The Ukulele Thread  | Page 5 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I bravely recorded my uke playing today, both ukes through a condenser mike. It’s a nice blend with the different timbres, so I think I’ll be doing a bit more, once I can think up more stuff to play.

I finally finished a basic transcription of I’ll See You In My Dreams which is based on a very good transcription but unfortunately has to stretch over pages and pages because it does a great job of tab, but this isn’t good for someone just wanting the chords and words. I’m going to have to open a ukulele section on my own website and put pdfs of this stuff up there. After a week of playing the concert uke, I’m so happy with it, it feels natural to play and it keeps tune really well compared to the soprano. But I think it needs brighter strings than the standard Aquilas that came with it.

A side by side comparison of Sally and Cedric. What’s interesting with Kalas is that the headstock and fretboard tapering are almost identical between the two sizes of ukulele. I’m coming to the conclusion that the next soprano I get has to avoid this tapering and I’ll probably finger better on it.

Note how much Sally’s artwork I’ve worn off already Oh, and I threw on the low-G Aquila red string for funsies and stringing practice, it sounds a little weird and I”m going to replace the other strings anyway, feels quite springy. The tuning definitely changes some chords, you don’t get away with some of them like the high-G tuning 😀

I finally made in into a music store and got hold of a few different ukuleles 🙂 I’m happy to report that my hands felt very comfortable holding the instrument and fingering the strings. For some reason I felt more confidant strumming the nylon, but that’s only a first impression (if you don’t count my playing in Hawaii so many years ago). One fun thing, the manager of the store came up to me and started a conversation (in a heavy Irish accent). I told her about the forum and George and she thought it was cool. She offered to teach me a song so I said sure. The song she chose was I Can’t Smile Without You by Barry Manilow . My part consisted of 4 chords, one of them barred (hope I wrote it correctly SG 😉 ). Also she taught me a technique where you ping the bottom string on the way up after every forth strum (I’m sure this is quite common but I’d never noticed it before). Anyway I pretty much got it down and she says let’s do a duet and pulls out another ukulele. So off we go! After the third time over the chorus she started whistling and singing the song which in her dialect went something like “Yer nu oi canny smile withoyt yer”. It was so charming and she was adding all kinds of little riffs and beat box rhythm sounds to the song, I really had fun. After a few minutes 3 little girls came over and started playing ring-around-the-rosy to the music. My wife and daughter were quite surprised when they came upon this scene after shopping at the shoe store next door. I wish I could take my uke lessons from her but she lives 400 miles away… 

I restrung Sally today, the low G wasn’t playing nice with the old strings which needed replacing anyway so I redid the lot with some Aquila reds in standard tuning. They’re interesting, the Red series, not quite as bright as the standard Aquilas which is probably good on a soprano. Very proud that I did all the nice bits on the bridge to make it look professional.

Speaking of Peter Sellers and that interview where he brought out the “banjo”: I’ve had an audio version of that interview for many years as part of my Goons collection but that interview wasn’t the full-length original, parts were cut out. Fortunately that is on Youtube like everything else and this is actually the first song he played with it, its from 1927 by Dubin Fain and Kahal, it’s called I Haven’t Told Her at this point in the 1st part:

The tuning up is handy “my dog has fleas”. 😀 He really only quotes the song, the intro is right but he doesn’t bother with the first two verses. Here if you’re interested are the full chords and lyrics, and here is someone playing the full tune though at a pace I do not recommend for beginners if at all!

edit: but apparently that was the original way according to this 😀 Quite a dotty version!

I came across this picture the other day and thought of Sally 🙂

Aieee edit is not quote