Ukulele Hunt

Tag: Tricky

  • The Beatles – Hey Jude (Tab)

    The Beatles – Hey Jude (Tab)Download

    Technically, I shouldn’t be posting this on White Album week. But it was recorded during the White Album sessions and it is one of the best (possibly the best) Beatles song. If you’re dying for a White Album song have a go at the Blackbird tab.

    I’ve kept the arrangement as simple as possible. It has such a strong (and well known) melody it doesn’t need much to back it up. I’m not following any strict pattern for the fingerpicking. For the most part the thumb plays the lowest string in the bar then letting the fingers fall on a string each from there.

    In the repeat of the chorus I play a slight variation on the, “And don’t you knowwwwww…” in bars 15 and 16.

    After all that I switch to strumming and the occasional finger flick for the boisterous sh-outro. I bash out a couple of adornments in this section. You don’t need to do anything complicated with these so long as you use the appropriate amount of gusto. Both mine are just based on the C7 chord.

    Links

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  • Midnight, the Stars and You (from The Shining) (Tab)

    Midnight, the Stars and You (from The Shining) (Tab)Download

    For Halloween, a song from the greatest horror film ever made. It’s so densely packed with detail, unforgettable images and jarring juxtapositions. Which has spawned an entire industry of fan theories from the undeniable to the entirely ridiculous to the disturbing and plausible (and if that theory is true it recontextualizes this song in an entirely alarming way).

    Midnight, the Stars and You was originally perfromed by Al Bowlly and Ray Noble and released in 1934. Making it out of time for the 1921 photo. The song also cropped up in Snowpiercer and was recently unexpectedly covered by Deerhoof.

    The tune gives plenty of room for some jazzy noodling. For the first half of the arrangement I use those gaps to play around with the chords. In bars 7-8 and 11-12 I add in chromatic descending notes. And in bars 19-20 I throw in diminished and augmented chords.

    In the second half of the verse I throw in a couple of licks in bars 23 and 27-28. In those licks I’m using the F Mixolydian scale. Which sounds fancy but is just an F major scale with a flatted 7th (i.e. an Eb instead of an E). I picked that up from the Eb used so effectively in the descending run at the end of the original version.

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  • Suicide is Painless (MASH Theme) (Tab)

    Johnny Mandel – Suicide is Painless (Tab)Download

    This song has quite a story behind it. When working on the MASH movie Robert Altman attempted to come up with, “the stupidest song ever written,” for the funeral scene. But failed to come up with something suitably idiotic. But told the movie’s composer Johnny Mandel, “All is not lost. I’ve got a 15-year-old kid who’s a total idiot.”

    So his son poured his heart into a dark poem about how suicide is the answer to a life full of pain. To which his dad presumably chortled, slapped him on the back and said, “This trash is absolutely perfect, you tiny moron.”

    But the joke is on Robert Altman. His son made far more money from the song than Altman did for directing the movie thanks to it being used in the TV show and being covered by acts as diverse as Bill Evans and the Manic Street Preachers.

    I’ve kept my arrangement pretty straightforward. There are lots of familiar chord shapes and it’s one finger per string picking all the way through. The only tricky part is the big leaps up the neck in bar 18. Also, watch out for the bar of 2/4 on D7 chord in bar 13. That D7 chord lasts for a bar longer in the original version but it feels a bit over the top to me so I cut it short (as the Manics did in their version).

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  • Rodgers and Hammerstein – You’ll Never Walk Alone (Tab)

    You’ll Never Walk Alone (Tab)Download

    This Rodgers and Hammerstein was originally from the musical Carousel. But I know it exclusively from the Gerry and the Pacemakers version that lead to it becoming the anthem of Liverpool FC (narrowly beating out the Anfield Rap). The already emotionally powerful song was given extra weight by the role in played in commemorating those who died in the Hillsborough disaster.

    For this arrangement I’ve threaded the melody together with fingerpicked, arpeggiated chords. With this style of playing it’s really easy for the melody notes to get lost amongst the backing notes. So it’s really important to more forcefully pluck the melody notes (indicated with arrowheads above them in this tab) so it doesn’t end up just sounding like picking practice.

    I recommend using one finger per string picking all the way through this one.

    Links

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  • George Gershwin – Summertime (Tab)

    George Gershwin – Summertime (Tab)Download

    Having spent my summer break measuring cotton and watching tench pole-vaulting, I thought this song from Porgy and Bess best summed up my experience.

    I’ve done a few jazz tabs in the past (like Take Five and La Vie en Rose) but this is the first time I’ve used a jazz approach and used the tune as a springboard for soloing. In this arrangement I play the melody straight for the first verse. Then semi-improvise around the tune for the next two verses. Each with a different scale.

