Ukulele Hunt

Tag: Rock

  • The Beatles – Help! (Tabs)

    The Beatles – Help! (Tab)Download

    Intro: This is the trickiest part of the song. You’ve got the thumb providing a descending bass line on the C-string. Meanwhile, the E and A-strings play the melody (plus one note on the g-string in bar 3).

    The guitar line that finishes the intro (bars 7-8) doesn’t fit well on the ukulele. So this arrangement is more in keeping with the vibe rather than the actual notes. Even so, it’s a bit of a stretch to play.

    Verse: Things ease off in the verse. Just use some alternating picking with your index and middle fingers on the A-string to get the notes up to speed.

    Chorus: This returns to the descending bass line idea from the intro. For the second chorus, I threw in a bit of the vocal harmony at the end of bar 41.

    Outro: A big jump up the neck to mimic the high harmonies.

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  • Patti Smith – Because the Night (Tabs)

    Patti Smith – Because the Night (Tab)Download

    Intro: The intro is the most challenging part to get down. But it’s a nifty picking pattern that could come in useful in many places. So it’s well worth learning.

    Verse: The fingerpicked verse is simple. Just a bit of sliding around to deal with.

    Pre-Chorus: Switch to using strums to build into the chorus. The biggest problem I had here was memorising the chords. They shift around rather than repeating exactly.

    Chorus: The chorus is fun to play. You can really bash out the chords.

    This arrangement uses just the end of the guitar solo from the original (bars 31 and 32) to build into the bridge.

    Bridge: More chord bashing in the bridge. The song’s Springsteen origin really becomes obvious here.

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  • Chuck Berry – No Particular Place to Go (Tabs)

    Chuck Berry – No Particular Place to Go (Tab)Download

    Intro: Kicking off with a dissonant augmented E chord before diving straight into the verse.

    Verses: The verses have a call-and-response structure. The vocals are the major scale call, and the guitar licks respond with some minor notes. In this arrangement, I’m playing the vocal part with picking and the guitar part with strums. This helps to make them distinct.

    Solo: The solo is a workout for the strumming arm. It’s almost all triplets. But I’m playing them all with downstrums to keep a consistent attack.

    This is mostly based on the first solo, with a few ideas from the second one thrown in. Feel free to include your own ideas too. But I’d recommend not straying too far from the Chuck Berry style.

    Outro: A fun, if slightly cheesy, descending chord move at the end.

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  • Pink Floyd – Time (Tabs)

    Pink Floyd – Time (Tab)Download

    Pink Floyd’s Time is a real epic so I’ve done the most un-Pink Floyd thing of all time and shortened the song by trimming the solo and cutting out the more atmospheric parts.

    Intro: Starting off with the ticking sound. Made by muting the strings high up the neck and plucking close to the bridge. Then a lick to lead into the verse.

    Verse: This section is forceful and confrontational so keep the chords short and stabby.

    Chorus: The chorus switches from the brooding G minor section to a blissed out Ebmaj7. Let the chords ring out in this section to match the mood.

    Solo: I’ve changed this considerably from the original. So feel free to make changes for your version. I’m using the G minor pentatonic for the solo plus the occasional A note.

    Outro: The outro throws in a few curve balls. It throws in a Gb and modulates to Bb. Then ending on a glum sounding Ebm – E – Cm.

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  • Alice in Chains – Down in a Hole (Tabs)

    Alice in Chains – Down in a Hole (Tab)Download

    Down in a Hole by Alice in Chains fits on uke better than I was expecting. There’s a nice mix of fun bits and challenging bits.

    Intro: This sets up the Gm – F – C chord progression that runs through the verse and pre-chorus. I’ve thrown in a few twiddles based on the acoustic and electric parts in the original. Definitely room for your own ideas here.

    Verse: I played around with just doing one of the vocal parts here (first heard in bar 9). But I think the vocal harmony is too good to ditch.

    Pre-Chorus: This is the hardest part of the song by some distance. It’s high up the neck and fiddly. You could get away with simplifying the section. Either by repeating parts or moving notes around. But I’d be reluctant to get rid of the dissonant C# (E-string, 9th fret).

    Chorus: Mostly bashing out the chords in the chorus. Things get tricky towards the end though with a trip up the neck and a short lick.

    Outro: A reprise of the intro but with the baffling choice of ending on an A major chord (despite the whole song being gloomy and minor).

