The All Purpose Ukulele Thread (Now with added interest)

[lazyhour]

David Devant and His Spirit Wife will be playing a stripped-down live set on Dave Gorman's BBC 6music show tonight (starts at 7pm, I think, and tonight is Wednesday) and I'm told that a mighty ukelele will form part of the band's instrumentation.  Should be a good'un.

[Jemble Fred]

how are you playing Em then?

Badly. I don't know how else to describe it. Index on bottom string, etc – just as the wee pcture says. But as you say, practise makes, et cetera et cetera*.

Now can you polish these shoes, Fletcher?

[TotalNightmare]

Also, im off to see the Ukulele Orchestra this weekend on the South Bank, im very much looking foward to it...

AND

i bought myself a new uke... a bit gimmicky, but i loves it, i can now play loud and long thru an amp or speakers!

AND

i desperately want to post some of the crap... i mean high art that jem and i bash out when 'under an influence'....

anyone know how a computer retard like me can host a few audio tracks?

[Jemble Fred]

i bought myself a new uke... a bit gimmicky, but i loves it, i can now play loud and long thru an amp or speakers!

Ace, that'll save me having to lug my uke across to London.

Tried rapidshare, or any of the free sites that are used on 'Du Jour' type threads? I should imagine they work like Photobucket, but.... with audio files.

[TotalNightmare]

Ace, that'll save me having to lug my uke across to London.

Err, yea, because its SUCH a huge instrument to lug around!

Fair enough, however, to get the best out of my new uke, it HAS to be plugged in... so we shall see how it works out when we 'jam' together in our music 'den' and 'record' some 'music'...

Does it cost anything to use these rapidshare things of which you speak?

and what do you recommend that i host for our first musical abortion?

[Jemble Fred]

Err, yea, because its SUCH a huge instrument to lug around!

Well it is when you're faced with a choice of packing either spare clothes or a small instrument.

I'd be surprised if any of those sites charged a bean. And I suggest you don't bother....


Or if you do, it's Norris & Cecil, It's A Sin or Stalker.

[TotalNightmare]

I think we should slap one up...

no one has to download it and we are only larkin' about...

but the choices are wise ones.

go in peace and tell the nearest bishop that you have found the egg he was looking for.

[Jemble Fred]

Hang on, just testing something out. One of those late-night experiments, pissing about on the spot sort of thing... just seeing if I can get it to... hang on.

http://rapidshare.de/files/11503231/They_re_All_Dead.mp3.html

Meaningless drivel, but I'm off to buy a microphone so I can do something equally unnecessary, but without the buzz.

[sam and janet evening]

Mark Thatcher?
I liked that, catchy innit? There's a piano just next to this computer (I don't know how it got there, but I haven't the heart to send it away) and I couldn't help but play along. Which is a good sign.

How did you record it btw? I may inflict my patent brand of witless tripe on the boards at some point (or else I'll continue turning up to meets and spreading it in person...).

[Marty McFly]

oh this is a great thread!

i picked up a ukulele from ebay a few months ago. it cost me about £25 including P+P, and while the thing is made of fairly thin wood, it's a sweet little instrument. the tuners on it are very nice, and it holds tuning fairly well (as soon as i got it and started playing, i was stretching and re-tuning the strings, as you do on a new set of guitar strings, so that's a useful hint that might help some of you uke-players stay in tune. stretch your strings a lot!

after reading through this thread though i'm a bit confused. i've been tuning my uke to GCEA... are you lot all using a different tuning? is GCEA harder? retuning doesn't bother me, i've got a chromatic tuner.. are the chord shapes different?

anyway, here she is.

[sam and janet evening]

Personally I favour ADF#B (same as you but a tone up) but only cos that's what the 'How to play the Ukelele' book in my local library said. But I think there's another tuning that's a bit closer to a guitar, which might be what the others use. I doubt it matters too much unless you specifically want to play like another uke-ist.
I've got a Mahalo, but the tuning pegs are a bit shite. I think I have the budget version of what you've got. I shall upgrade at some point, possibly to a triple-necked, flying V with skulls painted on.

[Jemble Fred]

I too have the same uke to a T, and it is still tuned to ADF#B, but once I get even a smidgen of cash, I'm getting something with softer strings I can tune, er... the other way you said. Thing is, first, even though it's all only terribly amateurish larking about, I do have to get a decent mic set-up, probably using eBum. Once I've moved and that, anyway.

For now, Sam, I'm just using my iBook's internal microphone, which is surprisingly good, except for the buzzing from the machine itself. I just have to restate that that track really was just a bit of late-night random strumming, but I'll knock up something better soon for this thread.

Obviously I won't bother with the Post Yer Own Tunes one, because that would be taking it too seriously...

[Neil]

Obviously I won't bother with the Post Yer Own Tunes one, because that would be taking it too seriously...

