Seasons of the Ukulele

A weekly song challenge for ukulele players - all welcome. Find out more here

Season 696 - Give That Uke A Break!

[deleted]

thanks for a fun theme JooJoo!

this is a Tom Morgan song (frontman of my favourite Australian band, Smudge)

and was the b-side to his 2003 7" 'Local Knowledge' - also, and thanks to your cover of

Send in the Clowns - i only just realised the entire last verse is the lyrics from that,

so it got me thinking this must be some kind of response to that much more famous song…

anyway, this song has the best title ever: 'Shoot First, Ask Christian Slater' lol

Renaissance-Man

This is called a round or a canon.

In a round, different voices sing the same melody but start at different times, creating a layered, harmonized effect. "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is a classic example of a round.

According to Woody Allen, "Eighty percent of success is showing up."

joo

Hi dear Seasonistas,

how are you all doing?

There are 2 wraps that happened overnight. Chris has announced his winner for 695 and Val has made a wrap for 694. Check them out if you haven't!

it's Tuesday morning here and I am delighted to see more entries here!

Wendy @UkeCan1 brought a very moving and lovely rendition of I Will Always Love You. I experienced another side of her as a performer that I don't often see. It is fragile and beautiful. I think it is the song and the range she is singing in, or the way she picked her new 8-string tenor…I dunno what it is that made this cover she did quite special, but it really moved me. You should check it out if you haven't. She did a magnificent job with the a cappella intro, which flowed into the uke-accompanied part seamlessly.

It was great to see Paul @redpaul1 and he smashed that David Bowie song! Wait, i think it was a cover of a cover… The a cappella part worked! And worked well! Thanks so much Paul!

Well, when Chris brings something, I know it will be awesome. He always makes it look so effortless. I mean look at the way he so casually plays up and down the fret!!! A treat to see and hear. Thanks so much Chris!

Now, when I went to check out Bare Necessities it was Hummin' to Myself. @chris667 Can you post Bare Necessities please. 'cause I want to listen to it!

I enjoy Brian's @UkeFoote entries every single time!!! How can you not? The thing is I sometimes dunno what to comment, 'cause everything he does is consistently fantastic and I find myself saying the same thing. So Here I am saying the same thing again. I love that song, Brian! And your version is sublime. the bass and harmonies are sooooooo good. Everything you do is! Thanks so much!

joo

Oh! And YAY! I just posted my very in-depth analysis (LOL!) of the overnight (for me) entries and I saw that Jon and Cody have posted something!

I am gonna go and eat breakfast and do other things now and I will add you guys into the playlist, but I shall watch and comment later today. (I have already watched Jon's…I filmed it. Haha. Later, friends.)

Joko

I got the acapulco part I want to do figured out and translated.. now I need some collaborators….. Feelers sent….

AlanDP

This song has the harmony in the chorus written in the original, so I did the final chorus vocals only. Coincidentally, this song was recorded by Guy Mitchell, who also recorded the best-selling version of "Singing the Blues" that I covered last week.

CanadaJim

THE SCOTSMAN - Mike Cross

Mike Cross is a Tennessean who is a talented guitar/fiddle player, but who often sings this song unaccompanied (although Maggie and I have seen him accompany this song on the guitar).
The photo is of our nephew Graeme painted larger than life size on the wall of the Thunder Bay Airport.

johnpoole

Hi Joo. This would have fitted Chris's theme too. 'El Condor Pasa" was indeed a cover by Simon and Garfunkel. Peruvian composer Daniel Alomia Robles 1913. But existing as a traditional song in various forms way back. A few lines acapellaed by me. And instead of pan pipes…pan harmonica.

johnpoole

UkeFoote I see Brian has employed the vocal neck capo in this funky rendition!

Barbablanca

Here is my entry for this week.

In recent years I don't know whether it's my hold on reality is slipping, or as Carmen says, I am just not observant, or whether it is what I am increasingly thinking is happening, we are all regularly slipping in and out of other earths in other dimensions in which that other reality may be just a little different than the one you remember being in.

How many of you have had your partner tell you of an incident in your shared past in which your partner's version is radically different to what you remember. Or how many times have you noticed a shop in town that you would swear wasn't there the last time you walked down that street (which may only be days ago).

Or are these experiences just glitches in the Matrix??? Cue "Twilight Zone" theme.

Anyway, here is a story of a guy who had an experience like this with tragic consequences.
I hope you like it.

Nearsighted-Lemon-McKay

Hope I'm doing this right… first attempt. Paul McCartney's Dance Tonight.

joo

Hi again Seasonistas!

I got distracted with painting yesterday( my yesterday).

it is still dark here. Sun is gonna rise in about 40minutes.

i just wanted a quick check in and delighted to see more entries since i last wrote. And

Welcome to the Seasons Nearsighted-Lemon -McKay!!!

I will watch and comment in a few hours! Gonna get a bit more sleep.

Later!

[deleted]

one from the car!

an Irving Berlin song from 1927. i'm no revisionist historian but i did change a lyric

from 'darkies' to 'churchies' lest i get cancelled by the world…

joo

Hi!!!

I think i might be turning into Spider Woman.

I just could not wake up after going back to sleep. I blame it on the spider bite I got a few days ago. It was a small spider, living amongst some wooden stakes outside my art room. I think my hand went right into her (or him) when I reached to grab them (the stakes). I felt a slight sting on my right middle finger and thought I might be bitten but I have been totally fine. I (think) I have arthritis and my fingers, especially the right side, have always been kind of swollen and achy and stiff and stuff (I am clawhammering as much as I can until they drop off). The said finger was a little itchy and red and swollen and I thought nothing of it - attributing that to my arthritis. Then yesterday morning, the finger became darker red and even more sore. But I have been feeling totally fine! Well, until this morning when I could not seem to wake up!

