Ever since writing an artist profile of Danielle Ate The Sandwich and selecting When Our Parents Die as the feature video, I’ve had that tune stuck in my head. It’s such a simple, catchy and peaceful tune. As I often do with songs stuck in my head, I decided to work it out on the ukulele. This one… Read More »
While there is a wonderful book of fingerstyle Grateful Dead arrangements for guitar by Fred Sokolow, us ukulele players have no such luck. Until Fred gets around to doing one for ukulele (he did the Jumpin’ Jim Bluegrass Ukulele Songbook, after all) we’ll have to manage on our own. To that end, I’ve done a simple arrangement of… Read More »
This is the first of many beautiful arrangements in Tony Mizen’s second book, The Baroque Ukulele. The tune is one of several chorales included in the second of two notebooks Bach present to his second wife, Anna Magdalena in 1722 and 1725. I played this on my Pono MT (mahogany tenor).
My kid learned this song as a single note tune on the piano, so I looked it up. Wikipedia has an interesting article on it, and an even more interesting one on the woman credited with writing the tune. This is a simple chord-melody arrangement following the tune. Download Tab (PDF)
I posted a video of Blue Highway performing this tune a while back, and finally got around to working out an arrangement for ukulele. I kept the arrangement very simple (it could even be called plodding), so it leaves plenty of room to add your own flourishes as skill allows. Download Tablature (PDF) Here’s the version with a… Read More »
Here is an original tune written for solo ukulele. Tabs are below. This is played on a Pono MCD (mahogany concert deluxe). I’ve changed up how I play this a bit since doing these tabs, but the fingering is the same. I used to finger pick the whole thing, but I started strumming that bit… Read More »
From Wikipedia: Jan Johansson (16 September 1931 – 9 November 1968) was a Swedish jazz pianist. He is little known outside Scandinavia, and his records are not widely available, though Jazz på svenska (Jazz in Swedish) has sold more than a quarter of a million copies, and is the best selling jazz release ever in Sweden.… Read More »
Here’s my recording of Mister Sandman. I used Ableton Live to record and mix this. Tabs and the performance that inspired it are at YouTube.
Here’s my performance of Heart and Soul on the ukulele. This recording was done with Ableton Live – two clap tracks, two uke tracks, two vocal tracks. Little bit of compression and reverb. The arrangement is available as tab from the inimitable Dr. Uke.
Here’s my performance of Roy Smeck’s Magic Ukulele Waltz. This is one of my favorite songs to play. Tabs can be downloaded from Ukulele Dav.