It has been quite a while since I posted here and I got wondering if anyone still follows ukuDaily via RSS feed or directly? If you do, please let me know via email or by comment on the site.

Thanks,
Mike

Some of you may have tried to visit the site over the past week and found it to be slow or altogether unavailable. I know, that is what beta sites are all about, but we are only a week away from go live and things should be much tighter. Anyway, today I took the monumental step of switching hosting companies. It was a lot of work, but as I hope you all experience, it was well worth it. Pages are really popping up fast now and I can finally focus on the finishing touches and yes, even start blogging. Thanks for all your kind words and thoughts about the site.

Mike

After a nearly 30 year dry spell of making music/noise with an instrument, I have decided to take up playing the ukulele. “Great”, you say. “People decide to take up playing something all the time. Why blog about it?” I have three goals for this ukulele adventure.

1. First off, historically, I am not a big finisher. I start lots of things, but as my interest fades, so does any hope of accomplishment. My initial thought in creating ukuDaily that if I committed to blog about the ukulele and new people were following it, I would work hard to impress them with my development over time with my new skills and the blog.
2. Everything I have read and video I have watched makes me think there are a lot of people there that are like me. They would like to create music with an instrument, but the path just seems too long and hard. I hope that as people read this blog they will be encouraged by my story, will use my experiences to guide them as they buy their own ukulele and then they will join me on my journey. As a group of newbies, we can learn together from each other’s successes and failures.
3. I am not arrogant enough to think that us newbies can get where we are headed on our own. We need expert advice about so many things from instrument selection to playing techniques. My third goal is to get seasoned players involved on the site.  I am sure that playing the ukulele is like anything else. There are tricks you learn that you could figure out on your own, but it would be so much faster if someone just shared their experience.

With these three goals for the site, this is the type of content you can expect to find here.

• Equipment reviews.
• Links to all the best ukulele-related sites on the Internet including manufacturers, vendors, places to find tabs and so much more.
• A gallery of videos of performances, lessons and reviews that I think will encourage us on our journey.
• I hope to add a bulletin board soon so the site will best encourage conversations.

All that is left at this point is to get after it, so come join me on my journey! I leave you today with a quote from Jimi Jendrix

Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen with a ukulele.

Votes have been cast, hanging chads have been assessed, last year’s winner has been dethroned and cast to the wolves, and the winner of Ukulele Video of the Year 2011 is A Banda Mais Bonita da Cidade’s Oração. With more views than all the others on the list put together, a joyous video and a tune that makes me sing along despite having no idea what I’m saying, it was a clear winner.

Second place was Lisa Hannigan. You can find all the results here.

Vaguely interesting fact: Ukulele Video of the Year has never been won by someone from the same country twice. So far: an American, two Japanese puppets, a Welshman, a Canadian and now a bunch of Brazilians.

A Ukulelist Mais Bonita da Cidade, Rodrigo ‘Lemoskine‘ Lemos was kind enough to answer a few questions.

Congratulations on winning! Can you tell us a bit about what inspired the video and how it was filmed?

Thank you all, people from Uke Hunt! We’re very happy to represent our folks here. Well, the idea for the video came up as we were invited by our sweet friend Ana Larousse – who also is a singer/composer – to spend the weekend at her grandma’s house in Rio Negro, this very little town in Paraná, south Brazil. By this time, the band already had gigs and a large set of songs in which “Oração” (by Leo Fressato) was kind of “in charge” to be arranged. We just told people to come over for the weekend and brought all of our audio and video equipment to shoot it.

For us non-Portuguese speakers, what’s Oração about?

You’d have to ask Leo, if you wanna know better lol. But certainly he’s gonna tell you it’s pretty much about love and hate. He was like so stuck to a bad experience on a past relationship that the only way out was to start being lovely, instead of being greedy. The main verse says “My love, this is the everlasting pray to save your heart…”.

How did the band get started and why did you name it A Banda Mais Bonita da Cidade?

The band began to play gigs in 2009, when Uyara (vocalist) and Vinicius (keyboardist, director of “Oração” sequence) came together with this idea of reinventing other people songs. At first, I was featuring on the debut show as a composer and special guest musician… by the second time, I was officially in the band. The name was suggested by Vinicius, and it came from a story by Bukowski which is called “The Most Beautiful Woman in Town”.

The video made a huge splash all over the world. What do you made it so popular?

I’m not sure, obviously. We think that is the truth behind it and the friendship we’re celebrating there. I guess people simply identify with that…

How did you first start playing the ukulele?

It was back in 2010, when I first visited New York City. I was already in love with the instrument because of George Harrison’s tribute “Concert for George” (you know, that McCartney’s uke version for “Something”… and then suddenly Clapton goes wild with his Stratocaster?). So… I had the rare opportunity to buy a cute “Cordoba” mahogany model on that trip. Later, when I was well adapted to the chords, I bought myself an electric Lanikai (recommended by sweet Lou Armer) to play live. Things are slowly getting better, but it still hard to find good ukes here in Brazil.

It seems like a lot of the focus on Brazil is centered around Rio and Sao Paulo. What’s the music scene like elsewhere in Brazil?

I believe it’s everywhere. Our new artistic output is getting bigger with the internet thing, of course. There are many acts being nominated and playing worldwide because of the free sharing of information. You see, plenty of them were not necessarily raised in Rio or São Paulo. I have a special feeling for the northeast scene, for example, which stands out with “Nação Zumbi”, “Otto”, “Cidadão Instigado”, “3 na Massa”, “China”, “Lulina”, etc.

What are your plans for the future? With the band and with your solo music.

The band is back on the road, promoting the album we’ve just released. It can be downloaded for free on Facebook, and it’s a good thing to do right now that “Oração” is no longer “fresh meat”. My solo project is running damn great this month. I’m producing its debut album with the co production of John Ulhoa (Pato Fu member) who already worked with my early band “Poléxia” and with huge Brazilian artists like Arnaldo Baptista (Mutantes) and Zélia Duncan.

There’s another project (I’m never tired of…) sung in english. It’s called “Naked Girls and Aeroplanes” and we’re putting out a virtual EP in a few weeks. People can listen to it on Soundcloud.

Follow A Banda Mais Bonita da Cidade and Rodrigo on YouTube.

Zooey Deschanel – You Forgot About Valentine’s Day (Chords)

It’s not hard to work out the musical inspiration for Zooey Deschanel’s Saturday Night Live song. The intro and verse chords are almost identical to her version of What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?.

But after that the swirly, hotel-lobby piano makes it tricky to work out what to do on a ukulele. I had my best shot at doing those parts in the write up. But I’m not entirely happy with it so feel free to make changes.

Related thought: what is it with ukers and skinny moons?

Suggested Strumming

While she’s playing the uke the strumming is pretty straight forward. You can just do down strums – two for each chord – most of the time. For a fuller pattern try:

d – d u

In the middle section I like to do just down strums but cutting them short by releasing the pressure on them. Then follow with this little bit.

Which sounds like this:

Middle

Twiddly Bits

If you want to play the big band outro you can do it like this:

Outro

Buy She & Him Volume 2
Buy Saturday Night Live stuff

David’s Lyre – Heartbeat – YouTube.