Tab-U-Learn

Hi Folks,

Wilfried Welti has recorded an interesting video where he plays the same two tunes with different sets of ukulele strings. He has excellent recording equipment, so we get a very good comparison of five different ukulele string sets from four different manufacturers.

These are:
Galli
Aquila Genuine Gut
Worth Brown Medium
Uke24 Excellence
Aquila Nylgut

You can view this video at:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=DSgV6POe9nI

Many thanks Wilfried.

A very happy new year to you all,

Roger

Hi Folks,

For anyone that likes classical music, and uses the standard high G ukulele tuning, Wilfried Welti is giving away a great book of tabs. His high ‘G’ arrangements are much better than mine, in fact I prefer them to those of the great John King, and that is saying something. I especially like his Renaissance tabs, they seem to suit the high ‘G’ ukulele perfectly.

You can download the pdf book here:

Solo Ukulele fur Einsteiger:

Best wishes,
Roger

Hi Folks,

For people new to the ukulele fraternity I thought I would publish a list of sites that I have found to be very helpful, and excellent in content.

UKULELE SOLO TABS:

Modern:

The Dominator site has a great selection of modern tabs. These are for the more advanced player. Quite a few of the tabs are specifically for low 4th string tunings. The vistuoso, James Hill, has allowed Dominator to publish his work, and James uses non re-ntrant tuning on most of his tunes.

http://dominator.ukeland.com/index2.shtml

Al Wood at Ukulele Hunt publishes great riffs from modern songs, and learning them is a fantastic method for improving your technique and knowledge of ukulele solo playing.

http://ukulelehunt.com/tab-chords/

Folk:

Richard Hefner at Ezfolk has written some very good tabs, mostly for high ‘G’ tuning, however his ‘Ez Chord Melody Solos’ can be played on a low 4th tuning and sound excellent.

http://www.ezfolk.com/uke/tabs1/index.html

Mixed:

I like the tabs written by Curt Sheller, and most of them are for low 4th string tuning:

http://www.curtsheller.com/scores/uke/

Jazz:

Excellent jazz arrangements for ukuleles by Mark Occhionero:

http://www.jazzukes.com/arrangements.html

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UKULELE SONG SHEETS

The best site I have come across for ukulele song sheets is at Doctor Ukes. It is not only the choice of songs I like, but also the way he has laid out the chord diagrams over the lyrics, very clear, easy to read and the chords are well chosen.

http://www.doctoruke.com/songs.html

Another great site for ukulele song sheets is ‘Ukulele Boogaloo’:

http://www.alligatorboogaloo.com/uke/tabs.html

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WHERE TO ASK QUESTIONS:

EZfolk have a great forum for asking questions on ukulele matters:
http://ezfolk.com/forums/forum19/

It also has a forum specifically for Baritone Ukes:
http://ezfolk.com/forums/forum43/

Al Wood from Ukulele Hunt has just set up another great site, specifically for you to ask questions about ukuleles:

http://ukuleleonline.com/

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FREE UKULELE NEWSLETTERS, AND UKE E-ZINES

Al Wood at Ukulele hunt sends out a great E-Zine for the ukulele fraternity. It contains riffs, news and current items of interest.

Sign up at:
http://ukulelehunt.com/2008/04/02/posts-for-first-timers/

Gerry Long sends out an E-zine that contains fantastic tips and information for the ukulele player.

Sign up for Gerry’s Uke Tips at:

http://www.ukesolos.com/

He also gives away a few examples from his ‘50 Easy Chord Solos’ book which are well worth playing for ukers with low 4th string tunings.

Hope this helps,

Roger

Hi Folks,

Here is my early Xmas present to you all. I have found a great, free, book of Christmas Guitar tabs that are perfect for non re-entrant ukuleles (Low 4th string). Normally I would not recommend using guitar tabs for ukes. However, the way Mr. Scott has arranged these Xmas tunes, in a chord-melody style, suits the Baritone and the Tenor (Low G) Ukuleles. Of course, uke players will only use the top four lines of the tab.

I have played the tabs with my guitars, and my non re-entrant ukuleles, and I find them excellent and well worth playing.

