A Song for Anna - Ohta San

According to the Ukulele Hall of Fame, “A Song for Anna” was Herb Ohta’s biggest international hit and the biggest selling ukulele song of all time. It was supposedly written for him by French composer Andre Popp and was originally recorded in 1974. A version of the song was more recently released on the 2006 album by Daniel Ho and Herb Ohta, Jr. entitled STEP 2: ‘UKULELES IN PARADISE 2. I originally heard the song on the Legends of the Ukulele and found it as one of my favorites on the album.

The beauty of the song is that it isn’t entirely difficult to play. Once again, I went to Dominator’s tab page to find the tablature for the song, you can get it here song_for_anna.pdf.

Below are a couple of versions found on YouTube. The first is Herb Ohta, Jr. and Daniel Ho performing the song. The other is my feeble attempt at the song. This is my first posting of actually playing a song on YouTube, so please be nice!

So how do you make ukulele strings?

Have you ever wondered how they make ukulele strings? Well, Margie from Guadalupe Custom Strings sent me an email today with a video link showing how they actually make strings, so I thought I’d share it. 

Guadalupe Custom Strings makes the Brudda Love custom wound ukulele strings and strings for various other instruments. They are based in East Los Angeles and are a small family owned business. Go to their website to learn more about them, and please visit ukewarehouse.com to buy them.

I couldn’t embed the video here, so follow the link below to see the video.

como se hace una cuerda (How do you make a string?)

Add to My Profile | More Videos

White Sandy Beach

I thought it might be interesting to find specific songs that are fun to play on the ukulele and link up some videos, tab and other stuff for each song. I’m hoping that this will give people who are looking to learn a specific song a good place to go.

For this post, I’d thought I’d start with Brudda Iz and his version of White Sandy Beach with words and music by Willy Dann. It’s a great tune and you can find tabs, chords and lyrics at the following sites;

Dominator Uke Tabs - Intro (Low G)

Ukulele Strummers - Chords and Lyrics

Below are some videos that may help learn the song, starting of course with Brudda Iz himself. I’ve included some instructional videos by Jody Kamisato of Ukulele Hale that are very helpful.

This is a great way to learn the song, set up karaoke style so you can just strum along.

Lyle Ritz Solos

Jumpin’ Jim’s Ukulele Masters - Lyle Ritz Solos - 15 Chord Solos

Published by Hal Leonard Corporation with Copyright by Flea Market Music, Inc.

The most important thing to note about this book is that it contains 15 difficult solo arrangements for ukulele. The songs are written in standard notation, chord diagrams and lyrics for songs that contain them. Songs include; Bluesette, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, Dream, Honesuckle Rose, Lulu’s Back in Town, Ritz Cracker, St. Thomas, Where or When and more… It also contains a CD with all of the arrangements played by Lyle Ritz. The CD is great!

A chord solo is an arrangement where both the melody and harmony of a song are captured in the many chord changes. In the description of this book, it is indicated that “These are some of the most challenging arrangements ever published for the ukulele..”, I’ll second that!

In my opinion, it can be very discouraging to learn these chord solos. First of all, except for strumming simple or even non-simple chords, I prefer ukulele tablature over chord diagrams. What I find the most annoying about this book is that each note is generally a chord change, so, in 4/4 time, there will be four beats per measure and if your lucky you’ll only be playing four different chords in each measure, however your generally playing more. That would be fine and dandy if they were common chords, these are generally not. Also, there are often single and double string plucked chords throughout these arrangments and reading the chord diagrams for these is a bear to say the least! If you take the time to re-adjust your thinking toward reading the chord diagrams, it is possible to play these. I ended up tabbing out the few songs I wanted to learn so that it was easier for me to get a grasp of the arrangement, this is always an option, but shouldn’t be necessary in my opinion.

It looks easy when you watch Lyle Ritz play chord solos, he has mastered the ukulele and is a pleasure to hear. This is a good book for those that are already comfortable with difficult chord changes up and down the neck. It will also be good for those who enjoy a challenge. I bought the book a few years back solely to learn Lulu’s Back in Town that I heard on the Legends of the Ukulele CD. I wish I’d have found Dominator’s version before I bought the book, it is written in tablature form and for me is much easier to get a grasp of.

Some people may prefer learning songs from chord diagrams over tablature, or just reading the standard notation for that matter, I don’t. So, I really don’t have much use for this book especially since I don’t particularly like this type of music, which in turn doesn’t give me much motivation to learn these songs. Maybe one day I’ll have an itch to play the chord solo style, but it’s not on my near future agenda. I do however have the utmost respect for Lyle Ritz and his playing style and am in awe at how easy he makes these difficult arrangements look.

It’s probably not the best marketing tool to give not-so-good reviews of the products I am selling (buy Lyle Ritz Solos at ukewarehouse.com), but I’ve got to be honest. It goes for $24.95 new, if you want my used copy, email me and make me an offer!

