15th Annual Ukulele Festival of Northern California
The 15th Annual Ukulele Festival of Northern California was yesterday in Hayward California. It was a beautiful day for a ukulele festival and as usual it seemed a good time was had by all. I got to meet up with some old friends and also got to meet a few new friends that are part of the Ukulele Underground (UU). UU is a relatively new website dedicated to promoting the Aloha spirit which seems to go hand in hand with this incredible addictive instrument we know as the ukulele. If you haven’t already done so, stop over to UU, become a registered member, and look around. You will find video lessons, tablature, within the forum as well as links to outside sources such as Dominator Ukulele Tabs and Ukulele Hunt, as well as helpful tips from the forum members. There are plenty of exciting things such as ukulele giveaways and online open mics that members can participate in.
The most memorable part of the day for me is that it was my first time as a performer at any Ukulele Festival. It was definitely an experience to go through the process of moving between the stations as you work your way to the main stage. I was fairly relaxed by the time I hit the stage as I opened with Jake’s Blue Roses Falling. Then I got a little tense as I worked my way through my arrangement of George Harrison’s Something. It was just a short ten minute slot so I needed a short one to finish with and I chose the Star Spangled Banner. I left the stage feeling like I did a decent job of controlling my nerves and getting through the set. I wasn’t able to capture any video on my own but I should be receiving the footage in the next few days or so. I’ll post some videos once I have the DVD in hand. In the meantime, here are a few pics from the show.
One Note Samba - TAB
James Hill gave me the green light to post my “interpretation” of one of his “Live” arrangements of the One Note Samba. The standard notation is reflective of D6 tuning with a low A string, however, there’s no need to change any of the chord shapes to play the arrangement in C6 tuning. Use the same “chord shapes” that are indicated in the tablature staff and it will sound great just down one full step in pitch.
I’d like to point out that the midi file has a 16 measure space of silence which represents the section of percussion on the ukulele. I never did count the actual measures that James plays the percussion in his video or, for that matter, the number of measures I play percussion in my own YouTube video.
This is a great progression. I hope you have fun with it. The tab can be found on the TABS page.
One Note Samba
I was blown away when I saw James Hill play the One Note Samba on Youtube. He has two versions and the middle percussive sections are quite different. I worked from a video of this earlier arrangement but changed some chords in one of the sections to fit within my own playing abilities.
James takes the middle section to new heights in this version where he adds his imaginary friends to the mix.
I tried to record this the other night and after about 6 tries I was finally able to make it through the complete arrangement without stopping. However, it was very poor and I knew it was time to just leave it be and come back to it later.
So tonight, after a wonderful dinner out with my wife, I decided to have another glass of wine and give it another go. Somehow I managed to get through the entire piece on the first take and decided that even though it wasn't the greatest I'd better leave well enough alone.
I'm working on a tab and will have it available soon.
Jason Castro - Over The Rainbow on American Idol
Jason Castro played ukulele and sang Israel Kamakawiwo’ole's version of Over the Rainbow tonight on American Idol. Though Paula referred to it as a “guitar” all the judges were really pleased with Jason’s performance. Regardless of how you look at it this was a positive thing getting the ukulele in front of such a large viewing audience.
Woodshed, over at Uke Hunt has put together a chord chart of Jason’s version which is a good place for any newcomers or Jason fans wanting to start playing ukulele.
Our 4 string friend is getting some well deserved visibility.
Stars & Stripes Forever - Video
I got a new video cam over the weekend and wanted to give it a whirl so I decided to do a quick recording of Stars & Stripes. The audio is much better with the new camera and there is no more motor noise so I look forward to doing some new tutorials in the future.
I was able to adjust the brightness when capturing from analog with the old camera but this option wasn't available with the DV hookup via the firewire cable. I will have to look into this. The raw footage is much brighter than the captured video. I'm using Pinnacle Studio Plus 9.5 for any video buffs out there.
Tears in Heaven - Paul Luongo
Tonight I’m posting my tab for Paul Luongo’s most impressive arrangement of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven”. Aside from the excellent bit of arranging, one thing that Paul has done which makes this arrangement even more special is that he preserved the original key of the recording. To play the arrangement as written will require tuning your ukulele up one full step to ADF#B using a low A. Those that don’t want to change tuning can also download the Powertab file (assuming you have a PC that will run PT) and change the tuning to GCEA and this will allow you to play along with the midi file during the learning process.
Paul has been very busy with school and other responsibilities and hasn’t had time to fully review and provide comments on the draft version of the tab. We’ve decided to post the draft version to give you all an opportunity to get started learning his arrangement. There are a couple of spots in measures 18 through 21 and again in the Bridge section that I wasn’t quite sure of. I think it’s very close and should suffice should you get that far along in the arrangement prior to me receiving any edits from Paul.
I noticed on Youtube that some folks were asking Paul about a video tutorial so maybe there’s a possibility he will be able to do that sometime down the road. Should you learn the song from this tab and post your video on Youtube please credit Paul for his arrangement.
The tabs and a link to Paul's Youtube video can be found on the TABS page.
Close To You - Video Tutorial Series Continued
Here are the final three videos for Close To You by the Carpenters. I hope these videos are helping you get your arms around this classic song.
Close To You - Tutorial - Part 4 - Main Melody
Something - Ukulele TAB
Tonight I'm posting a tab to go along with the Video Tutorials for Something by George Harrison. Files can be downloaded from the TABs page.
Close To You - Video Tutorial Series
Last night I posted the first video in a tutorial series where I will be teaching you how to play a version of Close To You by the Carpenters. Aside from Gently Weeps this is one of my most requested songs. Currently, I don’t have a tab available for this one but the song can be learned from the videos alone.
After my recent experience with the “Something” tutorial I knew that multiple videos would be required. That’s when I decided to do a separate video explaining some possibilities for an intro to the song. I was expecting to be able to present this in a single video. Man, was I sure wrong. Not long into the editing process I realized that the intro itself was going to push its way into a third video. Unfortunately, my way of teaching is to just sit down and go through the sections just as I would if we were sitting in the same room together. At this time I can’t say for sure how many videos it will take to complete this series but I expect it to be a minimum of six.
Close To You - Tutorial - Intro Part 1
Play It Forward Ukulele Video Contest - Something - Video Tutorial
Julie Strietelmeier over at Ukulelereview.com is hosting a Video Contest for ukulele. Entries need to be of the instructional type and submissions are being accepted from 2/16/08 (12am EST) to 3/31/08 (12pm EST). Official rules can be found on the website at the link above.
I’ve posted my entry which is a video tutorial of Something by George Harrison. The tutorial exceeded the maximum 10 minute length limit imposed by YouTube so I had to break the tutorial into 4 Parts.