Groups W. Songs Suitable for Ukulele?
Papa Tom
there.
After a few years of playing the uke and collecting songs for my
"repertoire," I'm finding that the pool of material that lends itself
to this instrument is drying up. With the exception of Jason Mraz'
"I'm Yours," there hasn't been a "new" song in a while that I
immediately thought "I've gotta learn that one," so I'm constantly
revisiting all the oldies catalogs to find songs I may have missed.
At this point, while my song list includes stuff from hundreds of
artists, I find that the majority of the list is from The Beatles,
Jimmy Buffett, Fats Domino, and a bunch of one-hit country artists.
I wonder if there is a group I have overlooked that might provide a
whole new flow of songs to learn. Any ideas?
(PS: I'm not really looking for individual SONG ideas, just groups
with many songs that are suitable for the soprano uke. Also, I'm not
a great singer (Beatles are fine/Stevie Wonder is not), so it needs to
be a group whose songs do not include challenging vocals. Finally, I
do not gig on the uke in public, so I'm not necessarily looking for
crowd-pleasers.)
Thanks!
Chuck Olson
"Papa Tom" <tommon...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:600f507e-ab8f-404d...@w12g2000vbj.googlegroups.com...
Hi, Papa Tom,
If you haven't seen it, there's a Yahoo Group in UK called Keyboard Sheets
that is very active (activity is a criterion of membership). They store
songs on a couple of sites and actively post songs in response to requests.
I believe they have some books for guitar or uke on one of the sites, but
they are mostly noted for a large depth of sheet music and fake books. I
guess being in the UK they are untouchable by ASCAP, maybe. However I felt
the copyright violations might ultimately be a problem and let my membership
lapse.
Speaking of songs, I recently looked for "Over the Rainbow" and the chord
sets I found were terrible - - I guess they were "simplified" or something.
Maybe chord sets that are more satisfying are protected by copyright and so
can't be made public. So I set out to fix the chord set where needed. Here's
what I ended up with (low-G C E A tuning) unfortunately it's in the key of C
which is really hard for me to either whistle or sing but here it is
anyway - - my own stuff . C Am Em C7 F C C7 F Fm C A7 D7 G7 C Dm G7 (repeat
first line) C Dm G7 C Dm7 G7 C B7 Em Dm G7 (repeat first line) C Dm G7 C
Cmaj7. If you have a way to play this in a key that is easier to sing or
whistle, I would be interested.
I'm just starting out with Ukulele at age 78 after playing the piano for 72
years (badly), so my dexterity is terrible, but I'm learning.
Thank you for all you have posted on this newsgroup.
Chuck
Beli
<600f507e-ab8f-404d...@w12g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,
Papa Tom <tommon...@gmail.com> wrote:
Maybe you could find some ideas at Goschenhobel's YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Goschenhobel
Hetty
Dave
"Papa Tom" <tommon...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:600f507e-ab8f-404d...@w12g2000vbj.googlegroups.com...
Not knowing what type of music you are into and me being British, the most
famous Ukelele player over here (although generally he is associated with
the banjo uke) was George Formby.
If you are into his type of music from the 1920s to 1960 then there is
plenty out there. He recorded around 200 songs so there may be something to
your liking.
If you have never heard his music then there is plenty of it on youtube for
you to have a look at before you search for tabs etc.
Dave
Papa Tom
> famous Ukelele player over here (although generally he is associated with
> the banjo uke) was George Formby.<<<
I've been a George Formby fan for a while, and several of his songs
are in my book. I forgot to mention him as one of my favorite uke
artists. Thanks for the tip.
I will check out the other two this weekend.
Papa Tom
You probably stumbled upon the changes used by Izzy Kamakawiwo'ole for
his legendary ukulele version. It seems he improvised the changes and
lyrics on the spot and just captured the vibe in a way that has
"stuck" over the years. You probably got thrown off when it went to
Am on "lull-a-BY-y-y...ay ay yay." That is true to Iz's version,
which you can check out on YouTube.
I will check that UK site right after closing this post. Good luck
with your new uke. I only started about three years ago (after a
lifetime as a drummer) and I've managed to do a lot more with the
instrument than just bang on it!
TM
Lucille
Have you tried this site?
http://www.doctoruke.com/index.html
He has lots of songs here and aslo for the baritone uke.
Lucille
Papa Tom
Yup. I go there all the time, although his charts are a little too
detailed and complicated for me. I like to dumb the Doctor's changes
down for my own purposes.
Again, though, what I'm really looking for are specific GROUPS that
people have found to be fertile resources for material. The reason is
that I like to put together medleys with some logic. I've got a
Beatles medley, a Bo Diddley medley, a Fats Domino medley, a Hank
Williams medley, etc. Other than those, I've milked just about all
the common tab sites for just about every really cool individual song
I can think of. But perhaps there's a group or artist that nobody
ever thinks of as being "perfect" for the ukulele?
TM
Zeppo
"Papa Tom" <tommon...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:9b7a9cc2-dca6-49a8...@r14g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
I know this is *WAY* after the fact, but have you listened to any of Bliss
Blood's music? She has some original stuff that seems fairly playable. You
can google her site to check out any of the bands she plays in and get some
samples of her music. My favorite is the Moonlighters. They are appearing in
NYC this weekend.
HTH,
Jon
