Ukulele Hunt

Tag: USA

  • Dolly Parton – 9 to 5 (Tabs)

    Dolly Parton – 9 to 5 (Tabs)Download

    I had to do a tribute to Dolly. Since I’ve already done Jolene and I Will Always Love You, 9 to 5 seemed like the obvious next choice.

    Intro: Give this part a little bit of palm muting (i.e. resting the underside of your strumming hand gently on the strings).

    Verse: I’m using strums here to give the melody plenty of propulsion. That means you have to mute the strings not being played. I use my thumb to mute the g-string. Then any finger I’m not using for fretting to mute the others.

    Chorus: The chorus moves up the neck. Which can make for some tricky fretting. The hardest part being the stretch up to the 12th fret in bar 20.

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  • Linkin Park/Evanescence – In the End/Bring Me to Life (Tabs)

    Linkin Park/Evanescence – In the End/Bring Me to Life (Tab)Download

    I decided to fulfil two requests at once since these two are the same song in my head. In the End is originally in Eb minor and Bring Me to Life is in Em. And they’re about 10 bpm apart. So it’s not a big challenge to combine them.

    Intro (In the End): A very simple riff to kick things off. But also very effective at setting up the harmony and vibe of the song. You can make your life easier by sliding up to the final note in bar 4 so your ring finger is free to play the following E note.

    Verse (Bring Me to Life): It’s hard to transfer rapping to the ukulele effectively. So I opted for the much more melodic verse from Bring Me to Life. The most challenging bits here are the quick notes at the start of bars 14 and 16. These mimic the chugging guitar in that section. But you can replace these with more relaxed chords if you prefer.

    Choruses: Exactly the same chords in both choruses. In the End‘s chorus is lower than Bring Me to Life, so I put that one first to create a build-up.

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  • The Ronettes – Be My Baby (Tabs)

    The Ronettes – Be My Baby (Tab)Download

    This one is very simple. It’s all beginner chords and nothing higher than the first position.

    Intro: This uses palm muting on the strings. Just rest the underside of your picking hand on the bridge just enough to mute the strings. Then strum right at the bridge while the strings are muted by the fretting hand.

    If you don’t fancy this bit, you can go straight into the verse. You can also skip the same section in bars 27 and 28.

    Verse: This is almost all played with one-finger-per-string picking. There are just a few strums thrown in. Which is the case for the rest of the song.

    Pre-Chorus: This introduces some melody notes on the g-string in bars 11, 12 and 13.

    Chorus: A little trickier than the other sections, as it has overlapping vocals. Rather than do anything fancy, the arrangement just switches to the new vocal line when it comes in.

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  • Patti Smith – Because the Night (Tabs)

    Patti Smith – Because the Night (Tab)Download

    Intro: The intro is the most challenging part to get down. But it’s a nifty picking pattern that could come in useful in many places. So it’s well worth learning.

    Verse: The fingerpicked verse is simple. Just a bit of sliding around to deal with.

    Pre-Chorus: Switch to using strums to build into the chorus. The biggest problem I had here was memorising the chords. They shift around rather than repeating exactly.

    Chorus: The chorus is fun to play. You can really bash out the chords.

    This arrangement uses just the end of the guitar solo from the original (bars 31 and 32) to build into the bridge.

    Bridge: More chord bashing in the bridge. The song’s Springsteen origin really becomes obvious here.

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  • Scissor Sisters – Take Your Mama (Tabs) and Jurassic Park

    Scissor Sisters – Take Your Mama (Tab)Download

    Intro: Kicking off with strums and a lot of muting (just relax your fretting hand so the notes don’t ring).

    Verse: A quick campanela lead into the verse. From there, it’s all open chords and a compact melody. Just a long string of pull-offs in bars 13 and 15 to deal with.

    Pre-Chorus: An even longer stretch of campanela notes starting out the pre-chorus. All played on open strings. Even though the song is in C major, the minor third (Eb) crops up here. Giving it a bluesy feel.

    Chorus: The falsetto means a big jump up the neck. Other than that, it’s just bashing out chords all the way.

    Solo: The solo is only loosely based on the original. So you’re free to use your own ideas. For my take, I’m mostly noodling around the chords and throwing in some bends.

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    Jurassic Park (Tabs)

    Here’s a quick tab of the main section of the Jurassic Park theme in tribute to, enthusiastic uker, Sam Neill.

