The 3 chords are those based on the 1st, 4th & 5th notes in the scale of the key you are playing in. So, in the key of C, they are C, F, & G In practice, the 1st chord is usually played as a standard major chord and as a seventh chord. The 4th and 5th chords are usually just played as seventh chords. This gives us four chords. A 12 bar blues in G on the ukulele. Using G7, C7 and D7 chords. The blues is played and explained. In this live ukulele tutorial I'll teach you how to play an Easy Blues Shuffle in A. Get my Blues Rhythm Course at I love the Blues, fr.
ʻUkulele tabs are a study in simplicity. With just fours lines and some numbers, anybody – regardless of musical knowledge – can make sense of uke tablature.
A huge advantage that tablature has over standard music notation is that there is very little learning curve. The hardest part of understanding ʻukulele tabs usually has to do with orientation.
Tab Reading Crash Course
To quickly get started, the main thing you need to know is that the top horizontal line of a tab represents the A-string and the bottom line represents the G-string. The C and E-strings sit between.
Numbers placed on those lines show which fret to press down and are read left to right. (“0” means open string.)
Anytime you see numbers stacked vertically you should play them simultaneously as a chord.
For much more, check out this guide to reading tab for better understanding the lines, numbers, and symbols.
In each section, the tablature for a song is color-coded by difficulty:
Easy
These tabs have basic single note melodies, sometimes interspersed with simple chords. More easy tabs
These tabs have basic single note melodies, sometimes interspersed with simple chords. More easy tabs
Intermediate
Middle of the road ʻukulele tabs with more intricate lines, double stops, and techniques.
Middle of the road ʻukulele tabs with more intricate lines, double stops, and techniques.
Hard
Difficult melodies, complex chord integration, note-for-note transcriptions, and subtlety.
Difficult melodies, complex chord integration, note-for-note transcriptions, and subtlety.
ʻUkulele tabs marked with “lead sheet” are Guitar Pro transcriptions of the melody, words (if applicable), and chords.
Tunes marked with “solo arrangement Scan and print tool. ” include the melody interlaced with the chords, intended to be played by a single player and imply harmony and lead simultaneously.
These are my own interpretations, not necessarily a transcription of a specific performance. I try to keep them as simple as possible because I feel that it’s easier to add your own flavor than to sift through someone else’s style.
“Note-for-note transcriptions” are ʻukulele tabs of a specific recording and transcribed as accurately as possible.
Jump to a specific genre:
Rock/Pop ʻUkulele Tabs:
These songs can often be found elsewhere, transcribed for guitar, but not necessarily arranged or tabbed for ʻukulele. My uke-specific interpretations follow.
Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen
Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana
El Condor Pasa – Lead sheet
Simon and Garfunkel
Simon and Garfunkel
Europa – Lead transcription & chords
Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana
Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue – Solo Arrangement
The California Ramblers
The California Ramblers
Mack The Knife – Lead sheet
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Puff The Magic Dragon – Lead sheet & solo arrangement
Peter, Paul, and Mary
Peter, Paul, and Mary
Stairway to Heaven – Guitar parts
Led Zeppelin (low G)
Led Zeppelin (low G)
Tennessee Waltz – Lead sheet
Bonnie Raitt and Norah Jones
Bonnie Raitt and Norah Jones
ʻUkulele/Hawaiian Instrumentals:
The songs found here mostly feature ʻukulele as the lead instrument. As such, most tunes are from Hawaiʻi-based artists I grew up listening to and emulating.
To me, these are Hawaiian ʻukulele “standards,” if not by song then by style. If you want to study the Hawaiian sound, this is the section for you.
Beachwalk – Note-for-note transcription
Herb Ohta Jr.
Herb Ohta Jr.
Body Surfing – Note-for-note transcription
Ohta-San
Ohta-San
Glass Ball Slack Key – Note-for-note transcription
Brittni Paiva/Herb Ohta Jr.
Brittni Paiva/Herb Ohta Jr.
