Dominator Ukulele Tabs

This May, a new television series will debut on PBS stations nationwide. The
series, Pacific Heartbeat, comes to Public Television in partnership with
PBS Hawaii and Pacific Islanders in Communication. It is an unprecedented
collection of critically acclaimed documentaries centered on the Pacific
Islander experience -- including one film "Waimea 'Ukulele & Slack Key
Guitar" about the annual 'Ukulele and Slack Key Guitar Institute event held
in Hawaii's cowboy country. From revealing exposés to rousing musical
performances, the five-part series features a diverse array of programs
intended to draw viewers into the heart and soul of Pacific Island culture.

Pacific Heartbeat includes the following critically acclaimed and
award-winning documentaries: "Keola Beamer: Mālama Ko Aloha" (Keep Your
Love), in which a legendary Hawaiian composer, inspired by the ancient
battle cry of his royal ancestor, collaborates with a brilliant ensemble of
musicians to create a multicultural concert masterpiece; "Papa Mau: The
Wayfinder", which recounts the fundamental role that master navigator Mau
Piailug played in reawakening Polynesian pride by teaching Hawaiians the
dying art of traditional voyaging without the aid of instruments; "There
Once was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho", which tells the story of a Pacific
Island community that must make the heart-wrenching decision of whether to
stay on their beloved island home or move to a new and unfamiliar land, as
their home is destroyed by climate change; "Under a Jarvis Moon", which
reveals the untold stories of teenage Hawaiian boys who were sent on a
clandestine mission to occupy deserted islands in the middle of the Pacific
prior to World War II; and "Waimea ‘Ukulele & Slack Key Guitar", which
showcases rousing performances and rare interviews with ‘ukulele and slack
key guitar masters abound at the Waimea ‘Ukulele and Slack Key Guitar
Institute, held annually in Hawaii’s cowboy country. Check-in with your
local PBS station this May for local air date and time. For more information about the series visit Pacificheartbeat.

Next weekend starting on Friday March 30 begins the 4th Annual Reno/Tahoe Ukulele Festival where I will be teaching as well as performing.

WORKSHOP
On Friday and Saturday, at 3:00pm, I will be teaching my “Stress Free Soloing” Workshop which is a must see for those who have wanted to venture into the world of soloing but have no idea of where to start. In this workshop I won’t bore you with technical details regarding scales and modes which typically come to mind when thinking about soloing. What I will do is present and demonstrate some techniques, and more importantly, a “process” you can employ to create simple yet melodically pleasing solos by using the notes within the rhythm chords being played. If you are familiar with “chord inversions”, which are simply different places on the neck to play the same chord, then you will achieve success in implementing this process very quickly. However, for those that know the first position chords but are not yet familiar with playing inversions up higher on the neck, fear not as our first order of business (after tuning of course) will be to learn the chord inversions for the two examples that will be demonstrated during the workshop. So regardless of whether you are a beginner or a seasoned strummer, if you would like to break out of your comfort zone and attempt to create a simple solo for your next uke club jam then this workshop is for you.

The workshop handout has been prepared as a stand-alone document that you can take with you and refer to over and over as necessary as you work through the process to create your own solos. Additionally, all but one of the examples in the handout have been recorded and are available for download from my Dominator Ukulele Tabs website. After attending the workshop if you are interested in practicing the solo examples presented in the handout then I recommend downloading the files and looping the rhythm section files, practicing the examples presented as well as improvising other solos that you come up with as you work through the techniques presented in the handout.

Alternatively, you can loop sections from your own music library of mp3s or record your own rhythm backing tracks, map out your solos, and begin experimenting with applying these techniques to the new chord progressions.

None of us are going to be shredding like Eddie Van Halen after studying the material in this workshop. But hopefully, the information provided will help you look at the chords you are playing and see the possibilities for creating your own simple yet melodically pleasing solos.

PERFORMANCES
On Saturday at 2:00pm I will be performing on the Festival Stage. A wristband is required to access this area.

On Saturday evening I will be performing with the Ukulele All-Stars in the Celebrity Ballroom. Doors open at 8:00pm. Kris Fuchigami is headlining the evening and if you haven’t had the opportunity to see him perform you don’t want to miss it. He is a phenomenal player, musician and composer as well as one heck of a nice guy.

