Probably the most comprehensive list is on this site. It points to a whole load of sites on the web that have them. But the best on the list are these:

Ukulele tabs from Ukulele Hunt.
Dominator’s Uke Tabs

Some of the lesser known ones are:

Akulele
Ed Whitehead (which is the only site to get away with putting up tab for Jake Shimabukuro’s legendary version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. He’s rather guarded about having his stuff tabbed. There’s supposed to be a tab book of his in the works. It’s in my shopping basket already).

Those are all free but, as with all the best things in life, you have to pay for the really good stuff. And the best I’ve bought is this one The Classical Ukulele by John King. Sadly, John King died recently (you can read his obituary here). And this is what the guy could do. Incredible.

When you’re a grown up band - particularly when you’re a singer with a backup band - the situation is more difficult. How many people should you have in your band? What instruments do you need to have covered? Do I really need a third sitar player?

Sometimes I wish it could be like football. I could have a whole bench full of specialists. Have one drummer for the slow jazzy stuff, substitute another in for the fast paced stuff. Bring in the special teams for the banjo vs uke showdown. It money weren’t an object, I’d be tempted to do it that way. My immediate reaction is that it would create a lot of bruised egos. I’m sure that happens a lot in sports, but no one seems to care. For some reason, it’s been decreed that a musician’s feelings must never be hurt by questioning their playing.

I’m living in cloud cuckoo land, I know, but it’s interesting to speculate. Ideally, I’d like a bigger band than I have right now. It does restrict the options a little. Some of the parts that I have planned for a studio version have to be dropped at the moment. We could put together a backing tape, but that just seems so cheesy. And there’s no end of things that could go wrong if you take that route.

In the end I went on to eBay and bought one. I didn’t go for the cheapest around but I didn’t spend that much either. But she’s a cutie. I ended up getting a Lanikai tenor ukulele. I figured that being a guitar player I’d be more comfortable playing the larger sized instrument. Dave has a soprano and my fingers felt really squished together on it. Besides, I prefer the sound of a tenor. I was shaped in my decision by watching IZ doing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. I’ve read that’s a low-G ukulele, so I might have to restring it.

Playing the ukulele is dead simple if you’re a guitar player. It’s like have a guitar capoed at the fifth fret (minus the bottom two strings of course). That means that all the chord shapes are exactly the same. You don’t really have to learn anything at all. Technically the chords have different names, but you don’t really need to learn them off by heart.

I can’t wait to get it. There’s something about getting a new instrument that really kicks my songwriting into gear. The new sound and the new possibilities always inspire me to get a new song done. I’m sure the new uke is going to be no different. It’s such a fun little instrument the songs I write on it will probably be a whole lot more jaunty than my usual stuff.

If you want my advice, you’ll check out the ukuleles for sale and get yourself one of them quick sharp.

I’ve been fairly lucky with band mates all round. Usually we’ve got along just great. Of course there have been a few fallings out, but that’s pretty inevitable. But it’s never come even close to violent before. But the other night it almost came to blows between me and Dave.

It was a completely dumb argument. Needless to say, we were pretty drunk at the time. Even so, there was some real malice from both of us. When you’re out on the wrong, resentments tend to build up over time. When you start arguing, they’re going to explode all over the place. And they certainly did explode.

I can’t remember how the actual ruckus got started. We just kinda bustled into each other. It got broken up pretty much straight away.

In the cold light of day, we’re still very much friends. We worked through a few things and I guess it’s for the best that a few issues got aired. There has to be a better way though. Some way to stop the resentments building up in the first place. Although Naomi Campbell style anger management training would probably be taking it a little too far.

I thought I’d start a new blog talking about my life as a musician. Then a realized that every post would start, “I spent most of today scratching my ass,” so I decided that I’d also include posts about stuff online that will help musicians along in their efforts to put burgers and fries on the table.

It’s a hard life being a musician. Unless you make it big, of course. The perception of life as a musician is that of rock-star decadence and endless parties and good times. There is quite a lot of that. But there’s also a lot of wondering how the hell you’re going to eat.

I think this is without doubt the best time to be a musician (at least a not very popular one). In the online world, you can find your audience. Even if you’re a very niche artist (hello all Egyptian nose-banjo players), there are people out there in the world that will buy your music. So, as well as documenting my trials and tribulations, I’m going to be talking about a few of that ways that bands can make money and keep themselves alive while living the musician’s life.