Ledward Kaapana Slack Key ʻUkulele Tribute Medley
MIDI File | Etude for Slack Key ʻUkulele
MIDI File | Etude for Slack Key ʻUkulele
Little Rock Getaway – Note-for-note transcription
Da ʻUkulele Boyz
Da ʻUkulele Boyz
Olinda Road – Note-for-note transcription
HAPA
HAPA
Pahala We Go – Note-for-note transcription
Herb Ohta Jr. & Daniel Ho
Herb Ohta Jr. & Daniel Ho
Pandanus – Note-for-note transcription
The Peter Moon Band
The Peter Moon Band
Sand Castles – Note-for-note transcription/Solo arrangement
Herb Ohta Jr.
Herb Ohta Jr.
Song For Shelly – Note-for-note transcription
Brad Bordessa
Brad Bordessa
Together – Note-for-note transcription
Herb Ohta Jr.
Herb Ohta Jr.
Ukulele Boogie – Note-for-note transcription
Brittni Paiva
Brittni Paiva
Hawaiian:
General purpose Hawaiian songs with lyrics are filed here.
E Ku’u Morning Dew – Solo Arrangement
Eddie Kamae (Low G)
Eddie Kamae (Low G)
Lovely Hula Hands – Note-for-note transcription
Troy Fernandez
Troy Fernandez
Somewhere Over The Rainbow/Wonderful World – Solo Arrangement
Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole (IZ)
Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole (IZ)
Jazz/Bossa:
All of Me – Solo arrangement
Frank Sinatra/Ella Fitzgerald
Frank Sinatra/Ella Fitzgerald
Misty – Solo Arrangement
Erroll Garner
Erroll Garner
Reggae ʻUkulele Tabs:
King Without a Crown – Note-for-note transcription
Matisyahu
Matisyahu
Soundtrack/Themes:
Bugler’s Dream (Olympic Fanfare)
Leo Arnaud
Leo Arnaud
M*A*S*H Theme – Lead sheet
Johnny Mandel
Johnny Mandel
Star Wars: Main Theme/Vader’s March – Note-for-note transcription
John Williams/Uke Duke
John Williams/Uke Duke
Super Mario Bros. – Note-for-note transcription
Koji Kondo
Koji Kondo
Folk/World:
Csardas – Note-for-note transcription
Brittni Paiva
Brittni Paiva
The Leaving of Liverpool – Solo Arrangement
Traditional
Traditional
Rose of Allandale – Solo Arrangement (low-G)
Mary Black
Mary Black
Streets of London – Solo Arrangement (low-G)
Ralph McTell
Ralph McTell
Tarantella Napoletana – Lead sheet
Traditional (Low G) (High g version)
Since so many of the folk songs people make ʻukulele tabs for are in the public domain, it’s pretty easy to find high quality, professional transcriptions. (Other genres are always at risk of being taken down on copyright grounds.)Traditional (Low G) (High g version)
Ken Middleton is as effective an arranger as anybody and has a collection of free bluegrass and Celtic style tabs available. He’s also published a few eBooks of transcriptions.
Classical:
PDF Minstrel provides a selection of great classical ʻukulele tabs.
Traditional:
Row, Row, Row Your Boat – Lead sheet
You Are My Sunshine – Solo Arrangement
Christmas:
Mele Kalikimaka – Lead sheet
Bing Crosby/Jimmy Buffett/Don Ho/Blue Hawaiians/etc…
Bing Crosby/Jimmy Buffett/Don Ho/Blue Hawaiians/etc…
Credits:
- † – Tab by Herb Ohta Jr.
- †† – Tab by Jeromy Renynolds
- ‡ – Tab by Glenn Reither
These ʻukulele tabs are in PDF format created with Guitar Pro, Powertab, or good ol’ Microsoft Word.
Where to Find More Free ʻUkulele Tabs
There are lots of user-sourced tab sites that get a ton of traffic, such as the massive ukulele-tabs.com and even massive-er ultimate-guitar.com. While you can find most any song, be aware that the quality of these tabs vary with the skill of the transcriber.
That said, there are lots of really great sources of free ʻukulele tabs out there! My favorites for top-notch transcriptions are:
- Dominator’s Ukulele Tabs – Dom was one of the first guys posting note-for-note transcriptions online. Some of his stuff is VERY advanced if you need a challenge. Mostly Hawaiian and popular songs.
- Ukeeducation.org – A large collection of simple chord melodies.
- Ukulele Hunt – Al Wood does a good job covering riffs and intros/outros for a lot of pop/punk/rock songs. They usually include video examples/tutorials.
Other Tab Articles/Resources
Here are some links to information regarding how to read tab and other related articles.