UKULELE RAFFLE
This year there are over $6000 worth of ukuleles being raffled off including a Dominator soprano that I just completed refurbishing. I built this soprano a number of years ago and the top became damaged. I thought it would be a good lesson in top replacement and a good candidate for a raffle prize for the festival. I removed the damaged top and replaced it with western red cedar and decided to add a black MOP rosette around the sound hole. Originally, the uke had a hand rubbed oil finish but the reincarnated instrument has a hand rubbed gloss lacquer finish. Here are the specs and a couple photos. Don't forget to buy loads of raffle tickets at the festival.

13.5” scale length soprano
Cherry back and sides
Western Red Cedar top
Width at nut – 1 1/2”
Mahogany neck w/carbon fiber reinforcement rod
Ebony finger board – 12 frets clear
Ebony peg head overlay with White MOP logo
White MOP Pearl combination side and FB markers at 5th, 7th, and 10th
Black MOP Rosette
Ebony through Bridge
Corian nut
Compensated bone saddle
Planetary geared peg tuners
Hand rubbed gloss lacquer finish
Worth Brown strings

Things have been crazy busy lately with the Ukulelestar contest and my company Leadership Conference followed by my performance at the premiere of Jake’s Documentary Film at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. However, I took some time last evening to record the 5th installment of the tutorial series for Kalei Gamiao’s “The Unknown”.

Next weekend (March 30 - April 1) is the 4th Annual Reno/Tahoe Ukulele Festival where I will be teaching my “Stress Free Soling” Workshop and performing on the festival stage as well as the Celebrity Ballroom stage on Saturday evening. I will try to get the final video for this tutorial completed sometime next week. If not, it will have to wait until after the Reno festival.

If you’ve been working on the previous 4 videos you should be ready to tackle this one. We are almost there. Take your time and most of all, have fun with it.

Hi Everybody,
I was so excited to find out that Jake has selected me as the winner of the CAAM Ukulelestar Contest held by the Center for Asian American Media. In the link to the left is a blog from the CAAM website where they announce me as the winner including Jake’s original Tweets from his Twitter account after making his decision. I will perform with him on stage at the Castro Theater this coming Wednesday March 14th in San Francisco, California. Show starts at 7:30pm.

I want to thank each and every one of you who voted and/or commented on my video. I was extremely humbled by the gracious and heartfelt comments. Your enormous show of support was simply overwhelming. I hope you can join in on the fun and attend this great event. The premier of Jake’s new documentary film, Peace, Love, Ukulele is going to be fantastic followed by a concert where I will join Jake for a few tunes. Wish me Luck!

For information about tickets contact the Box Office or call 415-865-1588.

Dominator has made the finals in the CAAM Ukulelestar Contest for a once in a lifetime opportunity to open for Jake Shimabukuro at the Asian American Film Festival on March 14th.

There are 6 finalists and I need your support over the coming week in order to be victorious. In the next day or two the folks at CAAM will be uploading the videos to their Youtube Channel at www.youtube.com/user/CAAMCHANNEL . The videos are now "LIVE" and here is a direct link to Dominator's video where you can post a comment and click the "Like" button.
http://youtu.be/44ApHdSLNZo . Thanks so much for your support.

This is what I know so far. There won’t be an actual “voting process”. They are going to monitor the “comments” and “likes” that the videos get once uploaded to their CAAM YT channel. You may have to subscribe to their channel in order to participate. CAAM will monitor audience feedback based on comments and likes etc. and make a decision (the number of comments and likes doesn’t necessarily determine who wins). The viewing period is scheduled to begin sometime Thursday Feb 23 and go through Feb 26 unless they need more time to come to a decision. So it is important to subscribe right away to the CAAM Youtube channel. See info below regarding setting up an account. As mentioned above, the most comments and likes don’t necessarily determine the winner and the ultimate final decision is with Jake himself.

You all know what a huge Jake fan I am and I’ve been contributing to the ukulele community for over 10 years now putting my heart and soul into this website and sharing my knowledge with all of you. I believe I’ve paid my dues and sincerely believe I deserve to realize this special opportunity. And with your help and favorable comments it may just be possible. Please note that your comments need to be on the video that will be posted on the CAAM Youtube channel, not the video already uploaded to my channel.

How can you help?
Create a Youtube account (if you don’t already have one) and subscribe to the CAAM Youtube channel (website URL is above). If you are uneasy about getting SPAM as a result giving your primary email address just get a free yahoo or hotmail email address to use when creating your account. Once you click the subscribe button, hover over it again and check the box to be notified by email when new videos are uploaded. That way you will get a notification and can go view the video and make your comments once CAAM uploads the videos. Be sure to click the “like” button also when viewing the video

If you don’t have a Youtube account and don’t want to create one for this purpose please share this info with your friends that do have a YT account.
Your support is greatly appreciated.
Dominator

Over the past several weeks I’ve had more than my share of requests for Kalei Gamiao’s “The Unknown” which was recorded during one of the episodes of HiSessions. The crew at HiSessions is producing some really hi quality videos of an ever growing number of artists.

