I may have to return to OK Computer for another tabbing or two. Every song on the record is incredible. But No Surprises stuck out as the one that’s prime for a ukeing.
In this arrangement I’ve tried to keep the fingerpicking riff going under the melody. Which works out pretty well for the most part. But you really do have to make sure you emphasise the melody notes or they can very easily get lost in the picking.
Towards the end I switch towards strumming. To make the melody easy to see I’ve tabbed up the backing strums as just being on the g, C and E strings. But it’s not a big deal if you hit all the strings.
What a brilliant song. And one that’s very popular with uke groups. It started life as a half-written Bob Dylan song called Rock Me, Mama before OCMS finished it up and launched their career with it. It’s been covered many times since with Darius Rucker‘s being the most popular.
Like the original, I’m using a capo on the second fret. It’s not essential but it does make the chords much easier and avoids the dreaded E chord.
Suggested Strumming
You can use this simple pattern all the way through:
d – d – d u d u
Use that once for every chord until the last C in the progression where you play it twice.
alt-J’s new track 3WW has me very excited for the new album. In preparation I thought I’d have a go at Ripe & Ruin from their debut album.
Ripe & Ruin is an acappella duet (the good kind of acappella where everyone sings words and no one is doing cheesy beatboxing). But I’ve taken some liberties with the arrangement having anything between one and three notes at a time.
The only tricky part of the arrangement is the rapid jump up the neck in bar 24. Otherwise it’s pretty straightforward so you can concentrate on varying the dynamics.
A new Bon Iver album means a new Bon Iver post. It’s another great record. This time with very strange song titles. 00000 Million immediately struck me as being great for ukeing with its strong melody and simple chords. And it does transfer well. It even works out nicely in the original key.
It wouldn’t be Bon Iver without a bit of weirdness. And this song’s weirdness is changes in the time signature. Bar two switches to 5/4 time (i.e. there’s an extra note in that bar). And there’s a bar of 2/4 leading into the Fionn Regan sample. But these fit so naturally into the song that if you know the melody well you won’t have any problems with timing.
The brackets around some of the notes indicate they are played softly (they’re backing notes rather than part of the melody).
I think I’m getting soft in my old age. Over the winter break I played two games that ended with me in floods of tears: Valiant Hearts and Life is Strange. Now I can’t even get through the Valiant Hearts trailer or Spanish Sahara without misting up.
I’m a sucker for great music in games (obviously) and Life is Strange has both an excellent original score and tracks from some of my favourites like Jose Gonzalez, Alt-J, Mogawai plus some uke in the form of Amanda Palmer’s In My Mind.
The melody line of the Max and Chloe theme is slow, simple and absolutely beautiful. There’s lots of room for you to add emotion to it so be sure to use plenty of vibrato.
This part – played on a standard tuned ukulele – is much trickier than the lead part. The thumb and two finger picking pattern is constant and rapid. So be sure to warm up well before tackling it.
The baritone part is much more simple. It starts out just some softly played low notes to fill out the sound. It breaks from that at the start of verse two to double the melody an octave down.
The trailer itself provides another musically treat in the form of Ellie covering Through the Valley by Shawn James. The song is so perfect I assumed it had been written for the trailer.
I cobbled my version together quickly. I started as soon as I saw the trailer and recorded the video the next day. So it is a bit all over the place. The plan was to put the melody firmly up front and put the picking in softly between melody notes. And it mostly works that way. The notes on the g- and C-strings are played with the thumb, the index finger handles the E-string and the middle finger the A. The only exception is when all the strings are plucked at once.
I wrote up the chords for Hallelujah way back in 2008. But, since it’s a huge hit with ukulelists, I wanted to do an instrumental version as a little tribute to Leonard Cohen. And a tribute to Jeff Buckley since the intro is completely ripped off from his incredible version.
I try to keep most of my tabs fairly disciplined and work them up fully beforehand. It’s easier for people to read and learn that way. But be warned: this one I played pretty freely then tabbed out what I played. So the fingerpicking is all over the place.
In the verse the melody is everything played on the A-string plus the third fret of the E-string. Everything else is backing so should be played a little more softly. The chorus is more strange since the melody notes are played on the g-, C- and E-strings. I’ve notated all the melody notes with an accent > above them.
For my little tribute to Gene Wilder I had to do this beautiful tune by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
It’s such an affecting tune it’s a great opportunity to play with emotion. I recommend experimenting with varying the tempo and volume and use vibrato when you play to get the most out of it.
Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cooooold out there today.
Like Tuesday’s post, this one uses the slightly unusual 6/8 time signature. That means each bar is two sets of three beats. I like to count the bars 1,2,3,2,2,3. But 1,2,3,1,2,3 and 1,2,3,4,5,6 will also work. Or you could just clap along in an awkward, flat-handed manner.
This arrangement starts out with one finger per string. Then switches to thumb and two finger from bar 17. Then as the song builds you start strumming in bar 23 with occasional picked notes.
To keep things simple, I’ve skipped the key change in the song. If you’re feeling ambitious you can do it by moving everything from bar 37 onwards up a fret. You’ll also need to rejigger bars 41, 45 and 46 to 10-8-9-11.
This is a follow on from the Hanging Tree tab in a few ways. As well as the Hunger Games connection, I’ve tried to keep the arrangement as minimal and easy to play as possible.
The arrangement draws heavily on Lorde’s sparse, minor key version. But it also includes elements of the Tears for Fears original since I couldn’t get that version out of my head.
I use thumb and two finger picking for my version but it’s arranged so you can play it all just using your thumb.