If you find the 5th and 6th strings of a guitar tab confusing, I suggest you draw a line along the fourth string down to highlight where the uke’s strings finish.

The only problem I came across was in the arrangement of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’, where Mr. Scott has put 1230 for a couple of Dm chords instead of 1320.

As far as the chord symbols go, they are right for a Baritone Uke player with ‘G’ tuning, but wrong for a ‘C’ tuned uke. So a ‘C’ chord in these arrangements are a F chord in the ‘C’ tuning, in other words, a fourth up. For solo players the chord symbols are inconsequential anyway, just follow the tabs.

The book is free for download, has 54 pages in pdf format, and the tabs are in Asccii format. The good news is that when you print the tabs they are actually of a size that is readable, and playable.

So folks, get practicing these solos for Xmas and surprise the family. The tabs are easy to play, and very effective, now that’s what I call good arranging.

You can find the book at this site:

http://www.moneychords.com/

Choose ‘Freebies’ in the left sidebar. On the ‘Freebies page go to the last book in the list called ‘Christmas Chord-Melody Arrangements’, and download.

Merry Ukeing Folks ,

Roger

Hi Folks,

Firstly, I want to clarify that these scale patterns are for ukuleles with a non re-entrant tuning, in other words, a low 4th string.

Now it is time to add a blues note to the scale pattern in my previous blog. This note can be ‘bent’, by pushing or pulling the string to the side. I have noticed that when Eric Clapton bends a note he will either push or pull the string depending on the way he is travelling with the riff. So if he is going to move to a string below the bent note he will push the bend. If he is going to play a note on a string above the bent note he will pull the string. This is so that he does not lose momentum in the run. Of course if you are staying on the same string after the bend, and are just moving to a different fret, it does not matter which way you bend the string.

The way the strings are numbered is that the 1st string is the highest sounding string, (which is ‘A’ in the ‘C’ tuned uke), and for a right handed player, it is the string nearest the ground.

So in the pattern below in the 2nd measure we normally play 3, 5 on the 2nd string and then 3, 5 on the 1st string. To add a blues note we play 3, 4 , instead of 3, 5 on the 2nd string and we bend the 4. It is the 4th fret on the 2nd string that is the blues note in the first half of the pattern.

In the second half of the pattern, in measure, 4 we normally play 7,5 on the 3rd string, and 7, 5 on the 4th string. To add the blues note play 8, 5 on the 3rd string and bend the 8. So the blues note is at fret 8 on string 3.

By adding the note on the 4th fret, 2nd string, and the note on the 8th fret, 3rd string you have a blues pattern. Try practicing the scale up to, and including, the bent blue note and then come back down again to the start note, then back up again for 2 more notes. This riff is used time and time again in blues tunes.

I hope I have explained this clearly.

Best of luck,

Roger

Hi Folks,

I thought I would post a useful scale pattern. I learned it when playing the guitar, and it is one of the most used patterns in modern music. It is called a ‘Pentatonic Scale’. Learn it forwards and backwards, in various rhythms, start it from different positions in the scale, and basically learn it inside out. As well as a very useful pattern to play when jamming with bands, it is a great exercise to cover a large area of the fretboard.

I suggest that when you get to the 5th fret on the 1st string, you slide the little finger up to fret 8. And when you come down the scale to the 5th fret on the 4th string, you slide the first finger down to the 2nd fret and start the scale all over again. Once you have learned the full pattern, start from various frets on the 4th string, up and down the fretboard.

In this instance I have started the pattern on fret 2. However, when using the pattern to accompany a tune, the start position depends on the key that the tune is in. So, when you have memorized the pattern, practice the pattern start note from different fret positions on the 4th string. As you can see the pattern covers a range of 6 frets (2-8), so the number of positions you can start this pattern from depends on the length of your fretboard.

Roger

Hi Folks,

Just a couple of things I have discovered along the way.

1) Play slow - Learn fast.
Play as slow as is necessary in order to play the piece without any mistakes. Then when you play the piece without mistakes, increase the tempo until you again start making mistakes, then drop the speed back a touch. This is the fastest way to learn a piece. Remember that you have to unlearn every mistake you make, and really, you are just making more work for yourself.