  • Cab Calloway – Minnie the Moocher (Tabs)

    Cab Calloway – Minnie the Moocher (Tab)Download

    Intro: I love the way the Em6 here gives the song a heavy, brooding feel. There are a couple of challenging bits here. First, the slide up to the 7th fret in bar 6. Second, the fast picking on the triplets in bar 10.

    Verse: The verses are nice and simple. If you like, you can use the Em6 here as well in place of the Em. I chose the Em here to make the harmony clearer to the listener.

    Chorus: It’s important to create as much contrast as possible between the call and the response here. So this arrangement has the call in single notes high on the neck. And the response is low on the neck and in a chord.

    Double Time Chorus: This section is a burst of anarchy in the song. It’s also the most difficult to play. So I embraced the chaos and did whatever I felt like in this section.

    Outro: A very effective descending chord run to end on.

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  • Chuck Berry – No Particular Place to Go (Tabs)

    Chuck Berry – No Particular Place to Go (Tab)Download

    Intro: Kicking off with a dissonant augmented E chord before diving straight into the verse.

    Verses: The verses have a call-and-response structure. The vocals are the major scale call, and the guitar licks respond with some minor notes. In this arrangement, I’m playing the vocal part with picking and the guitar part with strums. This helps to make them distinct.

    Solo: The solo is a workout for the strumming arm. It’s almost all triplets. But I’m playing them all with downstrums to keep a consistent attack.

    This is mostly based on the first solo, with a few ideas from the second one thrown in. Feel free to include your own ideas too. But I’d recommend not straying too far from the Chuck Berry style.

    Outro: A fun, if slightly cheesy, descending chord move at the end.

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  • Panic at the Disco – High Hopes (Tabs)

    Panic at the Disco – High Hopes (Tab)

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    Intro: Starting out dead easy with the parping horns section.

    Chorus: This section is fiddly. But it’s all contained on the lower frets. It’s also fun to play once you get it down.

    Verse: This section moves up the neck and ramps up in difficulty. Setting up bar 17 is particularly hard. To help with that, I recommend not letting the F chord in the previous bar ring. That gives your fingers more time to set up.

    Bridge: This is the fiddliest section. You can replace the 5 – 6 on the E-string with 0 – 1 on the A-string if you find that easier. Or even just use the open A-string followed by the E-string 6th fret.

    Pre-Chorus: A welcome easy section. You’re just blasting out chords here. That leads into a chorus with just the melody, then a final chorus with chords.

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  • R.E.M. – Shiny Happy People (Tabs)

    R.E.M. – Shiny Happy People (Tab)Download

    It’s crazy it’s taken me this long to cover R.E.M.’s Shiny Happy People given how perfectly it captures my personality.

    Intro: For such a light-hearted song, there’s a bunch going on musically. There are three key changes and a change of time signature before the vocals kick in.

    The song starts in 6/8 time in the key of G# (G in the original) for a relaxed intro before it kicks into 4/4 in bar 4. That shifts into the riff in the key of Bb. The riff is very fun to play. Worth learning even if you’re not bothering with the rest of it.

    Verse: The verse moves into the key of G minor. A less abrupt key change since Gm is the relative minor of Bb. The verse bounces up and down the fretboard. But it’s not too challenging to play.

    Chorus: Things are a bit more difficult in the chorus with the three, slightly overlapping, voices covering a large range.

    Outro: This is made up of the main riff and Kate Pierson’s “Happy peeepooooooole” bit. There’s room to play around with the chorus melody here if you fancy stretching out a bit.

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  • Alice in Chains – Down in a Hole (Tabs)

    Alice in Chains – Down in a Hole (Tab)Download

    Down in a Hole by Alice in Chains fits on uke better than I was expecting. There’s a nice mix of fun bits and challenging bits.

    Intro: This sets up the Gm – F – C chord progression that runs through the verse and pre-chorus. I’ve thrown in a few twiddles based on the acoustic and electric parts in the original. Definitely room for your own ideas here.

    Verse: I played around with just doing one of the vocal parts here (first heard in bar 9). But I think the vocal harmony is too good to ditch.

    Pre-Chorus: This is the hardest part of the song by some distance. It’s high up the neck and fiddly. You could get away with simplifying the section. Either by repeating parts or moving notes around. But I’d be reluctant to get rid of the dissonant C# (E-string, 9th fret).

    Chorus: Mostly bashing out the chords in the chorus. Things get tricky towards the end though with a trip up the neck and a short lick.

    Outro: A reprise of the intro but with the baffling choice of ending on an A major chord (despite the whole song being gloomy and minor).

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