Daily Ukulele Mar 26th 2011

Thank you Joey, I love your daily ukuleles, it was a great idea and something I look forward to everyday. I hope you are feeling better soon. and... I just gotta say, what's with all the headless people? Shy I suppose. Beautiful ukulele, pretty song, played at every wedding I went to in the early 70's, and yes that makes me old.

roxhum said:

played at every wedding I went to in the early 70's

Click to expand...

Along with that other Carpenters song, "We've Only Just Begun", right?

I've always been a big Carpenters fan, so today's DU is a treat! Here are a few observations about the arrangement in the book, if I may:

1. They don't indicate it on the page, but this song is played with a lilting "swing". The eight notes are not evenly divided. Think "Happy Trails" or "Sweet Caroline"... they all have that same medium-tempo swing feel. It's common for this to be notated with normal, even eight-notes, even though it's not really played that way.
2. They don't put an intro in there, but all you have to do is switch between the F(add9) and F chords--both of which are notated in the chord diagrams at the top of the page.
3. They also don't include the outro, but you can make one up on your own there too. I would go back and "tag" the ending... that is, play the "just like me, they long to be, close to you" line twice at the end. Then you could go into the "ahhhhh" part like the original recording does--it's just the F(add9) to the Cmaj7 over and over again.
4. You can substitute an Em7 for the plain old Em on the second-to-last line. Sounds better, IMHO, and is a bit easier to play too.
5. You can also substitute an A7sus4 (0200) for the Asus4 (2200) every time it shows up. Makes for a slightly easier transition to the A7 chord.
6. Are the lyrics really "gold and starlight"? I always thought it was "golden starlight". Hmmm...

Here's the original Carpenters version, for reference. RIP Karen. :-(


JJ