I’m about five years late to this one. And three years late to anyone caring about it. But I still love this tune. And it works very well on ukulele. All beginner chords and you don’t even have to move past the third fret.
The melody uses exclusively notes from the F major pentatonic scale: F – G – A – C – D.
Rounding off Valentine’s week with one of the few lovey-dovey songs I actually like. Make You Feel My Love first cropped up on Bob Dylan’s Out of Time (a record that was seen as Dylan’s “I’m nearly dead” album when it came out twenty years ago). But it became much more widely known when Adele covered it on 19. My arrangement leans towards the Adele version. But there’s not a lot to choose between the two anyway.
I’ve kept the arrangement very simple. I’m mostly using thumb and two finger picking. The only exception is when I strum all the strings with my thumb in bars 7, 24 and 26. But it is arranged in such a way that you could play the whole thing with your thumb.
The one part that might be a challenge is the jump down the neck between bars 10 and 11.
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One of 2017 most unexpected hits. Portugal. The Man have been knocking around for years without bothering the charts. But last year’s instantly catchy Feel It Still changed that. And made me tackle arranging it despite it being not immediately uke-suitable. So this one is a bit tricky to play and uses a range of techniques.
The arrangement starts with the bass riff which sets up the C – Eb – F chord progression that is used through most of the song. (The original is in the key of C# so you play in the original key by putting a capo on the first fret.) In this section I’m muting the strings slightly by lightly resting the palm of my picking hands on the strings. The muffled sound makes the melody stand out more once it comes in.
In the spirit of, “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus,” the verses are ultra short. It’s all played with fingerpicking with thumb, index and middle fingers.
You can blast out the choruses by bringing in the strums. The tricky part is fitting the strums around the rapid fingerpicking required. I’m using a lot of alternate picking to fit them in. I’m also flicking my index finger up when picking some notes to create a fuller sound.
Since it’s Christmas, I’m breaking my no Beatles rule to do this one I’ve had a fair few requests for over the years.
I’ve kept the arrangement as simple as possible. After the fingerpicking in the first bar it’s all strumming and lots of familiar chord shapes. And the melody is recognisable you don’t have to worry about emphasising it all that much. I’m using a capo at the first fret which puts it in the same key as the original. But you can just play it open if you prefer.
The only thing that might trip you up are the extra beats that he throws in. There’s one extra beat in the middle of the verse and two extra at the end.
In case you’re not familiar with the Italian repeats in the tab. You play through as normal up to the “D.S. al coda” in bar 29. Then you go back to the squiggle in bar 13. Play through to the “Da Coda” in bar 23. Then skip ahead to the target symbol in bar 30.
Fats Domino’s version of Blueberry Hill perfectly shows off the roots of rock and roll. He plays the driving boogie-woogie and has blues riff bassline. But the song itself is a country song first released by Gene Autry. So you have this sweet, major key country melody rubbing up against bluesy runs and liberal use of the minor third (the C-string, 3rd fret in my tab).
I’ve tried to keep those two elements in my arrangement of the tune. The verses have the melody with the bassline sitting between the lines (now not at all bassy). Try to separate these by playing the melody a bit louder (I didn’t do a great job of this in the video). The, “Wind in the willow…” section lays off the bassline and has chord stabs in between the melody. Keep those short by releasing the pressure with your fretting hand just after you strum.
To finish the song off I’ve added a little blues run. A great place to throw in your own favourite blues licks and play around.
There is a lot going on in this song. Slate claims it has 18 key changes in it. But you have to be very generous to get that high. For the most part I think of the song being in C but using both C major and C minor. That’s not too unusual in a rock song. But it is unusual just how much they do it and how far they stretch things before returning home.
The one real key change comes in the solo/middle section where the F#m and E set up a repeat of the intro but this time in the key of A rather than C.