2) Think in Chord Shapes.
If you come to a part of a piece that you find difficult to play, have a look at the measure and see if there is a chord shape in it. If there is, think of the note pattern in terms of a chord. So that when you come to the measure or the passage, your fingers are already taking the shape of the chord pattern. I have found this to make an enormous difference instead of taking each note or group of notes as individual finger changes. A good example of putting this change of perspective to good use is when playing Carulli’s ‘Andante’ in the Tab-U-Learn Grade 3 section. Instead of looking at the notes individually, see the bar as having one or two chords in it, and learn those chord shapes.

Hope this helps.

Roger

Hi Folks,

This blog site is a place for me to store my uke and harmonica tabs on the Internet. If you like them, you are welcome to share them.

I am not a professional arranger, nor a professional musician. I have been learning and playing musical instruments for over forty years. When I was younger I passed examinations in music theory, and practical musicianship and I thought I might become a music teacher. However, that was not to be and I have spent my working life in engineering and computer technology. I am retired now, and I write tabs as a hobby.

I only started playing the ukulele a couple of years ago, and last year I bought a Baritone Ukulele. To my surprise I found very few tabs for it on the Internet, so I started writing my own. Recently I bought a Tenor Uke and strung it with a low G. Personally I like to strum my Soprano and Concert Ukes with a high G, and play solos on my Baritone and Tenor ukes with a low 4th string.

The tabs I am putting on this site are the tabs I like to play. I have arranged them in a graded order for my own benefit, as well as others. I like playing grade 1 pieces as much as grade 4, and I use them as exercises to help improve my technique.

If I find a good tip, or information, or a way to do something I think worthwhile telling I shall put it in my blog. If you have any comments I would like to hear from you.

When I previously created ‘Buke Tabs’ I had requests to write tabs specifically for individuals, I am sorry to say that this is not the idea of my having this site. It is merely a public repository for my tabs, and a place that I can blog now and again.

I enjoy playing the diatonic and chromatic harmonicas, I have learned about a dozen instruments, none of them very well, but I think I love the harmonica most of all. I enjoy playing the harmonica and accompanying myself with a uke, so I have also put some of my harmonica tabs on the site.

After spending many years reading notation from a stave I came across some guitar tabs, and quite honestly I looked down my nose at them, “not the sort of thing a musician should use” I told myself. Well I was wrong. Tabs are a great way of reading music written by others, and in fact, tabulations were around a long time before the ‘great-stave” format of writing music. Nowadays, when I play any fretboard instrument, I read more from the tab than the notation. But I have included both in my tabs, as I prefer to read the note values from a stave, and the note positions from the tab. Hence the name of the site, ‘Tab-U-Learn’. Tabs are the way I learn most of my music now, and the name also represents the way I grade pieces to improve my technique. Grading is a very subjective thing, and I have graded the material on how hard, or easy, I find the pieces to play. I am sure that many of you will disagree with some of the gradings, and that is how it should be, so just use the grades as a guide.

I am sure that professional arrangers would cringe at my tabs, so it is lucky I am not trying to make a buck out of them, eh! I write them as I like to play them, good, bad, or indifferent.

I am no expert. but it has been my experience that if you want to play like a Jake Shimabukuro, you have to put your time in. You cannot pay someone to practice for you. Well you can, and I am always open to offers. Years ago It was all scales, arpeggios, and studies. I use these tabs as exercises for myself. I have arranged them to improve my technique more than for performance, and I can tell you that over the past year they have helped. If I was arranging just for performance I would have done them differently. May I suggest that you use all genres of music to help you get the technical skill you need to play the type of music you love.

I had arranged about 150 tabs for my “Buke Site” over a period of about six months, during which time I learned a great deal about arranging and the ukulele. I shall put many of those tabs back on to this site after re-arranging them. This will take some time, so I hope you will bear with me. I shall also arrange new material, and put them on the site.

If you like my tabs, that’s great.
If you don’t, that’s fine.
I enjoy them, so that’s great.
Life’s great, and I am pleased to share my love of music with you.

All the best,

Roger Ruthen