What?

[Jemble Fred]

Sorry, I mean no offence by it! It's just that I have no musical aspirations at all, and the Post Your Songs thread is full of proper good-like musicians sharing their talents and so on. I'm a ten-thumbed ignoramus with Audacity and no shame. So I was hoping that by keeping my audio-mulch to this thread I was avoiding the fragile listening equipment of real music lovers... (and on and on, with similar pathetic pleas of talentlessness from me).

I mean, http://rapidshare.de/files/11729641/Superman_Redux.mp3.html for heaven's sake. It shows a love of the ukulele, but no more than that!

Smiley smiley, and so on.

[Neil]

Oh well y'know, I'm in much the same boat, but figure I might as well use the thread and get some feedback.  I understand your reticence though, it's scary!  But like I say, you might get some good feedback in there.

[TotalNightmare]

I get to perform my 'classic' Ukulele song (ahem-cough-bollocks) 'A Stalkers Ode' live at The Comedy Pub this sunday in London's Leicester Square...

And what's more, i'm performing it with Pretty.Polly on piano.

Its part of a night of comedy and i'm closing the show with it!

Im excited and sick to the pit of my stomach.

If you hate me and all new sketch comedy, please come along to the Comedy Pub, Oxendon Street, Sunday 29th 7pm and have all your fears proven right!

[Jemble Fred]

Cool, you should get someone to record the results for all us uke goons... if there are any still out there!

Anyway, anyone who's idly clicked on this thread, I offer you embarrassment and my usual excuses...
http://rapidshare.de/files/11856047/Teenage_Dreams_Redux.mp3.html

Sorry. But two reasons – firstly, ukuleleboogaloo has just posted up different chords to this, and as I've been playing the fucker since November, I wanted to record my version, no matter how rubbishly, before it becomes a uke standard.

Also, my first viewing of Johnny Bleedin' English last night drove me to absolute distraction, so I had to do something else. It's very much a late night piece of drivel.

Don't worry folks, this rash of mp3 posting is just a stage I'm going through, and I'll grow out of it... after tomorrow, I should imagine.

[TotalNightmare]

I will try to record the show in its complete form with plans to transfer that end musical number on to some kind of newfangled MP3 format.

Luckliy, Polly will be using a keyboard and i'll be using my Uke that i can plug into an amp, so if the thing is pumping through the speakers, it should pick up well on either a camcorder or, indeed, a carefully wired up minidisk recorder.

The only reason i dont post my tunes on here is mainly due to the fact i dont know how to and also that most of my original stuff is in a 'best kept to myself and a few close friends' situation.

Saying that, a song i wrote called I HATE YOUR FAMILY is being covered by some local London band. Which will be nice to hear.
I performed it at a comedy club last week on my Uke and it was probably THE best performance of it i will ever give and sadly, didnt think to record it.
Lost in the damp mattress of time.

I also have a feeling that this new sketch show im part of may think of me as their resident 'comedy song' writer... and as i have no skill, thats means i fucked them up the Swanee. Poor bastards.

[Jemble Fred]

I shouldn't be posting at this time of day, but I just thought I'd end this uncharacteristic trilogy of openly-shared piles of shite with this:

http://rapidshare.de/files/11862259/Friday.mp3.html
(Featuring Grandmaster Sweep, over-excited as usual)

A Verbwhores exclusive just to cheer folk up on this Friday morning... Cheer you up, in that, once the tracks' finished, you can be sure that things will never be as bad as th previous three minutes ever again.

I think I've got this out of my system for a while now...

I wish a very weekend to all.

[Pretty.Polly]

I'll have to listen to this at home Jemble, or else I'll be fired!  But rest assured it will happen.

[Jemble Fred]

And with earphones, just in case anyone ever over-hears – neighbours, impressionable children passing down your street and so on. Consider it toxic noise.

He doth not protest too much.

[TotalNightmare]

My Ukulele Album

"String Attached"

9 Songs about things

Will be out in April.

Available from all good Chemists.

Next to the contraceptives.

[TotalNightmare]

Well,

the comedy night went well on Sunday. Basically, its a sketch comedy night with a multi-ethnic cast (ahhh, all the colours of the rainbow). It had improv, live sketch comedy and specially filmed sketches.

I topped off the night with my Ukulele.

It went well. Sadly, the sound system wasnt up to much... there was so many wires, video links, keyboard apparatus (Pretty Polly being a major help yet under a large amount of pressure from all sides...) so i lost out in power when it came to me plugging in my Uke to the amp.

It felt quite weak as it goes.

The actual rendition of the song (Stalkers Ode... yea, that one i keep going on about) went well, but i feel the people near the back of the room could only hear my voice as the uke and piano was lost under all this technical hoojamaflippery.

As a result, i didnt decide to record my live version as id imagine that it would have come out shite.

