Daydream Believer by The Monkees is fairly straightforward to play. The biggest challenges are a few quick hops up the neck. The trickiest one coming in the shift between bars 8 and 9. Other than that, it’s all familiar chord shapes and a simple but insanely catchy melody.
The original is in the key of G and that fits very nicely on the uke so I’ve kept it for this arrangement. The little piano riff in the intro works particularly well.
In tribute to Taylor Hawkins.
The song starts off with a bit of dissonance between the Ab on the E-string and the open A string. The Ab also provides dissonance as the first note in the chorus melody (bar 16).
My first arrangement contained strumming almost all the way through. So in the intro I was strumming the second half of bars 1 and 2. And also strumming in the gaps at the end of every other bar in the verse. If you want to do it that way, go for it. But I decided to create a bit more of a contrast been the sections by picking adding picking to the quieter sections.
For the “solo” section of the tab is more in keeping with the spirit of that section rather than the actual notes. It’s really just a breakdown cooling things off before bringing the rock back. So as long as you build up at the end, you’re free to do whatever you like with this section.
The Man Who Sold the World starts off with that iconic riff playing over changing chords. It works nicely on uke and is well worth learning on its own.
At the end of the intro, there’s an awkward bar of 2/4. I considered extending it to a bar of 4/4 (as Nirvana did in their Unplugged version). It certainly feels more natural that way. Even Bowie messed up and came in late sometimes. I’d recommend going with a bar of 4/4 if that feels more comfortable to you. There’s another bar of 2/4 in bar 20, but that one feels much more natural.
The verse is a simple chord and melody affair. But things get a little tricky in the chorus where you’re playing the riff and the melody. Make sure you keep them as distinct as you can by giving extra emphasis to the melody notes and sustaining them as much as you can over the riff.
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.
No one requested this one. I watched Dr Strangelove last week (for obvious reasons) and was inspired to knock up a quick version of this American Civil War tune from the soundtrack.
I’ve included a couple of fretting suggestions in the tab (the numbers underneath the tab). The trickiest bit is the fast move down the fretboard in bar 13. Originally I was playing all this bar in the fifth position (playing the E-string, 8th fret rather than A-string, 3rd fret). But I found this way made for a much more straightforward change to the F chord in bar 14.
This has to be one of the most beautiful melodies of all time. Which makes for a perfect transition to the uke. The arrangement is based on the sublime acoustic version rather than the not so great later version.
Like many of Mitchell’s songs, the guitar part in Both Sides Now is a strummed open tuning with a few notes added on. That style doesn’t translate well to the uke. So I’ve taken it as licence to do whatever I like with the chords.
There’s nothing too challenging in the arrangement, so there’s plenty of room for interpretation. Be sure to play around with dynamics and timing to keep things interesting.
I came up with an intro/outro of my own so I encourage you to do likewise.
A song from the more ukeable end of Radiohead’s career (although Dani Joy does a great There, There).
The arrangement is pretty straightforward. The trickiest part is the signature Jonny Greenwood ascending line in bars 24-25. Make sure you play the first verse nice and softly so you can create a juxtaposition with the second verse by blasting it out.
Here’s my take on the Golden Girls theme in tribute to Betty White.
It’s a short and sweet tune with some nice chord moves. The only tricky part comes in the final few bars. Here you’re playing octaves on the C and A-strings while muting the E-string with the underside of your index finger. If you don’t fancy that, you can just play the notes on the C-string and ignore the rest.
The chorus for this one is insanely catchy. And the benefit of playing an instrumental version is that you don’t have to wonder why he rhymes a word with itself so many times in this song.
This one is fingerpicked all the way through. I’m using one-finger-per-string picking all the way through. But you can switch to alternate picking for some of the rapid notes.
The chorus is nice and straight-forward and the solo is very basic. The only part I had trouble with was the verses. The melody shifts slightly all the time. Which made it hard for me to keep track of. But it is nice and compact and doesn’t require anything fancy.
The little instrumental break in the original song sounds great on the uke. So I decided to use that as the intro. It is also the most difficult part of the arrangement to play, though. After that, the verse and pre-chorus are straightforward. The chorus does have a couple of trips up the neck to contend with.