Margaritaville

Here's Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville in two parts. In contrast to Dave's arrangement of Another Brick in the Wall, this one is aimed squarely at being a sing-along. Most of it is just the rhythm part strumming along in eighth notes.

The strum pattern for the rhythm part is largely down-up-chunk-up-down-up-chunk-up. If you're wondering what a "chunk" is, here's an explanation:

In the video he's playing a strum pattern that's a little more complicated that what we'll be playing. We'll just be playing a steady beat, with chunks on the 2 and 4 beats.

Here are the two parts in tab notation, and an MP3. My recording and playing skills aren't much, so unlike Dave, I let my computer generate the audio. It doesn't exactly sound like ukuleles, but I think you'll get the idea.

Since it's only two parts, I've included them both on one recording. If you want to hear just one or the other part for practice, just set your audio balance all the way to the left or right.

Rhythm tab
Lead tab
MP3

Another Brick in the Wall

Dave (who I hereby nominate as Musical Director of Brookings County Uke) has arranged for us the Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall for ukulele, in three parts. Here's Dave:

Well, I’ve created some parts to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”. Not the whole song, only a single verse that could easily be repeated to include the following verse. It’s probably not so much a sing-a-long as it is an instrumental thing. It’s about a minute and 30 seconds total.

I broke the song into 3 parts, which with a little thought could probably be improved on quite a bit. I’ve called the parts rhythm, lead, and bass, roughly corresponding to those parts in the original song. The bass part would probably be considered the easiest, It’s single note picking, no chords. The rhythm part would be considered medium difficulty, easy chords but the strum pattern might be slightly difficult at first and can be a little tough to keep going for the duration. The lead part is pretty easy for most of the song except for the end where it gets a little challenging

Rhythm – this part is very repetitive, only 2 different strumming patterns used through the whole song. 4 chords are used, Dm, G, F, and C, all pretty easy chords

Lead – this part mimics the vocal line and a guitar lead.

Bass – this part mimics the bass line and kind of takes turns with the lead part in the vocal section of the song.

He's provided music in tab notation and MP3 files of each part, as well as an MP3 of the whole thing. The individual MP3 files include a metronome click and are well-suited for practice.

Bass tab
Rhythm tab
Lead tab
Bass MP3
Rhythm MP3
Lead MP3
All parts MP3

Dave again:

I’m kind of hoping everyone will pick a part and we can attempt to play it all together at the next meeting. If people want to try different parts, I’ll be happy to switch around and play any part needed.

I’d like the group to give me feedback as to if they like this kind of thing, what they found useful or helpful, what they found useless or annoying, etc. Let me know where I’m on track and where I am not.

So have at it. We meet in three weeks; this'll give you something to practice.

I can see that by comparison the two-part arrangement I've been working on needs a little polish. Or a lot of polish. Look for it in the next few days. It may be a little easier to play than this one, but won't sound as good! How's that for a promise?

December 6, 2011 song list

Here's a list of songs we'll be playing next month. I encourage everyone to make suggestions. We'll try anything. Let me know.

When the time comes, we don't have to stick with this list, either, but I'll have enough of these ones printed out for everyone.

Many of these are from guitar-oriented web sites, and do not have uke chord diagrams. I'll see what I can do to find better links, or else just produce my own charts.

• Paint It Black Rolling Stones
• Cruel To Be Kind Nick Lowe
• (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding Elvis Costello (Ignore the chord charts - they're for D tuning, which is mostly used by Canadians. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
• Should I Stay or Should I Go? the Clash
• For No One the Beatles
• Turning Japanese the Vapors
• Freebird! Lynyrd Skynyrd (I can't type it without the exclamation point. So sue me.)
• Margaritaville Jimmy Buffet
• Let It Be the Beatles
• Folsom Prison Blues Johnny Cash
• King of the Road Roger Miller

First meeting recap

Thanks to everybody who came to our first meeting. I think a good time was had by all -- certainly by me. A special thanks to Dave and Mary for hosting.

I have a small list of suggestions for next time. Feel free to email me or leave comments here if you have any more ideas, or if you don't agree with these ones.

• Printed music for everybody; at least a dozen songs, with as many as possible available in advance on the web site. Suggestions are most welcome. Anything formatted with chord diagrams right on the page would be ideal, but not absolutely necessary.
• One music stand for at least every two people. We were OK tonight, but if we get more recruits, we'll have to make sure we're covered.
• The first bit (15 minutes?) devoted to basics. We can get tuned up and go over some of the chords we'll be playing.

Here are a few web sites with lots of uke songs. Check them out, and if anything catches your eye, let me know and I'll start making a list for next month here on the blog.

• Richard G's Ukulele Songbook - tons of songs, nicely formatted with chord charts for GCEA tuning on each one. He has a link to a nifty transposing web site.
• Doctor Uke's Songs - incorporates the chord charts right into each line; many with baritone in addition to GCEA.
• ukulele-tabs.com - huge selection, but annoying obfuscated song lyrics.

That's but a small sample of the uke resources out on the net. Google and ye shall find. And of course, if you'd like to come up with your own arrangements, that'd be even better.

Thanks again, and I'm looking forward to next month -- Tuesday, December 6.