Ukulele Hunt

Tag: Moderate

  • Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea (Tabs)

    Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea (Tab)Download

    Beyond the Sea is an anglicized version of Charles Trenet’s La Mer and regularly crops up in film and TV (most notably the prison kitchen scene in Goodfellas).

    Intro: Starting off with some big strums to emulate the brass in the original.

    Verse: Nothing too difficult to play in the verse, but there are a ton of chord changes to keep track of.

    Bridge: This section has three key changes (to A, to C and returning to the original key of F). Each time it uses the trick of leading into the change with the V7 chord of the new key. So you have E7 at the end of bar 18, setting up the key of A. And G7 at the end of bar 24, leading in the key of C. Finally, you have C7 in bar 30 to lead back to the original key of F.

    Solo: The solo is based on different inversions of the chords in the verse with a few melodic elements added. Plenty of room here for your own ideas.

    From there, it’s back to the verse and finishing with a simple chromatic lick.

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  • Stephen Sanchez – Until I Found You (Tabs)

    Stephen Sanchez – Until I Found You (Tab)Download

    In a rare case of being almost up to date, here’s a tab of Stephen Sanchez’s retro ballad and TikTok smash Until I Found You.

    Intro: The retro touches start in the intro with a classic IV to minor iv chord change (C to Cm) in this case. Which shows up in a million Beatles songs as well as Creep and Wake Me Up When September Ends.

    Verse: The verse starts with the unmistakeable interval from the Crazy melody. The verse melody has a very lazy, slurred timing to it. I’ve kept some of that but I have straightened it up a little.

    Chorus: The chorus is more straight forward in terms of timing. The slide up to the seventh fret is the only bump.

    Solo: A very simple solo. Just bashing out the chords and doing a little slide. But doing that accurately and quickly is challenging.

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  • Old Crow Medicine Show/Darius Rucker – Wagon Wheel (Tabs)

    OCMS – Wagon Wheel (Tabs)Download

    Old Crow Medicine Show’s Wagon Wheel is pretty much ubiquitous wherever ukuleles are strummed. Or any instrument is strummed. Even Kesha has had a go at it.

    Part of the reason it’s so popular is its long gestation taking in Curtis Jone’s Roll Me Mama and Bob Dylan’s mumbled demo Rock Me Mama before OCMS’s Ketch Secor gave the song its current form. It’s not a coincidence that a song passing through so many hands would shape it into something so widely loved. Which is why the current music copyright insanity is so harmful.

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  • Placebo – Pure Morning (Tabs)

    Placebo – Pure Morning (Tab)Download

    Placebo’s Pure Morning is hilariously unsuited the ukulele. But it’s always fun to have a go at those. You can decide for yourself whether it actually works because I’m not sure.

    There’s no chord progression at all in the song. It’s just an E drone the whole way through (Eb in the original). To emphasise that, I’m playing an E on both the open E-string and on the C-string 4th fret whenever I get the chance.

    As the song builds, the arrangement moves up the neck and uses some octaves. If you don’t have a 14th fret, you can always just mute the A-string. Or playing it open will work.

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  • Nirvana – All Apologies (Tabs)

    Nirvana – All Apologies (Tab)Download

    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.

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  • Amy Winehouse – Back to Black (Tabs)

    Amy Winehouse – Back to Black (Tab)Download

    Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black has to be one of the best albums of the noughties. I tabbed Rehab a while back. And it’s high time I tackled the title track.

    The chord progression is Gm – Cm – Eb – D in the verse and chorus. That drop down from Eb to D is so effective in conveying a sense of defeat.

    The verse melody acts in a similar way starting out on just a single note repeated (G in this arrangement) and ending by dropping down one fret on the D chord.

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  • The Magnetic Fields/Peter Gabriel – The Book of Love (Tabs)

    The Magnetic Fields – The Book of Love (Tab)Download

    The Magnetic Fields were one of the bands that got me to take the ukulele seriously. So it’s long past time I did a version of The Book of Love. It seems that (thanks to its use in the finale of Scrubs) Peter Gabriel’s version is the best known. But, on this occasion, the original remains my favourite.

    This arrangement uses a few elements of the Gabriel version (including the slower tempo and a few bits of filigree) but mostly sticks to the original.

    It’s a very simple song with the same chords the whole way through: G – C – D11 – G. D11 is just a standard D chord with the g-string left open.

    The intro and solo are just me noodling around with the melody and chords. With the intro in the first position and the solo higher up the neck. Lots of scope for your own take on these.

    I’m using one finger per string picking for this up to the last bar of the solo. There I switch to strums for the final chorus.

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  • Iggy Pop – The Passenger (Tabs)

    Iggy Pop – The Passenger (Tab)Download

    Iggy Pop’s The Passenger is a straight-forward basher. There’s the same chord sequence the whole way through:

    Am – F – C – G

    Am – F – C – E7

    The E7 chord is a bit of an oddity. In my arrangement I’m avoiding playing the g-string (by muting with my thumb) to keep the chord ambiguous as the whether it’s major or minor.

    Later in the song (starting on bar 48) the melody hits a G note which clashes with the Ab in the E7 chord. So in those cases, I’ve substituted in a G chord to make it sound more natural on the uke. And I’ve stuck with that G chord in the final chorus as well.

    The one slightly fancy touch comes in the second half of the intro (bars 5-8). This riff based on the lead guitar part which I thought it deserved showcasing.

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  • Green Day – Basket Case (Tabs)

    Green Day – Basket Case (Tab)Download

    It’s a very simple song. Other than bars 27-28, it’s all first position beginner chords and a straightforward melody. The only thing that makes it difficult is the tempo. So be sure to practice slowly and gradually build up speed.

    One slight oddity comes in bars 6 and 15. Here there’s a hammer-on on the C-string from a note way back in the previous bar. I do this to create a subtle change to the G chord in order to emphasise the much stronger second note in the bar.

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  • Afroman – Because I Got High (Tab)

    Afroman – Because I Got High (Tab)Download

    Afroman’s Because I Got High is a very simple song. Three chords and just a verse with a bit of variation in the intro and a bit of getting jiggy with it in the outro.

    The only tricksy thing going on (other than a bunch of percussive chnks) is the campanella picking on “Coz I got high…” which first shows up in bars 6-7. I think having the notes ring into each recreates the slurred, stumbling feel of the original.

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