Beleated

I know I haven't posted anything in awhile. Like 8 days. Ive been really busy with work with all the census taking lately. So to comeback with a bang. I have something really cool.

Unless you have been playing Ukulele under a rock for the last couple years, you have heard of Jake Shimabukuro. If you havent, do so below.





These song are really good, and the second one is super catchy. But nothing beats his song "Touch"

Here is an almost perfect version by Dominator.




Originally Dominator had this version tabbed up perfectly and posted on his website. Every chord perfectly, note for note for the entire perfect song. Did I mention that it was perfect ? 

When Jake found out that someone had tabbed this, and many other songs that he wrote, he kindly asked Dominator to remove them and keep them for his personal music collection. So Touch and the others were removed for eternity never to be seen again.

Here is the best part. I have friends in low places and I pulled some strings to bring you the very same tabbed version. Its a little much to digest if you havent been playing Ukulele very long, but I would recommend saving it onto your computer now so you have it for later.

Anyways with no further ado, I present the Touch PDF

Thats all Folks

Jake can
Stay Tuned  (better than I can )
~Ethan

Page Fixes

I finally fixed the alignment problems with the borders,and Videos will fit properly too. Go Me!

Icelandic Ukulele

Today I have something interesting to show you. This is a video of  Svavar Knutur singing a song as a memorial to  Bergþóra Árnadóttir, also an Icelandic singer. Oh... and its on the Ukulele too. 

Svavar Knutur says he discovered the ukulele while in a music store in London. He was looking for a musical instrument to bring back to iceland, when a ukulele caught his eye.

He says:  "The simplicity and elegance of the Ukulele really captivated me and also the beauty of its soft sound-scape."   

We all agree Svavar. 


This isn't really a video that I would normally watch.
First of all I cant understand a single line of it. 
Also, this may be the scariest man in Iceland. 
But after watching it two or three times, it literally was like a siren song. I couldn't stop.  I'm not sure if it was his voice, the accent, or the secret powers of the Icelandic natives, but the dudes got a gift. 

Creepy Dudes from Iceland 
Stay Tuned
~Ethan 

Obamalele

Okay
Two words.
Obama, Ukulele.

That is all.

Zooey plays a banjolele

 Oh Zooey Deschanel, I will marry you for this I think. As if you weren't perfect enough. 

Even Zooey can
Stay Tuned
~Ethan

 

New Page Up

I just separated my videos into categories, so you can view them by content.

Try it out . Just click a link under "Narrow your browsing" on the left bar.
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Im beginning to see the light

The awesome people at Uke Club.com always have something cool to show you if your into ukulele news, and recently I came across this sad little dirge written by the author(s) in charge of the website.

Its got all the info about the chords on it, and the tune is sung to that of the old forties song "I'm beginning to see the light". The tag is the same but the lyrics to the version in the picture are much more somber.

Remember this is not mine, and If you like the style, go check out Ukeclub.com
They have much more like it.

Oh yeah ....and here is a picture of a ukulele babe.

Stay Tuned
~Ethan

We Are The World -Ukulele

Okay, so you know the song that comes around every year written by Micheal Jackson and Lionel Richie. Its has about a hundred celebrities singing the same song all mashed up into a cool video. Well the Ukulele community made one too. Very Cool.

Check it out



And you can bet that they
Stay Tuned
~Ethan

Serious Business

Its time I talk to you about something serious . Ukulele Fever. Its effecting millions of people each and every year, and frankly, It scares the crap out of me.

Ukulele Fever is defined as: The uncontrollable urge to buy, own, play, and talk about Ukulele's at any chance you get, leaving chores undone, the kids not fed, or meals uneaten.

Symptoms include:

• Chronic finger-nail clipping.
• Dark circles under eyes from lack of sleep 
• Constant tuning
• When sleep does occur, suffer will often dream about Ukulele's
• shopping in music stores, regardless of money in bank

If you know someone who is afflicted by Ukulele Fever first call for help, and intervention might be needed. Next, if you would be so kind to give them my number, I'm sure they have  some cool ukes i could trade them for.

What me ?
No !  Im not and addict.
I can stop whenever I want.
I don't need sleep anyways.

