Ukulele Hunt

Tag: Tricky

  • Ray Charles – Hit the Road Jack (Tabs)

    Ray Charles – Hit the Road Jack (Tab)Download

    Ray Charles’s Hit the Road Jack is tricky to play. Mostly because it’s so quick. I’ve slowed it slightly from the original. But it’s still a challenge.

    Intro: This sets up two aspects that run through the whole song. First, the descending pattern of Dm-C-Bb-A7. And second, the liberal use of chnks.

    Chorus: This continues the pattern from intro and adds the melody on top. There’s a trip up the neck for the “no more…” part that requires some quick and accurate jumps.

    Verse: The melody here is quick and relentless. I’ve included a few bits of campanella playing to fit them all in. This is the section I had the most trouble with.

    Solo: I went with a very ukulele-style solo. So it’s almost all chord strumming with a lot of movement all over the neck. Then finishing off with a quick run.

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  • Nat King Cole – The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting) (Tabs)

    Nat King Cole – The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting) (Tab)Download

    Just sneaking this one in before the deadline. The song was originally written by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé and first recorded by Nat King Cole. It’s one of the chillest songs in existence to listen to. But not so chill to play. There are many big moves up and down the fretboard to deal with. And plenty of unfamiliar chord shapes.

    The intro and solo are of my own devising. So feel free to mess around with those as much as you like.

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  • Billie Eilish – What Was I Made For? (Tabs)

    Billie Eilish – What Was I Made For? (Tab)Download

    Here’s my take on Billie Eilish’s contribution to the Barbie soundtrack: What Was I Made For?

    Intro: I went with a few spicy chords for the intro to emphasise the melancholy mood of the song. If you prefer, you can just pick through the standard C – Em – F chord pattern.

    Verse: I’ve kept the arrangement for this simple and sparse. It’s a great melody, so doing that gives it plenty of room to breathe.

    Chorus: Things get a bit more involved in the chorus with pull-offs, slides and a few trips up the neck to deal with.

    Break: This section is only loosely based on the original. So there’s plenty of room to play about here.

    Outro: The song is in C but it ends on a G chord (i.e. the V chord). That leaves the song hanging on a tense, uncertain note.

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  • The Animals – House of the Rising Sun (Tabs)

    The Animals – House of the Rising Sun (Tab)Download

    House of the Rising Sun has been performed by every folkie including Bob Dylan, Leadbelly and Mumford & Sons. But the most famous is by The Animals. And it’s that version I’ve based the arrangement on.

    Intro: You could pluck this section out of the song and it makes a nice little fingerpicking exercise (played with one finger per string picking). Worth learning even if you’re not tackling the whole song.

    Verse: Sticking with the one finger per string picking. The priority here is making sure the melody notes stand out. It helps that the tune is so well known that people will hear it more easily.

    Solo: This solo is built around the chords with notes from the D blues scale (i.e. the D minor pentatonic with an Ab). I also throw in a few chromatic notes right at the end. Plenty of scope here for including your own ideas.

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  • The Faces – Ooh La La (Tabs)

    The Faces – Ooh La La (Tab)Download

    I had assumed Rod Stewart was singing Ooh La La, but it’s a rare vocal outing for Ronnie Wood. Although Rod would go on to do his own version in the 90s.

    The chords couldn’t be simpler. It’s just G – Am7 all the way through. And there’s nothing too complicated in the verses and chorus but the rhythm can be a little tricky to keep straight.

    The hardest section is the solo. It’s completely of my own making. So feel free to mess around and come up with your own ideas.

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  • Dusty Springfield – Spooky (Tabs)

    Dusty Springfield – Spooky (Tab)Download

    Apologies to anyone who tried to use the site in the last couple of weeks and couldn’t. I’ve been having some tech problems. It should be fixed now. Just in time for a Halloween themed tab. Spooky was originally by The Classics IV, but best known for Dusty Springfield’s version. And it’s the Dusty version I based this arrangement on.

    Intro: Just a two chord vamp with a bit of a 60s bossa feel to it.

    Verses: The biggest challenge in the verses is quickly getting down from the A-string 5th fret to the C-string second fret. Other than that, it’s fairly smooth sailing. I love the discordance of the A7#9 at the end of each verse. The chord has both the major third (C#) and the minor third (C) of the chord. Which is the spookiest part of the song.

    Solo: The first bar is the only one that is based on the solo in the Dusty version. Everything else is just me noodling on the D blues scale. So I recommend building your own solo here.

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  • Bon Iver – Speyside (Tabs)

    Bon Iver – Speyside (Tab)Download

    Bon Iver’s long-awaited return Speyside is a return to the stripped down sound of For Emma, Forever Ago. Which makes it very uke-suitable.

    I’m playing it with a capo on the second fret. But that’s just to make it in the same key as the original. You can play it without the capo if you prefer.

    There’s nothing physically difficult about the arrangement. The real challenge is keeping track of the time signature changes. If there’s any rhyme or reason to the time signature, I couldn’t find it. So I’ve just tabbed it how I felt it. Which means a new time signature each bar until it settles into 4/4 for the last few bars of each section.

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  • Irving Berlin – Blue Skies (Tabs)

    Irving Berlin – Blue Skies (Tab)Download

    Versions of Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies range widely in their approach. There are uptempo takes, such as the Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole versions, which lean into the suspiciously joyful “we’ll never have problems again“-ness of it. And there are slow, mournful takes like Dinah Washington’s.

    This arrangement lands somewhere near the Willie Nelson version with a lot of bluesy touches.

    Intro: Starting of with an E minor chord set against chromatically descending notes on the C-string. This bit is mostly picking out notes from the chords with some short licks thrown in. It’s all fingerpicked until the strums leading into the verse in bars 7 and 8.

    Verse: Nice and easy to play. The melody is contained and the chords are simple to play. Here I’m picking the melody and strumming everything else.

    Chorus: The chorus is more of a challenge. Be sure to keep this section staccato (i.e. short notes) to set it against the more legato verses.

    Solo: For the solo, I stuck closely to the chords and melody notes. Throwing in a few bluesy bends here and there. I get a bit more adventurous in the second half, throwing in some chromatic notes in bar 43 and an E minor pentatonic lick in bar 45. I’d recommend building your own solo using any ideas from this solo you like and playing in your own style.

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  • David Gray – Babylon (Tabs)

    David Gray – Babylon (Tab)Download

    Intro: The intro in the album version is much better than the single version. And suits the uke more. So that’s the version I went with.

    Verse: The trickiest part of the song comes in bar 18 with a big jump up to the top of the neck. But there’s not much happening in the bar before it, so you have plenty of time.

    Then you jump down in bar 17. You could make the jump sooner and change the 6-7-6 to 2-3-2 on the E-string (as it’s played in the rest of the song).

    Chorus: Increasing the amount of strumming and picking harder in this section. In the second chorus, from “Let go of your heart” the melody is harmonised.

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  • Lou Reed – Perfect Day (Tabs)

    Lou Reed – Perfect Day (Tab)Download

    Here’s Lou Reed’s Perfect Day in tribute to Herbie Flowers who passed away last week.

    As well as Lou Reed, Herbie played bass for David Bowie, Roger Daltrey, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and many others. He contributed iconic bass lines to Walk on the Wild Side (which you can hear him talk about here), Space Oddity and Rock On. And, to top it off, he played tuba on Perfect Day.

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