However, i do plan on recording my stuff properly...

one day.

Report over.

[Jemble Fred]

There's this on Thursday night:

08 June 2006
Category: music, cabaret
Uke-aphilia
The uke happening.
Venue: The Love Lounge, The Bell
Doors: 8pm
Time: 8.30 pm
Price: donation solicited: price of a pint!
The uke happening. Returning heroes of bathturds 365 day uke-a-thon. Formby-isms from Graham Formica Malky pants' excerpts from the 'genital mutilation opera'. The Bath TURDs symphonia Plink-plank and plonk novelty swing from the Hot Potato Syncopators plus loads of other uke acts to be confirmed. Bring a uke and join the symphonia in cacophonous renditions of popular tunes made unpopular.
Wheelchair users will require assistance
http://www.bathfringe.co.uk

Which I very much want to go to (and at least just do Teenage Kicks) but for all I know it'll probably be me and a scary old man with a uke made out of his own body parts. I guess everyone else on here's too far away to consider turning up?

[Jemble Fred]

Sorry to bump a thread that's about as popular as, well, me, but last night's Uke-aphilia was fucking ace. If anyone gets the chance to pop along to something similar, then do try. It was arranged by a trio called the Hot Potato Syncopators – three chaps whose prowess should've been anger-inducing (proper professional uke playing, a great teachest bass, saw-playing, sound effects etc), but the whole atmosphere was so jolly and inclusive you couldn't be put off...

Unless you were the two poor guys who brought guitars and insisted on – sacrilege of sacrileges – a PA system, in which case you were treated with extreme distain, leading to acute social embarrassment. But I guess that'll teach 'em.

Anyway, for any SW whores,there's another go at it next Friday night in Bristol, and I was quite chuffed to be invited along to do something else as my three-song set seemed to go down confusingly well.  I found this detail: http://microplex.cubecinema.com/cgi-bin/diary/programme.pl#2278. Should be a laugh.

[lazyhour]

STOP PUTTING YOURSELF DOWN, MAN!  

Every time you ever mention yourself or your comedy or your music, you always slag yourself off to a ridiculous degree, and to be honest it conveys a repetitive message of "I don't really think I'm shit, I think I'm great, me!"  So for my sake, please either say that you think you're the bee's knees, or simply present your self-references with no judgement at all.  That would be mega awesome.

And ukeleles still rool, and shall for evermore.

I'm sorry to sound confrontational about this, but I had to say something or I'd burst.  False modesty is one thing, but actually slagging yourself every time you make reference to your work is quite another, and does most certainly come across as insincere self-criticism (though it may well not be).  Stoppit anyway!

[Jemble Fred]

Oh shit, well, um, sorry. I had a similar problem yesterday, wondering how far to criticise my playing before I started my little bit. I was aware that it would look like a horrible attempt to curry favour my beating myself up. But if I got into the paranoid loop of 'is this really what I *am* doing?' then I'd still be jibbering like an idiot now, it would never end.

For the record lazyhour, I honestly and genuinely think that my uke playing is incredibly substandard – solid, few mistakes, but no style or real technical ability. I believe this even more strongly after last night, having been right next to people playing their ukes beautifully, with feathery, complicated strumming techniques and so on. And the guy who played the banjo was awesome. I really am a scraper, myself, although I will try harder. I also think that my songs are crass and tend to be one-joke affairs. But on the flipside, I happen to think that my *tunes* are pretty fucking special.

I hope that's evened things up a bit, and I hope you believe me when I say that, as far as I'm concerned, I'm too stupidly introspective to let myself get away with saying I'm shit when I privately think I'm ace. If I criticise something I do, it's because I really do think it's not all that, but sometimes I share such things because I feel I might be pleasantly surprised by the reaction. If I think something I've done is great, I try and keep quiet about it.

Um, I think that's it. I will try as hard to avoid giving the impression that I think I'm secretly great when I don't as I do to.. well, be better at what I do... do.

[TotalNightmare]

(This post has been removed and a strike has been issued.  Please read the forum rules regarding self-promotion, and in future remember that asking for money on here is a MAJOR no-no.  Thanks.)

[lazyhour]

:-) @ TottyNight's pps.

Sorry for seeming like a hardass there, Jemble, and I appreciate you not just telling me to sod off!  I guess you need to build your confidence somehow, and I'm sure you'll be able to.  

I don't know why, but it's hard to know how to react when someone disses themselves down.  Are they currying favour?  Do they hate themselves?  Are they joking?  That's why it's best to try to avoid it, even if you do think you suck.

Also:  Good music doesn't have to come from high-falutin' technical dexterity.

[TotalNightmare]

so yea...

does anyone London based want to get together for Ukulele hi-jinks!

im game!

and lookee, i know i shouldnt boast, but having a strike by name makes me all edgy and cool... not even fuckwit trolls get one of those!