The arrangement is shortened by a verse and a chorus (you can just repeat the previous verse and chorus if you want those). I originally included the weird solo but realised it was the worst part of an already pretty bad song and took it out.
Tag: Tricky
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Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards – Ja-Da (Tab)
I first came across the song Ja-Da in Herb Ohta’s Sophisticated Ukulele tab book and had a lot of fun playing his version. I recently had my interest in the tune reawakened when Aline Kelly poster her tab of it.
My version is heavily based on Aline’s version. It’s in the same key and I use the same chords (although often in a different inversion). The melody is largely the same but I do shift the notes around. For example, rather than picking the E-string, 3rd fret in bar 3 I play the open g-string.
From bar 21, I start throwing in a few little runs. I’m just using notes from the F major scale for that. So I highly recommend trying a few things out for yourself and seeing what you can come up with.
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Dream a Little Dream of Me (Tab)
I wrote up the chords for this song more than a decade ago, so it’s high time I gave it the tabbing treatment.
Dream a Little Dream of Me was written in the 30s by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt and covered by all the greats including Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole. But it hit biggest in the 60s when the Mamas and the Papas released their cover. And it’s that version that I’ve mostly based my arrangement on. But I took a few cues from Doris Day version in the intro.
My favourite thing about this song is how it creates that feeling of slowly drifting off to sleep. It does this with a series of gentle, chromatic downward shifts in the chords. So C shifts to B7, Ab shifts to G and F shifts to Fm.
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Thomas the Tank Engine Theme (Tab)
I don’t know what possessed the nabobs at the Thomas corporation to replace the fantastic original Thomas theme with a piece of detestable ear-dreck. The new one has nothing as tasty as that chord change from C to Ab, the chromatic runs and the syncopation.
I’m not being strict with the fingerpicking in this one. I’m mostly using thumb and two finger picking but switch to one finger per string picking where notes on the g- and C-strings are played together.
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Billie Eilish – when the party’s over (Tab)
As promised when I tabbed bury a friend, here’s a version of the slightly less creepy and more Bon Iver-y when the party’s over.
The song is mainly made up of vocal harmonies which means it works well with ukulele chords. There is a lot of space in the tune. So make sure you let it breathe and don’t take it too fast.
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Billie Eilish – bury a friend (Tab)
I first stumbled across Billie Eilish with her ukulele song party favor. I enjoyed it enough to stick it on my Ukulele 2017 Spotify playlist but wasn’t entirely blown away. Something must have happened since then because she’s released four outstandingly good songs in a row.
The song is split between melodic sections like the People are Strange-like intro and the “Debt I owe…” section and the more mood-based sections. To emphasise that I’m playing the melodic sections using fingerpicking and the moody sections with strums (including plenty of muting for strings that aren’t being played).
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Imagine Dragons – Thunder (Tab)
Thunder has many elements that make it great for a uke adaption: a strong melody, Simple chords in the key of C and some fun solo parts. But it also has that damn squeaky-voice section. That section was the hardest to get right and I’m still not sure it entirely works. There’s a note at the 15th fret in that part. If your uke doesn’t go that high you can replace it with the A-string, 10th fret to get a similar effect.
The piece starts out using thumb and two finger picking for the verse and pre-chorus. Then in switches to mostly strumming to blast out the chorus and then uses a combination of strums, picking and flicks (flicking the index finger upwards to hit the A, E and sometimes C strings).
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What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve (Tab)
This Frank Loesser song was originally recorded by The Orioles but has become a bit of a ukulele classic since being covered by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt in 2011. I wrote up the chords back then and now time for a tab.
Links
Buy it on iTunes
More Christmas/New Year tabs
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Mariah Carey – All I Want for Christmas is You (Tab)
It’s impossible to get away from this song around this time. And this blog isn’t going to give you any respite. But it has been 10 years since I posted the chords so it’s about time for the tabs.
This arrangement starts off with pretty simple with a loose fingerpicking arrangement. After that it’s strummed with a few notes picked and a lot of string muting until a return to fingerpicking right at the end.
In case you’re not familiar with the repeat markings, You play straight through to “D.S. al Coda” the first time. Then you go back to the symbol that looks like a drunk dollar sign in bar 23. Play up to where it says “Da Coda” then skip ahead to the target in bar 59.
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