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  • The Beatles – Something (Tabs)

    The Beatles – Something (Tabs)Download

    Something has become particularly associated with the ukulele since Paul has been regularly playing it on uke in tribute to George Harrison. And it transfers over to one very nicely.

    Intro: A brief, one-bar intro. Make sure you bend the note at the 7th fret before you pick it.

    Verse: The verses are built on two chromatically descending lines. Firstly, descending notes on the A-string set against a C chord. Secondly, descending notes on the g-string set against an Am chord.

    With the steady pace of the song, there’s nothing too challenging here.

    Bridge: Things get a bit more challenging in the bridge. The action shifts up the fretboard and there are a couple of stretches to deal with.

    Solo: The trickiest section. And it’s such a great solo, I’d advise against changing it too much.

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  • Coldplay – Trouble (Tabs)

    Coldplay – Trouble (Tab)Download

    Coldplay’s Trouble is a nice, simple one. Even the solo is just a fancy version of the chords.

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  • Pearl Jam – Yellow Ledbetter (Tabs)

    Pearl Jam – Yellow Ledbetter (Tabs)Download

    Pearl Jam’s Yellow Ledbetter. startuh out on the B-sahhh but thuh words don’t quite line up now, an’ the song jus’ sorta rolls, on a wizard on a whale, an’ nowah suddenly it’s a fan faverrrrah. Ohahnahha.

    This one took a fair bit of knocking around to fit onto uke. There are only three chords in it (C, G and F) but there are many jumps up and down the neck and some stretches to deal with. The intro in particular is fiddly but a lot of fun to play.

    Intro/Outro: A Little Wing/Lenny-style intro with plenty of flying up and down the neck. Make sure you include plenty of silences and changes in dynamics to keep things interesting.

    Verse: Nothing difficult to play here. Just a few slides and many pull-offs.

    Chorus: A little increase in difficulty with a stretch up to the 6th fret in bar 26.

    Solo: Some tricky stuff here too. I’ve included elements from the original. But you can adapt it however you feel. I’d recommend sticking fairly close to the C major pentatonic scale. But you can include some C minor pentatonic for a more bluesy feel.

    Bridge: This section is very sparse. But it demonstrates how effective just changing the order of the chords can be. It still uses the C, G and F chords but this section has a very different feel.

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  • Bon Jovi – Livin’ on a Prayer (Tabs)

    Bon Jovi – Livin’ on a Prayer (Tabs)Download

    Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer is full of hair-rock bravado, so I wasn’t sure if it’d work on uke. But it has a very strong melody, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed playing it.

    Intro: I had to change the talk-box riff a fair amount to get it onto uke. This version runs more smoothly than the original. And it doesn’t go on for 45 seconds.

    Verse: The verses don’t have anything too challenging. It’s all Am – F – G in open position.

    Pre-Chorus: Things build in intensity here but don’t get any more difficult.

    The second pre-chorus is cut short. As well as reducing the number of bars, they also cut a beat out of bar 44 (making it a bar of 3/4). This combined with the lack of any preparation in the chords, means the key change really hits you in the face.

    Chorus: The first chorus is challenging enough. But changing to C minor for the second chorus makes it even trickier. I originally arranged it to replay the chorus in the original key. And I think that’s a perfectly reasonable way to play it if you want to avoid the added difficulty. Even Jon Bon Jovi seems in two minds about it. But it’s such a moment in the song I decided it’s worth tackling.

    Solo: The solo has a few tricky moves too. But, once everything is octave shifted, it plays nicely on the uke. The one thing worth skipping would be the very fast lick in bar 40. It’s very difficult to play (I certainly didn’t get it cleanly in the video) and I think something simpler could be just as effective.

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  • The White Stripes – Fell in Love with a Girl (Tabs)

    The White Stripes – Fell in Love with a Girl (Tabs)Download

    The White Stripes’ Fell in Love with a Girl is a simple song but the tempo is high. I’ve slowed it down in my version (from 180BPM-ish in the original to 170) but it’s still a challenge to keep up. To make things easier, the arrangement moves across the strings rather than up and down the neck. Which means there’s a lot of open strings and use of the g-string in the melody.

    Even more than usual, this one rewards practicing slowly. Let your fingers learn the patterns before building up speed . Because once it’s up to tempo, there’s no time to think.

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