What a great melody this is. And it’s matched with some juicy jazz chords. Making it perfect for a ukeing.
In case you’re not familiar with the repeat markings I use, you play up to “D.S. al Coda” go back to the squiggle in bar five, play up to “Da Coda” then skip to the target in bar 23.
The Walking Dead theme uses a technique I should have included in my spooky ukulele sounds post: unusual timings. Each bar has a pattern that rises and falls twice but then cuts off half way through the third time. The bars themselves are played an odd number of times. The first pattern is played three times at the beginning in my version (seven in the original) and five times at the end. Usually you see bars in powers of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8 etc.) or at least an even amount. Having an even number gives it a unsettling feeling.
I went with low-G tuning here. It makes it so much easier to play. But I like the way it sounds even on high-g. Even spookier if you ask me.
The tune is very simple. It’s just one pattern on three different locations on the neck. It’s great for practicing your thumb and two finger picking. I’ve been using it as a little warm up exercise. The great part is you can move the pattern up and down the neck and it always works.
Buy the Walking Dead Soundtrack
Bear McCreary talks about writing the theme
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Happy St Patrick’s Day! To celebrate I arranged my favourite song by my second favourite Irish songwriter (can’t can The Van).
One of the things I love about arranging tunes is noticing little things that completely passed me by listening casually. I didn’t realise that the melody in the chorus shifts against the chords. The basic chords though the whole song are Am-F-C-G. The first, “Is that alright?” is on the Am and later it’s on the F chord. Of course, I completely ruin it by arranging them both exactly the same way.
This lovely PCO tune is a duet between ukulele and cuatro. But it also stands up very well as a solo ukulele piece.
If you do have a spare cuatro player laying around the tab is exactly the same. They take advantage of the fact the uke and cuatro are tuned to the same notes (in this case D-tuning: ADF#B) but the A- and B-strings on the cuatro are an octave below those on the uke. That means the same tab played on both creates two different melodies that fit together perfectly. It’s a neat trick.
For my version I was too lazy to move to D-tuning so I just stayed in C-tuning and put a capo on the second fret to get the same result.
I love this live version of Paul’s Dance so I worked from that one. There are a few differences between this and the album version. The most obvious is that the live version uses more changes in pace and dynamics.
Back to the Future (Alan Silvestri): Alan Silvestri wrote the score to all the BttF movies but he was clearly channeling John Williams for the epic theme music.
Mr Sandman (The Chordettes): This one is already a bit of ukulele standard thanks to the opening lick being perfectly suited to re-entrant tuning.
Time Bomb Town (Lindsey Buckingham): This one is a bit more incidental than the others (it’s the tune on the radio when Marty wakes up before the first DeLorean scene) but I had to include it because if it’s not played on a ukulele it sure sounds a lot like one.
Power of Love (Huey Lewis & the News): The first bit of this is just switching between different inversions of F and C. It shows how effective just changing up inversions can be.
Doubleback (ZZ Top & Alan Silvestri): The only part of the medley that doesn’t crop up in the Part I. It’s the tune from the ZZ Top bit in Part III. It’s supposed to be the ZZ Top song of the same name although any resemblance is lost on me.
Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry. You know, Marvin’s cousin.): The climax of local rhythmic ceremonial ritual the Fish Under the Sea Dance and this medley.
Back to the Future Soundtrack on iTunes
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The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Take Five (written by the group’s saxophonist Paul Desmond) is an absolute instrumental classic. That’s why I started working on it in the early days of Uke Hunt (the 27th February 2008 according to the date on the file). Since then it’s been occasionally dragged out of the pile of half finished tabs but I haven’t had a version I was happy with until now. I hope it was worth the wait!
The song takes its name from its 5/4 time signature (i.e. there are five beats in a bar rather than the more common 3 or 4). You probably haven’t played in 5/4 time before but it’s not that hard to get the hang of. I find counting out the bars 1, 2, 3, 1, 2 gives you a good feel for the groove of the piece and you can drop the counting once you’re in the swing of it.
I haven’t played any of the Witcher games myself, but I checked out the soundtrack after getting a tab and it’s very much my sort of thing. I immediately picked up on Gwent Flute Song as being a good candidate for a ukuleling. It’s a fun pastiche of traditional Irish music which always sounds great played campanella style.
Unlike traditional tunes, which usually have two or three distinct sections that you switch between, Gwent Flute Song has a number of variations around a central theme. That means you’re using the same shapes throughout the tune but with subtle variations. That was a killer for me to memorize. If you want to cut down on the variation for your own version then go for it. I did that a bit myself. In my version bars 36 and 37 are the same as bars 40 and 41. Which isn’t the case in the original.
For most of picking in the piece I use thumb and two finger picking. But using my index on the C-string when it’s played next to the g-string e.g. bars 31 and 33.
Buy the Witcher 3 soundtrack on iTunes
TheWitcher.com
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With the pub rock of Drag Racer and Winifred Atwell’s version of Black and White Rag snooker has a claim to the sport with the best theme music. Or it did until the BBC started remixing all its theme tunes to replace anything recognisable with bleeps, bloops and swooshes. So now the snooker theme sounds like this.
Doug Wood must be spinning in his grave. If he’s dead. Or he’s alive but enjoys hanging out in his grave. There’s very little information about him on the net. I assume he’s the same person as Douglas Wood who made “spacey folk electro-horror” soundtracks like this and this at the same time.
The tune doesn’t fit all that neatly onto the uke. I did have to do a fair bit of octave shifting. The most obvious one being mid-lick at the start of bar 7.
Klovn is Denmark’s version of Curb Your Enthusiasm. As far as I can tell. I stumbled across it during an international tour of Netflixes. There were no English subtitles so I couldn’t make out much of the show (judging by the comments I got on the video, all Danish Uke Hunt readers hate it). But I really loved the theme tune.
In a rarity for me, the arrangement uses low-G tuning. The picking hand is a bit tricky in this one. I’m playing alternating bass notes with the thumb (on the G-, C- and E-strings) and melody notes with the index and middle fingers.
Following on from ABBA, my other favourite Eurovision song is France’s 1965 winner: France Gall’s Poupée de cire, Poupée de son (written by Serge Gainsbourg).
The only tricky part in this arrangement is the intro. Here I’m picking the A-string with my middle finger and everything else with my thumb.
From there on it’s all pretty simple. Everything is plucked with the thumb apart from a few bits of strumming (indicated by the arrows on the tab).