*Warning- Ukulele fever is a real thing and if you are a suffer it is very important that you
Stay Tuned (punny)
~Ethan

Song Writing Tips

If you have ever tried writing a song  you know it can be tough. I really cant help you write the words, but I can offer some tips that may make writing your song easier in the long run.

Natural Chords: These are your basic letter chords. Every rock song that has ever been written uses these. These are safe chords to experiment  with because if your looking for a chord to finish up a song line, and you cant find it, if you have used only natural chords, it will end on a natural chord as well.  Many simple melody uses natural chords. Everything from "I'm a little teapot" to "Mary had a Little Lamb"

Minor Chords: Don't let the name fool you. These chords can have a big impact of the tone of your song. Just one minor chord stuck in your progression will turn it into a love ballad or a funeral dirge. An entire progression of minors can also give your song a driving sound, so if you want the song to have a fast tempo, you cant go wrong with a Dm or a Gm

Seventh Chords: These are tricky . If you don't use seventh chords properly you can kill the movement of your song completely and you will be left with nowhere to go. I usually use them in a wrap around instead of the middle chord.  When your song is approaching it's end, finish the last chord and repeat the last three or four chords that you played, replacing one of them with a seventh. So if the last three chords of the song were   C G C  Then I would play C G7 C           

Changing the key: A lot of times I write a chord progression but when I go to write words, I find that its way out of my range. To combat this problem I simply transpose the chords. The simplest method of this is the counting method. In order to do this you take your progression and count from the letter of the first chord, to the key that you want the song in. For example lets say my progression is C G F C, but this is much to low for me to sing. I want this song to go from the key of C, (because that is what it starts with and ends in) to the key of E. I take the C and count the direction I want the key to go in (up) until I get from C to E.  From C to E it would be two.
   -2  -1   0   1   2  3   4
    A   B   C  D  E  F  G
   
 Once I  know how far it is to get to my key, I do the same to the rest of the progression.  So if im going up two keys with every chord, I'll end up with: EBAE.  If at any time ,your counting goes above G, just start again at A like a piano does.  This works with chords with suffixes too. If your progression has a seventh, a minor , and a diminished chord in it, just add the suffix to the new chord too. 

*WARNING: this does not work with Flat or Sharp chords. The pattern of Sharps and Flats is not perfect and it will ruin your progression.

As always...Stay Tuned!
~Ethan

Call Me Crazy

I was uncertain about posting this on the internet for all to see, but this is too great of a find to not make it on the blog. This set of pictures goes back about a year.


A little backstory may be needed. See, I'm what you call Obsessive Compulsive, which means once I get into something, you will need to pry my cold dead hands away from it. Also, My family shops at Costco. I have no idea what in the world compelled me to do this.

By the way, if your lactose intolerant, Stop Reading Now


The first one is simple enough. Its a design that you could possible find in a supermarket, displaying boxes of beer.

Then things get serious.

I call this one Churnhenge

Someone I know once told me that Churnhenge was moving. Like emotionally. I just thought I was stacking butter.

This next one is straight forward. Gummy Bears make great slaves.

But just look how sad they are.

Now we find out who is in charge of all the building.

Apparently this pepper has freakish boulder lifting strength too. I m not to sure where I was going with this one.

Yeah, call me crazy, but I had a remarkably fun time doing this ...two years ago. And I'm glad I found the pictures again.

Dont forget to:
Stay Tuned
~Ethan

What is a Flying V ?

 I don't really have any blow your head off content today. I think because of that, for the next few days I'll show you guys some pictures I just found. Some are of ukulele. Some are not.

First off, here is a super old picture I found of a tower I made from Ukulele's

 On top is a flying V Ukulele I bought as a novelty, because as you can guess the shape is terrible for acoustic instruments.
The left leg is a baby blue Flea Ukulele from the The Magic Fluke Company and was the first Ukulele I owned.
The right leg is the most expensive instrument I have ever payed for. Its a KoAloha Pineapple soprano  I got mail ordered from Hawaii.

I didn't realize how old this picture was until I remembered that I don't own the drum set in the picture anymore, or the couch, or the room.  That puts this picture at about 2006-2007

Stay Tuned
~Ethan