Kalei has blossomed into such a great ukulele player over the past few years. When I saw him the first time several years ago he was fantastic but now he has reached another couple of levels. Similar to Jake, not only is he a gifted musician but he is also a very humble and gracious human being. I know he’s working on new songs for his upcoming CD and I’m assuming the Unknown will make the list.

I’m planning to put a tab together but I decided to do a video tutorial to document the process as I learn the song. This way you can get started learning the song along with me.

I get loads of emails with people asking me for specific strum patterns to many of the songs I have in the tab archive or in my videos. The fact is, I rarely think about what strum pattern I’m playing when jamming or playing a song. You need to have a good sense of rhythm and timing and with experience this becomes natural. You can play the exact strum pattern but if you don’t have good a sense of timing and don’t change the chords at the correct time then it’s all for nothing because the playing won’t sound “musical”. On the other hand you can play a much different strum pattern and flow through the progression with good timing, making all the chord changes at the appropriate times, and your playing will sound great and you make it your own.

Therefore, for the purposes of this video tutorial series I’m going to assume those that want to tackle this song already have some basic skills under their belts and can improvise their own strum patterns. I will present some of the basic patterns but I won’t be going into great detail. The patterns I do present will be those I’m playing and most certainly won’t be exactly what Kalei is playing.

Kalei does use a unique strumming technique on many of his songs including The Unknown. Ukulele Underground member ItsAMeCasey has put together a mini-tutorial on the Kalei Gamiao Strum. I recommend that you click the link to the left and view this tutorial. It will help to prepare you for this song.

I will edit this post and put the new videos here as I complete them.

Hey everybody, I just found out about a contest being held by the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). The winner will get to open for Jake Shimabukuro and perform one song at the Asian American Film Festival coming up in March.

Jake has been a major source of inspiration along my ukulele journey and this is most likely one of those once in a lifetime kind of opportunities. Another cool thing about this particular contest is that it requires the participants to play a song composed by Jake himself. So this eliminates his great covers such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Going to California and Bohemian Rhapsody. I was really torn between choosing a softer, mellower, song or one of his more aggressive compositions. In the end I chose to do an up-tempo song called Crosscurrent.

This is my video entry. The judges will narrow the field down to the top five videos and then it will be up to you to cast your vote and help pick the winner. If I make the finals I hope I can count on you all for your support. It may be a long shot but the way I look at it you’re never too old to keep the dream alive.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ukesters. I hope everyone had a great Holiday Season and I wish you all the greatest of successes in 2012.

My first post of the year is the much anticipated tab for Lennon and McCartney's Blackbird which is based on the Abe Lagrimas arrangement found on Youtube. The tab is also heavily based on the video I recorded back in November. Abe has a very diciplined right hand picking style that I was not able to capture entirely. I utilize my thumb quite a bit more which requires some adjustments. This is a great song and I hope you enjoy the tab. It can be downloaded from the TABs page.

Blackbird is one of my favorite Beatles tunes. Not sure when I'll be able to get to it but I do plan to put a tab together based on this video.

I recently finished this wonderful little soprano (Dominator Soprano number 005) for a good friend of mine. This is the last of this highly figured tiger maple that I've had for a number of years. This is the little sister to the 2nd soprano I built for John Rockwell. Though it has a beautiful and distinct voice I don't believe it has as big a voice as number 002.

Here are a few specs:
13.5” scale length soprano
Spruce top
Tiger stripe maple back and sides
Curly maple binding on top
Width at nut – 1 1/2”
Figured maple neck w/carbon fiber reinforcement rod
Ebony finger board – 12 frets clear
Ebony peg head overlay with Paua abalone logo
Paua abalone combination side and FB markers at 5th, 7th, and 10th
Paua abalone Rosette
Ebony through Bridge
Bone nut and compensated saddle
Planetary geared peg tuners
Hand rubbed gloss lacquer finish
Aquilla Concert gauge strings

Here is a SOUND SAMPLE straight into the mics. No EQ or processing of any kind:
The first clip is an original jazz improvisation using the nails of my right hand. The next clip is a section of the same song played with the thumb of my right hand. Clip 3 is an excerpt from The Barnkicker Rag by Steve Boisen (which I transcribed recently and is available on the tabs page)and the last clip is an excerpt from Neal Paisley's Gossip which is also available on the tabs page.