Tag: Moderate

  • Billy Joel – Piano Man (Tabs)

    Intro: The song kicks off with a couple of jazz licks that are completely unrelated to the rest of the song. But do sound cool. It’s fine to drop those if you’re not into it. Or adjust it to your taste.

    That leads into the intro proper. I’ve changed this up a bit from the original. And I’ve shortened it since the original is 30 seconds in before the verse starts.

    Verse: The verse is nice and straightforward. It’s all contained in the first few frets and uses familiar chord shapes. Be aware that the open g-string at the start åof bar 19 is a melody note, so make sure it stands out.

    Pre-Chorus: Switching to strums for the build up to the chorus. I didn’t find a nice way to play the melody and the descending notes at the same time. So I sacrificed the melody and just hinted at it with the hammer-ons on the E-string.

    Chorus: Almost identical to the melody in the verse. But it’s beefed up with a bunch of strumming.

    Solo: The trickiest part of the song. There are some quick runs that use campanella picking and a bit of quick movement up the neck. There’s room for changing things here. But I wouldn’t move away from the original too much as it has a strong melodic sense to it.

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  • Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Cheers Theme)(Tabs)

    Here’s my take on Cheers theme in tribute to George Wendt. I thought I’d done this one years ago (with it being one of the best theme tunes of all time) but it seems not.

    The tune starts out simple enough. Next, things get jazzy in bars 7-9. Then it’s right to the top of the neck for the chorus. Things get decidedly fiddly up there. I did try out shifting the whole section down an octave. It works but it didn’t have the same joyful hit it has in the original.

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  • Doris Day – Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps (Tabs)

    Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps started life as Quizás, Quizás, Quizás written by Osvaldo Farrés. Since then, it’s been covered by people as varied as Bing Crosby, Cake and Andrea Bocelli. But the most famous is Doris Day’s version. Which I based this arrangement on.

    Intro: Starting off with the cool, staccato riff. First an octave up. Then in first position (where it’s played when it crops up later in the song).

    Verse: I like to be a little late to some notes in the verse. Particularly the Gm chord at the start of bar 9. This matches the lyrics about hesitation and stalling.

    Chorus: The chorus shifts up the fretboard and is much more strident. I’ve thrown in a couple of licks in bars 17 and 21 that you can change to your own tastes.

    Solo: And feel free to come up with your own version of the solo, too. In this solo, I’m using the G natural minor scale. Plus some chromatic notes in bar 28 to lead into the C minor chord.

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  • Outkast – Hey Ya (Tabs)

    Here’s my take on Outkast’s Hey Ya! which was ably covered by the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra back in the day.

    Verse: The big challenge with this arrangement is the speed. The second verse in particular needs some quick alternate picking.

    The other thing to watch out for is the bars of 2/4 that crop up on the G chord in the verse and chorus.

    Chorus: I’ve arranged the chorus a couple of ways. The first half (bars 8 to 13) is just strumming it through (with the exception of a little bit of picking in bar 12).

    Then in the second half (bars 14-19) I add in the synth riff. It’s more tricky to play but the chorus feels incomplete without it. It’s your choice which way to play it.

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  • R.E.M. – Nightswimming (Tabs)

    The chords for this one are very simple, and the melody fits nicely on the fretboard. But the way the vocals shift unevenly against the chords made this tricky for me to get my head around.

    The other challenge is to keep the vocal melody distinct from the backing (both the chords and the piano runs e.g. bar 8) by giving the melody notes an extra-hard pluck.

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  • Green Day – American Idiot (Tabs)

    Green Day’s American Idiot doesn’t require a whole lot finesse. Just blasting out the strums all the way through. The hardest bit is making sure the strum blocking is effective in the parts where there’s just a vocal melody.

    The solo is just messing around with the chorus melody and chords. Lots of scope for you to come up with your own set of chord inversions here.

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  • Buena Vista Social Club – Chan Chan (Tabs)

    Chan Chan was originally written by Compay Segundo. But it’s the Buena Vista Social Club version that is best known. And it’s that one I worked from.

    Intro: The intro sets up the chord progression that’s used (adding a 6 or 7 here and there) all the way through the song: Dm-F-Gm-A. The rest of the song is in 4 bar sections, but the intro has 6 bars. Which makes the start of the verse come in at an odd place.

    Verses: For the melody sections, you’re playing the same chords at the fifth fret. And that’s interspersed with two bars from the intro.

    Chorus: A very similar melody to the verse, but this time played twice through and with a four bar section of the intro.

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  • Monty Python – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Tabs)

    Diving into 2025 with some wildly unjustifiable optimism in the shape of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

    Intro: Lots of jumping around the neck in the section. But it’s slow and loose, so it’s not too challenging.

    Chorus: The tempo ramps up here and we switch to swing time. This bit is my favourite part to play. It has a nice flow to it on ukulele. Lots of use of the g-string in the melody.

    Verse: Similar to the intro, but the increased tempo makes it much harder to play. I’ve simplified much of it to make it easier. Particularly bar 19 where I’ve dropped the chords entirely. If you fancy a challenge, you could play this like bar 3.

    Outro: There’s a key change here, so you’re playing the chorus in D. It is more difficult to play in this key. So you could play the chorus again in C and no one would notice or care.

    I’ve tacked on an “have a banana” outro at the end as a nod to the song’s musical hall style.

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  • Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas? (Tabs)

    Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? is one of the most lyrically disastrous songs ever written. But since this is an instrumental, we can ignore that.

    The chords simple; just F, G and C with a few D minors and A minors thrown in.

    The melody gets a little fiddly though. And it wanders all over the fretboard. A couple of bits to look out for are Bono’s legendary “Tonight thank God…” (in bars 38 and 39) and the pinkie stretch to the fifth fret in bar 32. You can make that part easier by using the open E-string instead of holding the third fret.

    The other challenge is memorising it all. There are no repeats until the chorus right at the end of the song.

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  • The Cure – Friday I’m in Love (Tabs)

    I had to break protocol for this one so I could post The Cure’s Friday I’m in Love on a friday.

    Intro: There’s an odd start to the song with the first note coming in on the “and” of 1. If the listener is unfamiliar with the song, it can throw them off.

    After the opening lick, it’s into some straight-forward strumming with a few picked notes thrown in.

    Verse: The first two verses are simple, with all familiar chord shapes in the first position. The third and fourth verses are a bit more tricky since they incorporate a high note on the A-string, fifth fret.

    Chorus: The trickiest part is going from the riff at the end of the verse to G chord with the high D note. If you’re struggling, you can just strum out the A chord in bar 17.

    Solo: The solo has a lot of moves up and down the neck. But there’s nothing too fancy to trip you up.

    Bridge: This is the hardest section to play. You’re up at the fifth fret and it gets a bit fiddly. That’s one reason I halved its length.

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