Ukulele Hunt

Tag: Folk

  • In the Pines/Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Tabs)

    In the Pines/Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Tab)Download

    In the Pines is a traditional song but the most famous versions are by Lead Belly and Nirvana. I mostly worked from the Nirvana version for this arrangement and I’ve kept it very simple.

    The arrangement kicks off with a short intro. There’s lots more you can do here if you’re in the mood.

    The first verse is very simple fingerpicking. The melody is all played on the C-string with just the open E and A-strings for backing. There are a couple of exceptions. In bars 7 and 15, I add a bit of dissonance with the E-string, 6th fret. And in bar 17 the open A-string is part of the melody.

    The second verse stays with the fingerpicking but adds chords. The the third verse switches to strums. After that, it’s a re-run of the first verse.

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  • Oh Shenandoah (Tabs)

    Oh Shenandoah (Tab)Download

    Loads of people have covered Oh Shenandoah, but the Tom Waits and Keith Richards version is the one I’m most familiar with.

    I’ve arranged it three different ways. In order of easiest to trickiest. I’d recommend using this version as a springboard for your own. You can mix and match sections and add your own ideas.

    Intro: Just a short intro to establish the harmony.

    Verse 1: A very simple way of playing it. There are a few grace notes and an Fmaj7 chord in bar 6. But that’s as fancy as it gets.

    Verse 2: This verse harmonises the melody. It’s starts using thirds. Then switches to using a pedal at the end of bar 15 (around the open g-string and A-string, 7th fret). Then, bars 16-17 switch to sixths. After that, it goes back to using thirds.

    Verse 3: This one throws around all sorts of curlicues and filigree. There’s a lot of jumping up and down the fretboard and rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs. By far the hardest section, but still not too bad. You can add more frills here if you like. Or pare it back and make it more tasteful.

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  • Yusuf/Cat Stevens – The Wind (Tabs)

    Yusuf/Cat Stevens – The Wind (Tab)Download

    The Wind comes across as a gentle little ditty. But there are some fiendish time signature changes in the chorus to deal with. This version is slowed down to about 90% of the original which makes it easier to handle.

    Intro: A very simple start using one-finger-per-string picking. Which is used here and in the verses.

    That’s followed by the main guitar riff. You could play this all in the first position. But I moved it up the neck to differentiate it from the melody.

    Verse: Nothing much to deal with here. Just alternating between the guitar riff and the melody.

    Chorus: Here’s where the trouble starts. There are bars of 5/4 and 2/4 thrown in along with irregularly spaced chord changes. The second chorus has an additional bar of 5/4 as well.

    I found it hard to keep track of. My approach was to break it down. I started by counting out the bars. When I had that down, I tried playing just the chords. Then adding the melody part in starting at a very slow tempo.

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  • Taylor Swift – august (Tabs)

    Taylor Swift – august (Tab)Download

    Verse: These are nice and simple. Standard chords in the first position.

    Chorus: There aren’t many songs that get more gentle in the chorus. But it’s very effective here. This section is slightly more difficult. It moves up the neck for a bit of campanella action and there’s some swift picking required.

    The second chorus starts with an A minor chord rather than a C. If you prefer, you can just stick with C since that’s what she did on the Long Pond version.

    Bridge: The song changes character here and it gets much trickier to play. The melody is less structured than in the verse and chorus, with a bunch of words crammed in.

    Outro: I tried to mimic the way the song drops out for the first bar of this section the second time it crops up. Then blasting in with full on strumming.

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  • Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – Home (Tabs)

    Edward Sharpe – Home (Tab)Download

    Intro: Straight in with the trickiest part of the song. If you wanted to make this easier, you could just chug out the chords rather than tackling the fingerpicking.

    Verse: I’ve tried to keep the feeling of a duet in this section. For the female part, I use bends and play close to the bridge to give it a raspier sound. Then play away from the bridge to get a fuller tone for the male part. You can judge for yourself whether it works. I’m not sure.

    If you don’t want to play the bends, you can replace them with the open A-string.

    Chorus: Nice and easy. Just picking a simple melody and strumming the chords.

    Solo: Nothing difficult here either in terms of fretting. But there are a bunch of bars of 2/4 which make the timing tricky to keep track of.

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  • boygenius – Ketchum, ID (Tabs)

    boygenius – Ketchum, ID (Tab)Download

    Here’s a quick version of my favourite boygenius song: Ketchum, ID. It’s straightforward to play on uke and uses one finger per string picking the whole way through.

    Intro: This is my own noodling over the C-F-C-G chord progression. A good place to pick out your own version.

    Verses: Both verses (I’ve gone with the Phoebe Bridgers verse and Lucy Dacus verse) are simple melodies that are just played in the first position.

    Choruses: The choruses move up and down the neck as I do my best to recreate the harmonies on uke. But the pace is stately so it’s not too tricky.

    There are small differences between the choruses. Notably an Am chord in bar 49 for the final chorus.

    Bridge: Another place you can introduce your own ideas. I’ve stuck fairly close to the original.

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  • Eddie Vedder – Rise (Tabs)

    Eddie Vedder – Rise (Tab)Download

    Possibly because of Eddie Vedder’s affection for the uke, the mandolin song from the Into the Wild soundtrack, Rise fits nicely on the uke without changing the key.

    After a fingerpicking intro, the song is almost all strums. With just a few notes picked out. The verses and choruses are straightforward. It’s just the solo and that outro that have a few stretches and jumps up and down the neck.

    I’ve kept the solo and the outro fairly faithful to the original, but there’s plenty of space in those to throw in your own ideas.

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  • The Pogues – Sally MacLennane (Tabs)

    The Pogues – Sally MacLennane (Tab)Download

    Shane MacGowan was one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He’s most famous for Fairytale of New York but his back catalogue is full of incredible songs. Many of which I’ve covered in the past.

    To commemorate his passing, I’ve chosen the typically riotous Sally MacLennane to tab. I slowed it down a fair amount from the original but it’s still very challenging.

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  • Bill Withers – Grandma’s Hands (Tabs)

    Bill Withers – Grandma’s Hands (Tab)Download

    Grandma’s Hands by Bill Withers. You might recognise the riff as the sample in Blackstreet’s fantastic No Diggity. Or maybe James Corden’s terrible England song.

    This arrangement is very simple and the tempo is slow, so this is a very approachable tab to take on.

    Intro: I hadn’t realised until starting on this arrangement that the No Diggity riff isn’t a straight sample of the original. In his version, Bill Withers has an Esus4 chord missing from that version. I went with the No Diggity version for this arrangement (and so did Gregory Porter’s guitarist).

    Verse: A couple fingerings to help with the chord changes here. At the end of bar 5, play the A-string, 2nd fret with your index finger barred over all the strings. That’ll set you up for the B7 chord in the next bar.

    In bars 10 and 11 (and in the repeats), play the A-string, 2nd fret with your middle finger so you have your index and ring fingers ready for the A7 chord.

    Outro: A little minor pentatonic lick to finish things off.

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  • KT Tunstall – Black Horse & the Cherry Tree (Tabs)

    KT Tunstall – Black Horse & the Cherry Tree (Tab)Download

    This is a very propulsive song even in the very sparse sections. So in the verses, where it’s just the melody line, I’m using strum blocking to keep the energy up. The verse melody is busy. But it’s fine to miss a couple of notes so long as you keep the song moving along.

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