I’m throwing a whole bunch of different techniques at this song. In the smooth sections (the intro and middle) I’m using fake strums. In the loud bits (like the start of the chorus and the bridge) I’m strumming. In the bouncy sections (like the end of the intro and the, “Not to put too fine a point…” bit of the chorus) I’m using thumb and two finger picking. And at the end of the chorus, in the verses and the solo I’m using one finger per string picking.
Continuing this week’s Kitty Lux tributes with a live UOGB favourite: The Dam Busters March by Eric Coates. This isn’t a direct tab of their version but is heavily influenced by it.
I’ve divided up the duties in the piece so that each ukulele part has a different skill level. If you’ve got more players in your group you can divide these up further or devise your own complementary parts.
A load of tricky sections in this part (yet somehow it was the easy section at the end I managed to screw up in the video). The hardest section are the rapid-fire notes and moves up and down the neck in bars 40-44. But all the way through the first half there are bits that might trip you up. Luckily, things are much more stately in the second half.
I’m using fingerpicking to play this part. But it’s arranged in more of a UOGB than my usual style so it’s easier to play with a pick.
If, like me, you have no friends here’s a backing track to play this part along with:
The baritone tone is a little easier than the lead part. It’s mainly a simplified version of the lead part played an octave lower. The biggest challenges are the descending runs in bars 13 – 16 and bars 40-44.
Again, I’m playing this with my fingers but it’s arranged so it’s easy to play with a pick too.
I’ve kept this part as simple as possible. It’s all played with down-strums and it’s almost all beginner level chords.
There are a couple of slightly unusual sections where I’m just playing the top three strings. I’m playing these by strumming down with my thumb to give them a softer, rounder sound. But you don’t have to do that. And if you want to play all the strings it happens to be the second fret on the g-string that’s missing in every case.
I’m playing this part on guitar but I’ve only used the bottom four strings so you can transfer it directly to bass if you prefer.
Here you’re playing staccato quarter notes almost all the way through. The one challenge is the descending run in bars 13-16.
Jonathan Lewis’s campanella ebook is right up there with John King’s as one of my favourite tab books. And he’s just relased a new one Classic Folk Songs for Fingerstyle Ukulele (affiliate link). Which also has traditional tunes but this time arranged in a simpler, more approachable form.
Jon was kind enough to let me post one of the tabs from his book and I picked Raggle Taggle Gypsies. The tune is a big favourite of mine with my favourite version being Martin Carthy’s. I recorded my own version based on his tab making a few changes to suit my style.
There’s a new alt-J album out. And very good it is too. To celebrate here’s a tab of my favourite alt-J song Fitzpleasure.
There’s a lot going on in this song (as with most alt-J songs). At first I thought I’d have to use multiple ukes to do it. But the melody, chords and riffs are all so strong and elegant they ended up working pretty well on just one uke. The only major part I had to cut was in the, “steepled fingers…” section. The descending riff in bars 59 and 60 should carry though there but I had to switch to chords to carry it off.
I use a capo on the second fret for my version. But that’s only because it makes it in the original key so it was easy for working it out. You can play it without the capo without causing any problems.
A double bill of classic British comedy themes today. Starting with the Fawlty Towers them by Dennis Wison. Not the Manson loving Beach Boy. The composer of music for many British sitcoms including Till Death Us Do Part and Rising Damp.
My arrangement has two parts: the lead part in standard tuning and a baritone part playing the backing. I’m having fun with this set up at the moment so don’t be too surprised if you see more of it.
The backing is mostly arpeggios with a couple of runs thrown in. Here’s a recording of just the backing if you want to play along. The metronome taps out a full bar for the intro and you start playing on the third beat of the second bar.
Dennis Wilson also wrote music for Steptoe But the theme tune, called Old Ned, was by Ron Grainer. Most famous for the Doctor Who theme. I was prompted to put together this short version by the recent death of the Simpson half of Galton and Simpson who created the show.
Steptoe, of course, was transferred across the Atlantic and became Sanford and Son. You can find the tab for that theme here.
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