Nirvana’s In Bloom is a nice, easy one. It’s almost all strumming. There’s just a bit of fingerpicking in the first half of the verses. The rest is just blasting out chords with a few extra notes here and there.
The only challenging part is the second half of bar 2 (repeated in bar 30). There’s a quick walk-up on the g-string that’s played with all down strums. If you’re finding that too hard, you can switch to just strumming out the Bb chord.
I don’t think I’ve ever anticipated an album more than I did Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy. At the time, I was disappointed it wasn’t as exciting as Ten and Vs. But in hindsight, it’s clear they were transitioning into being a band that would be around for decades. And that’s reflected in Better Man, which wasn’t even released as a single but has become one of their most enduring and popular songs.
This one is pretty straightforward. Even the riff and the verse are almost identical. But I have shifted a couple of notes from the g-string to the A-string to create a bit of contrast.
The first half of the song is all fingerpicking. After bar 44, there’s a lot more strumming going on. And it’s after that change that the biggest challenge of the song crops up: the transition from C to D at the end of bar 46. I found it tricky to barre across the second fret and hit the E-string, 3rd fret.
At first, I thought there’s no way Cherub Rock would work on the uke. But I found it a fun song to play that you can blast out with strums.
Intro: Starting out at full pelt building up a C chord and breaking into the intro riff.
If you don’t have the space on your uke to play the riff high up the neck, you can move the E-string notes on the A-string. Just lower each note five frets and let the E-string ring open. You can do the same with the melody in the verse.
Verse: Staying high up the neck for the verse and continuing to blast out the strums with just a few picked notes.
Chorus: All strums here too. Be sure to mute the g-string with your thumb for everything but the Eb chord.
Bridge: Adding a C chord to the chord progression from the chorus.
Solo: The trickiest part of the song. I’ve changed it significantly from the original. So feel free to make adjustments of your own.
Bridge 2: Similar to the chorus, but watch out for the A-string, 5th fret at the start of the F chord (first in bar 39).
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.
Nirvana’s ever-present quiet-loud-quit-loud dynamics are in full effect on Heart-Shaped Box. So using fingerpicking for the quiet bits and strumming for the loud bits is a must in this arrangement.
All the picking is one-finger-per-string style. That means you’re picking consecutive notes on g- and C-strings (e.g. in bar 5). I’d usually avoid that as it’s less natural than using thumb then index finger. But it works out much better for the rest of the verse.
There are a whole bunch of bends in the song. The trickiest of them are in the chorus where you’re playing chords on the 2nd/3rd fret then bending at the 9th fret. You’re also bending whilst fretting the C-string for an extra challenge.
On the upside, the bends sound better if they’re a little out of tune so you don’t have to worry too much about that.
1979 is the Smumpkins’s biggest hit but was almost cut from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Which is confusing as that album could do with a dozen songs cutting but not this one.
This arrangement is mercifully easy after the nightmare of Send Me on My Way. This one is all strumming and nothing too difficult with the fretting hand. So you can really concentrate on mixing up the dynamics and enjoying the chill Gmaj7 chords.
I’m still tied to the 90s but for once it’s not a one hit wonder but Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Teen Spirit has Nirvana’s traditional quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamics. In this arrangement, the loud bits are done with strumming and the quiet bits are fingerpicked.
I’ve shortened a couple of sections to stop things getting too repetitive. The strumming part of the intro is halved. As is the pre-chorus. If you want to make it even tighter, you could also drop four bars of the chorus.
In case you’re not familiar, the arrows above the notes in bars 5 and 7 are telling you to emphasise those notes. Those are intended to be the “bow-now” notes on the guitar in the quiet bit.