ukulele – JustFourStrings

Prize Quiz!

Ukulele

by Dr Gonzo on May 4, 2020 0 Comments

Hi guys,
in these weird times of lockdown, clean air, and nothing to do (well for some of us), I thought I’ll invite you to do a little quiz and learn something new at the same time. Here’s a transcript I did earlier:

It’s a piece I wanted to learn for a long time and I think it sounds great on the ukulele. The chords are for C-tuning. It’s playable with high and low key G-string. Go ahead and give it a try! It’s not that hard. Start slowly and then speed up. The target speed is around the 136 to 140 mark. Try not to plant a finger on the uke whilst you are picking. It’s easiest to use the “claw hammer method”: Pick alternately with thumb and index finger, one note at a time.

Leave a comment if you figured out which piece it is, but don’t name it! The first three people who solve the quiz receive a free bag of original Norfolk Ukulele Sand, if they send me an email with their address!

What have I done?

Ukulele

by Dr Gonzo on August 13, 2018 0 Comments

A few weeks ago, about 2km into my early morning running training, I was stopped by a well known local lady who waved at me from her car window. Somebody had told her that I was some kind of musician and “couldn’t I help her out at our local faire by playing a few songs in between to give their entertainer time for a drink and a trip to the loo”. Being who I am, I said “of course” and carried on with my workout. She actually stopped me a couple more times and now I am also helping setting up the marquee, doing some maître’d stuff (???), bringing my cargo-bicycle to do rides for the kids, and of course getting on stage to sing and play the uke. It slowly begins to sink in that this is going to happen NEXT SATURDAY (18th of August, also my wedding anniversary) and I haven’t stood on a stage on my own for about 30 years! I am alright playing with others, even singing a bit, even if I don’t really know the songs (I can always improvise and I can read chords from guitarrists hands rather quickly). All this doesn’t really bother me anymore. But this time it’s just me! I don’t know… where do these butterflies in my tummy suddenly come from? ARGHHHH… I better start practising….

Here’s the link, just in case you want to see me die on stage…

Review: Norfolk Ukulele Sand

Ukulele

by Dr Gonzo on May 19, 2018 0 Comments

Everybody who has played a Ukulele on a beach knows how much better it sounds in its natural habitat. Originating from Hawaii, it is perfectly understandable that the little things need a proper beach to sound their best. I first found this out on a holiday to the Algarve. I took the little Ovation to the beach and after playing a few chords everybody around us started to smile. It’s just lovely how the sound carries over the sand in a way it never does indoors. Never? Well, I played her a bit in the hotel after we returned from the beach and I swear she was sounding better than the night before. This carried on for a few days, but one evening I got annoyed with all the sand inside the uke. So I tipped it all out on the beach and went back to the hotel. That night the uke definitely sounded duff when I played her before going to bed. It couldn’t be the sand… or could it? Was it possible that a ukulele needed sand to sound well? Surely not!!!

The next day on the beach I poured some sand into the body. Back at the hotel I was amazed about the rich sound she was producing! There was no other explanation: a ukulele needs to be near sand to sound its absolute best! So I made sure she was well filled up before we took the flight home. Unfortunately the sand kept falling out of the sound holes and after a few months the Ovation was back to its duff land-locked sound. When I tried putting in some sand from the local sand pit, I made the next astounding discovery: it made the sound worse! Chords didn’t ring, melodies were scraping along, and the sand inside was rattling out of tune. Land sand apparently doesn’t do it for ukuleles.

Now that we live in lovely Norfolk we have a fantastic beach in cycling distance. So of course I took the little one out for a few tunes in the dunes. And guess what: the sound was back! Not quite as sun-drenched and smooth as in the Algarve, a bit sharper and saltier, but it nevertheless carried the proper Hawaii tone towards the sea. That evening I filled her up with Norfolk sand and tried her out at home. Let me tell you: the sand from Norfolk’s beaches works! Now I will never run out of ukulele sand again and all my ukes are kept according to the strict official rules of the Hawaiian Ukulele Association (HUA).

If you have problems finding proper ukulele sand for your little one, just drop me a message and I’ll pop a bag in the post for you!

PS: I would be interested to know how the folks from Brighton manage!

Blank Sheet Music

Miscellaneous

by Dr Gonzo on March 12, 2018 0 Comments

When I was a younger (and not at all interested in musical notation), you could go to your local stationery shop on the high street and buy a5- and a4-sized music notebooks, basically exercise books with blank staff paper. I haven’t seen those for ages, I presume pupils don’t learn music notation at school anymore. Nevertheless as a music teacher I sometimes feel the need to write down a few notes or tabs for myself or my students. I used to draw lines with ruler and pencil and then copy these templates at the local copy shop (they seem to have vanished too). Luckily there’s a great website that lets you print your own staff paper: https://www.blanksheetmusic.net/
The pages are fully customisable for all your needs using a simple menu. You can choose different clefs, different tabs, lines for lyrics, etc, combine them all if you want, choose the magnification, and then just print out the staff paper on your own printer. Great!

Ukulele Chord Finder

Ukulele

by Dr Gonzo on March 9, 2018 0 Comments

I always have problems remembering the more complicated chords on the ukulele. You know, the ones ending in “aug”, “dim”, “7sus4”, etc… And it doesn’t help that my students prefer the c-tuning, whereas I rather like the d-tuning on my favourite uke. I keep a chord cheat slip in my uke bag, but that isn’t large enough for all combinations.
Also sometimes I accidentally come up with a fingering combination that sounds great, and then I start deciphering the notes and possible combinations to give that chord a name. With only four strings there are usually several possibilities to name that chord.

A while ago I found a great tool to solve these problems: An online ukulele chord finder! Here’s the link: http://www.ukulele.nl/chordfinder/
This great little app knows four different tunings (C, D, C / low G, and G), nineteen different chord options, and it can even play the chosen chord, so you hear how it should sound! You can also click on a virtual fretboard where you put your fingers and it will tell you all possible names of this chord. You want more variations in your songs: two blank buttons in the options section let you step through all possible variations of any chosen chord in the selected tuning.