snap for this section.
The middle section, which returns to a major key and a more gentle style cuts, the second chorus shor and shifts to12/8 time. Make sure you’re warmed up before attempting the big stretch up to the 11th and 12th frets.
The next chorus starts off two frets higher (making it a bit more difficult to play) before dropping back down to the original key in bar 31. Strumming the strings above the nut does a good job of imitating the bells at the end of this section.
The solo is the trickiest part to play. The original has two guitars playing answer and response phrases. Moving both to one ukulele means some big, quick moves up and down the neck. It’s tricky. I certainly make a hash of it.
A seasonally appropriate song from Simon and Garfunkel (the supergroup formed from Garfunkel and Oates and Trevor and Simon) and a good fingerpicking workout.
I’ve kept the Travis picking technique from the original for this. The index finger picks the E-string, the middle finger the A, and the thumb alternates between the g- and C-strings all the way through. This brings up a couple of problems.
Firstly, it’s very easy for the melody to get lost in the pattern. Which would make it sound like an accompaniment. So try to emphasise the melody as much as you can.
Secondly, the first note of the melody (bar 7) is on the C-string. There you have to break the pattern by picking the C-string with your index finger. I found it awkward and the trickiest part of the arrangement.
There are a few bars of 2/4 scattered around the tab. But everything flows very nicely, so don’t let that put you off.
Before I get thrown in music jail, this was not my idea.
To be fair, the music of Sk8er Boi does have a few things to recommend it. I do enjoy the move from Em to Eb while keeping the two note riff on the A-string. And the chorus is undeniably catchy.
I went into this tab expecting it to be pretty straight-forward. But there are a few tricky twists in this arrangement. The trickiest bit comes in bars 18-19 with the pinkie playing the 10th fret. I tried a few different ways of playing this section and couldn’t come up with anything that felt natural.
I recorded this video last year for the anniversary of Scott Hutchison’s death. And I’ve been a little reluctant to get around to the tab as I’m still cut up about it.
The trickiest part of the arrangement comes in the bridge. In this section, I’m trying to combine the guitar riff and the vocals so there are two melodies to keep track of at once. The fretting in some places isn’t intuitive, so check the video if you find yourself getting tangled up.
And be sure to keep a steady tempo when the chorus hits so you don’t do what I did and speed up horrendously.
This video has been knocking around for a while but I thought I’d put up the tab to give you enough time to get it under your belt before April Fools Day. The viral nature of this song has ensured it’s become Stock Aitkin Waterman’s most enduring hit, you can’t throw a dart at their catalogue without hitting something equally cheesy, catchy and memorable.
I’ve had a few stabs at arranging this tune over the years and I’ve tackled the chorus slightly differently each time. But the run on “Never gonna” (end of bar 16) has never changed. Playing across all four strings makes it easier to play at full speed, lets the notes bleed into each other and leaves you in the right position for the following bar.
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.
This one is a lot of fun but a real finger-twister. I slowed it down a fair amount from the original and it’s still a challenge with quick runs, big leaps up the fretboard and a couple of triplet strums.
There are also some very strange musical choices in it. Most notable is the key change from E minor to F major (in my version) in bar 13. Up to that point, the only two notes that haven’t appeared are F and C (both of which show up in the F chord).