So, on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being best, I give this book a 2.

Fingerstyle Solos for ‘Ukulele

 

Learn to play Fingerstyle Solos for ‘Ukulele by Mark Kailana Nelson

When I first saw this book I envisioned it as something that it isn’t. I guess my first instict that it was a sort of recipe book for creating ukulele solos, it isn’t. What it is however is a great instructional book offering 27 arrangements in the fingerpicking style.

The book is written for the intermediate player or aspiring beginner. By intermediate the author means “..that you already know how to play a number of songs using basic chords, you have a few strums under your fingers and you are ready to move ahead and play chords and melody up the neck.” The outline of the book is great. It starts off slowly with some easier arrangments, adding difficulty with each page. Each arrangement builds on the previous one and there are sometimes multiple arrrangements of the same song, adding various techniques that spice it up as your skills progress.

Each arrangement is written in standard notation and tablature with chord names above. In addition, there are performance notes for each song. These provide details to the reader about the how’s and why’s of the arrangement. The author points out new things you’ll come across in each measure and suggests how to play them in the most efficient manner. Also as the author points out, these are mere suggestions, what is more important is that you interpret it how you want, and play it the way that you feel is best.

The book contains a variety of Hawaiian standards and other’s you’ll find recognizeable. Ahi Wela, Hilo March, Aloha ‘Oe, and E Ku’u Morning Dew are some of the fingerstyle songs taught in this book. Other’s include Greensleeves, Danny Boy and a nice arrangement of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It’s funny how many times a song will show up in a variety of different books. Take Greensleeves for example, I’m not sure how many different arrangements there are for this song, but I’m sure it’s more than I’d care to know. I’m not sure if others are like me, but once I learn a song a particular way, I find it difficult to want to learn another arrangement of that same song. Because of this, I end up skipping past alot of songs in different books as sort of a subconcious protest against anything new. There are 9 arrangements in this book that fall under that category for me.

The book also contains a CD, that I just listened to for the first time. It should be a priority when learning a new song, but sometimes I find it difficult to set aside the time. If you want to cut your learning time in half, give it a listen, especially if the song is played directly from the music your learning!

Many of the songs are played as a duet with a guitar on the CD, which does not interfere with the sound of the ukulele as some do. However, I wish the author would have included the tablature for the guitar parts as most of these songs sound great as duets. I tend to prefer the sound of different instruments in a song, especially when the song is specifically arranged for those different instruments. There’s alot to be said about having a diversity of sound in music and I’ve heard alot of people complain about the non-acceptance of ukuleles by guitar players, but I’ve had a completely different experience. A guitar playing friend of mine hosts an ‘open mic’ and always requests I come down to add a different sound to “the room full of guitars”.

Anyway, got a bit off subject. This is a great book for transitioning from strumming to fingerstyle ukulele playing. It is well written and has some very nice arrangements that will surely get you stoked on the ukulele, if you weren’t already that is! Sit down and listen to the CD while following along in the book. Then pick up your ukulele and immerse yourself in whatever song strikes your fancy!

You can buy the book at www.ukewarehouse.com.

On a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being best, I would rate this book a 4!

Lanikai Curly Koa Concert Ukulele

                   

The Lanikai Curly Koa series provide affordable koa ukuleles that look and sound great. These instruments are made in China and utilize laminates in their construction, which is pretty much a standard in this price range for koa ukuleles. Don’t let this deter you however as these are nicely constructed instruments with a quality sound.

Each ukulele has maple binding on the top and back with a nice maple inlay down the center of the back. It has an inlayed rosette that looks like abalone, but I don’t think it is. I can’t figure out what it is actually, but it looks nice. The body has a nice taper and produces a nice tone. The Lanikai curly koa line is very similar to Kala Brand’s koa line. In fact, they look identical in most instances. The only differences I can find are the inlay dots on the fretboard, the name on the headstock and the sticker inside!

I do like this ukulele and I think it’s a great purchase for someone looking for a nice looking and sounding ukulele in the under $300 price range. I don’t think you can go wrong with Lanikai, which is made by Hohner, a company known for quality instruments.

It has geared tuners for ease of tuning and an extended fretboard (20 frets).  The extended fretboard is nice for hitting the occasional note way up there, but given the concert scale, the fret spacing around 18 and up doesn’t do much good if you have hands larger than a small child’s.

I have included another video to give a sample of the sound of this ukulele. Once again, I am struggling to get my webcam to produce a nice sound throughout, so please excuse the occasional sound distortions. I pick up my solid koa ukulele in this to give you a comparison to something else. To me the Lanikai, or any other uke in this price range, doesn’t have quite the sound of a solid koa uke, but they do sound very good regardless. And for a third the price of most solid koa ukes, they are worthy instruments.