    In the second verse I’m use the G blues scale.

    There’s an exception in bar 23 (and later in bar 39). That little turnaround lick is adapted from the Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald version of the tune.

    I get more adventurous in the third verse and mostly use the G harmonic minor scale. I had fun playing around with the scale. The wide gap between the Eb and Gb notes give it an unsettling feel.

    I also borrow an F (A-string, 8th fret) from the G melodic minor scale in bar 37.

    I highly recommend you play around with the scales and phrasing in this piece to come up with your own version.

    Links

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  • Amy Winehouse – Rehab (Tab)

    Amy Winehouse – Rehab (Tab)Download

    I considered posting this song back when Amy Winehouse died but it seemed like exceptionally bad taste at the time. But it’s far too great a song to ignore for long and I’m not going to hold her questionable uke skills against her.

    To keep the tab a manageable length I’ve notated straight repeats for the second verse. But there are a couple of differences between the verses. So I’ve added those at the end of the tab.

    I’m using my thumb, index finger and middle finger for all the picking. But I’m am switching which strings those cover. As a general rule, if there’s no g-string in the bar my thumb is on C, index on E and middle on A. If there is some g-string, my thumb will be on g, index on C and middle on E.

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  • Charli XCX – Boys (Tab)

    BoysDownload

    I don’t cover a lot of pop music on here but Charli XCX’s contribution to the long tradition of lusty songs about handsome boys was the song of last summer and one of my favourite songs of the year.

    The arrangement is a bit tricky with a few leaps up and down the fretboard. Probably the trickiest parts are the Mario coin noises. These are created by playing a note on the E-string 10th fret quickly followed by natural harmonic on the A-string, 12th fret. If you’re still getting the hang of natural harmonics you can fret the string at the 12th fret as you usually would. It won’t have the same ringing sound but it will sound right.

    Links

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  • Frightened Rabbit – The Woodpile (Tab)

    Frightened Rabbit – The Woodpile (Tab)Download

    I first tried to do a uke arrangement of The Woodpile back when it came out in 2013. But it quickly joined the massive pile of tabs I’ve started but wasn’t satisfied with. But with the death of Scott Hutchison I had to dig it out and get it finished. Particularly since Midnight Organ Fight is up there with Pet Sounds as one of the great albums that has a tiny bit of ukulele on (in the later part of Good Arms vs Bad Arms).

    There are a couple of things that make this tune tricky. First is the artificial harmonics played in the riff (the ones with A.H. above them). There’s a guide to playing artificial harmonics here. But if you don’t want to tackle them you can just play the tab as written without them and it’ll sound perfectly fine.

    Secondly, the shifting time signature. The riff and verses alternate between bars of 5/4 and 4/4. The change isn’t jarring but it messed me up a few times when I was learning it. So it’s worth counting the bars in your head while you’re getting it under your fingers.

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    Tiny Changes
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  • John Williams – The Imperial March (Tab)

    John Williams – The Imperial March (Tab)Download

    This year’s Star Wars Day inspired me to work up a version of John Williams’s ultimate bad-guy theme tune The Imperial March. If you’re interested in the theory behind how this tune conjures up the dark, powerful, militaristic images I highly recommend watching 12tone’s video on the tune.

    The trickiest part of the arrangement is the legendary rhythm at the beginning. It involves three quick triplets. It’s one to practice very slowly and gradually speed it up.

    I’m using a slight variation on the traditional Hawaiian triplet strum:

    – Down with index finger.
    – Down with thumb (indicated by dt in the tab).
    – Up with index.

    More on that in the Ukulele Strums ebook.

    The variation is that I’m strumming down with my index and middle fingers together to give it more power and make sure the force is strong in this one. Here’s how the strum looks slowed down:

    I also had problems with this because of the rhythmic mismatch between the triplets in the rhythm part and the dotted eighth notes in the melody (mentioned in the 12tone video). I had a hard time switching between the melody in bar 14 to the strumming in bar 15.

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    Cantina Band (Tab)
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  • U2 – One (Tab)

    U2 – One (Tab)Download

    In One U2 make use of a simple melody trick that crops up in many popular songs. They take the highest note used in the verse (the E on the A-string, 7th fret) and use that as the first note of the chorus. It makes the song peak at the right moment and in this case adds emotion as Bono pushes for the note. They take that even further in the middle section with the starting note moving up to G (A-string, 10th fret). You can tell Bono’s reaching for the note and it really makes the song peak.

    The rhythms in this one are a little unusual and wander around the beat. So I’d recommend going with the flow of the song rather than trying to recreate every rhythm.

    To keep my arrangement short, I’ve chopped out the second verse and chorus and shortened the guitar solo in the outro.

    Links

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