But I am now, and I am using the familiarity and safety of this community to make a big deal out of one of the small adventures of living in Tasmania.

So far, I have no wall-climbing skills yet. But I do notice that things like paints and paper seem to stick to my fingers…so maybe I will soon be able to produce spider web.

Back to the songs -

Jon @[deleted] got reminded of this Tom Morgan song with the best title: Shoot First, Ask Christian Slater, after he filmed me singing Send in the Clowns. He went - ah! those lines are the same ones in the Smudge song!(Tom Margon was in Smudge). So, yah- he had to do a take of that, with some parts without the uke. I thought he smashed it. His energy when he plays is always electrifying. The pin ball machine turned itself on when he sang! LOL. Thanks so much Jon!!!

It was very nice that Cody @Renaissance-Man showed up! He quoted the Woody Allen line, but I think 80 percent of the success of his brief demonstration of his a cappella thing is not just showing up, but the finesse he showed. Thanks so much Cody!!!

(Just to say - I have commented on the videos on YouTube, and what I am writing here are NOT the same comments on the videos. LOL. I wonder why i copied and pasted my YT comments on the thread in the past. It was not necessary. I have a little more than usual to write because I really enjoy this. Thanks for everyone's contributions so far!)

I am blown away by Alan's @AlanDP second entry. This is the kind of thing I will pay money to listen! Thanks so much, Alan. You are awesome! (Love the tee and the hat too!)

Oh boy Jim's @CanadaJim a cappella song made me laugh so much. When I saw the title, Jim, I thought it could be seriously funny or supremely melancholic or homesick-ly. You do both kinds of emotions well in your songs, especially the funny ones! Thanks so much for this! Still laughing as I type…..

John's @johnpoole cover of El Condor Pasa is not like Simon and Garfunkel version, which is awesome. Takes a truly creative soul to do what he does. I am sure you guys agree with me. How much are you charging for your harmonica lessons. John? And, if I wear a scarf tightly round my neck, does it mean I can make a higher-key-sound with a lower key harp?

A line in Berni's @Barbablanca song reminded me of wallabies that get killed on the roads here. They just seem to appear from nowhere and right in front of cars. But mainly, his song also reminds me of how strange the world is. And stranger it seems, is the human brain. What one perceives and remembers can be so entirely different from another. When facts are not facts anymore….. Krishnamurti said that thoughts are not good…in that they are limited. I think maybe trying to understand what we can't understand happens only when we are trying very hard to understand things. Sometimes I don't even realise that I do understand somethings. And vice versa! (The opposite is more frequent!) I think it is the VERBALISING part that makes things confusing, in my opinion. Now I am rambling. Too many thoughts and too many words! Love how your write songs that seem to always become great reminders for me. Thanks so much, Berni!

And so awesome to see and hear @Nearsighted-Lemon-McKay join us this week!!! A huge and warm welcome to you! Lemon McKay brought us a joyful number. The joy is felt in his voice, his strumming, his percussive taps! The acapella part sounds like it has always been in the original, is it? Thanks so much, Lemon McKay!!! Hope you stay on!

EDIT: I left out Jona! Jon @[deleted] rocked the blues in a cool jumper and a hand-painted uke (by the very modest me). A note to myself after watching his song - I can use hmm, mmm, argh, er…etc words to accentuate my songs! A most spirited, joyful performance from Jon! Thanks so much Jon!!! I have zero blues in me after listening to that! LOL.

joo

johnpoole

I too used a neck capo in Send in the Clowns, John. But it was shoddily tied. No wonder i could not hit the high notes. I shall try again.

joo

I thought maybe I will share some acapella songs….

UkeFoote

johnpoole It was either that or clench my butt cheeks… and I’m out of practice with that technique.

AlanDP

Okay, on this one I went "all the way." I used the uke only to establish my pitch. This song was written by Albert E. Brumley, who also wrote "I'll Fly Away," "Turn the Radio On," and more than 800 other songs, many of them gospel songs, but not all of them. He wrote all his songs using the Aiken shape-note system in SATB (Soprano Alto Tenor Bass) harmony. The Aiken system is how I first learned to read and write music and I still use it when I'm writing multi-part vocal harmony. I guess you could say it's my native musical language. I have a friend who has a much larger collection of old hymnals than I do, and I found this song in one of his books. I had been trying to find the original sheet music for it for a long time and was elated to find it in one of his books, so I took several photos of it so I could recreate it with MuseScore. I included a couple of screen shots of the music in the video. This song is sometimes performed by old-time country/gospel and bluegrass bands, but the version usually heard from bands like that has kind of mutated into a somewhat different melody and chord progression, although it's still completely recognizable as the same song, and is usually just titled "Rank Stranger." I've recorded it before and will link an old video of me doing it below if anyone wants to hear the difference. But this version is how Brumley originally wrote it. I grew up singing songs like this in church.

The old video of me doing the other version from a few years ago:

Nearsighted-Lemon-McKay

Someone mentioned my hat in the comments to my song this week… it made me think. Although this is my first SOTU entry, that hat has been featured in more than a dozen SOTU entries in the past and the uke, too…. but where?

DelGriff

Thanks for hosting, Joo! 🙂

Here’s a Snow Patrol song from their excellent 2006 album, ‘Eyes Open’. It’s quite minimal, and features a male and female voice singing an octave apart, but with a tiny bit of vocal harmony in the chorus. I tried singing both parts an octave apart but it didn’t sound great, so instead I threw in some of my own vocal harmonies, which to my ears sound better. Baritone uke, with added synth bass and other stuff. The a capella section is the second from last chorus, so be patient! :-)

Set The Fire To The Third Bar - Snow Patrol cover (SOTU 696)

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