Converting guitar and high/low-G tabs to the tuning you play in – How to shift the numbers around so you can play a tab that isn’t necessarily meant for your tuning.
How to Figure Out Songs – Being able to ear out a song is a very valuable skill. Here are some tips for DIY songs.
How to Read ʻUkulele Tabs – ʻUkulele tabs aren’t hard to figure out, but you need to know what you’re looking at to make sense of them.
Blank Tab Sheets
Create your own ʻukulele tabs! Quickly notate the notes to a song, picking part, chord sequence, arpeggio, scale, etc…
Use the standard notation version for relating notes on the fretboard to their pitches as they appear on the staff. Great for notating fingers on tab and note duration on the staff.
According to Wikipedia:
The 12-bar blues or blues changes is one of the most prominent chord progressions in popular music. The blues progression has a distinctive form in lyrics, phrase, chord structure, and duration. In its basic form, it is predominantly based on the I-IV-V chords of a key.
Combination of Styles
The Blues uses both European and African musical elements. With its combination of European harmony and the African heritage of call and response, rhythmic complexity, and blues notes, the 12 Bar Blues gave the world a new form of music from America, a style of music that has revolutionized the world.
Most American popular music grew out of the 12-bar blues. The first rock songs (Johnny B. Goode, Rock Around the Clock, Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog) were blues songs. Try to pay attention to the chord changes. Once you learn the Blues changes, you have the skill to play all these songs! Check out our lesson videos below on Johnny B. Goode and Rock around the Clock.
Most American popular music grew out of the 12-bar blues. The first rock songs (Johnny B. Goode, Rock Around the Clock, Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog) were blues songs. Try to pay attention to the chord changes. Once you learn the Blues changes, you have the skill to play all these songs! Check out our lesson videos below on Johnny B. Goode and Rock around the Clock.
On the ukulele the easiest version of the 12 Bar Blues chord progression is shown above. Each chord stamp stands for a measure of music.
Musical improvisation means to make up music as you are playing. Songs that use the 12-bar blues often have a section where one musician makes up new melodies. The music above shows an example of the blues scale.
![Blues ukulele songs Blues ukulele songs](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/8b/52/b4/8b52b48056c9f48e2f6c731472467ca7--ukulele-chords-leh.jpg)
Here’s a video to help you learn some easy blues improvisation.
You may notice that there are flats in the music. Those flats are called blue notes.
Blue notes
This is a note or group of notes that are different than the notes used in Western folk music. Omnisphere 2 response code generator. Usually, in the blues, we play the different note near its next-door note so our ears can imagine the note that belongs on the African scale. In staff notation, a blue note will have a flat, sharp or natural in front of it.
Blues scale
Ukulele Blues Chord Chart
Is a group of musical sounds that are spaced in the specific way that is used in blues music. The blues scale probably came with African people to the United States. In the key of C, which is the same as all the white keys on the piano, a blues note will be a flat or sharp next to a white key. When we add a black key to the white key scale, the music sounds different. The black key, for example, E flat, added in on top of the white key, such as E, gives the music a bluesy feel.
Blues Ukulele Songs
The added black keynotes are an attempt to approximate African scales. Western folk music tends to use 8 notes per octave, while African folk music tends to use 5 notes equally spaced per octave. Some of these African scale notes do not exist in Western musical instruments. For example, if you look at a piano keyboard, you can see that there ARE five black keys but the spaces between them are not equal. Thus, when you sing or play a flat note and somebody else is playing a regular note, your ear hears the sound the flat note and the regular note make together as bluesy.
Blues Lyrics
Blues lyrics will often take on a recognizable form as well. Because there are three groups of four measures, the phrasing often works like this:
- The lyrics in the first phrase state some kind of problem.
- The lyrics in the second phrase restate the same problem in stronger language.
- The third line of lyrics will resolve the problem state in the first line.
Blues On The Ukulele
Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists believe that the Blues grew out of African American work songs. A leader of a group of workers would call out to all the other workers, who would then sing a response. This form of music is called “call and response” and is common in a lot of African Music.
The 12 Bar Blues with its European harmony and African heritage of call and response, rhythmic complexity and blues notes offers a completely new form of music from America, a style of music that has revolutionized the world.
Ukulele Blues Tab Pdf Download
Happy Strumming!