Season 478 - High & Low & Underground

DelGriff

A very boring man!
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Welcome to Season 478 of the Ukulele! I am co-hosting this week with my friend and musical collaborator, Lynda - aka BirdsEyeViewOfMyUke.

And it’s a theme of two halves. My half is ‘High & Low’ - Lynda will post separately about her half.

So - I’m basically after songs that explore the extremes of high and/or low in all/any sense of the words. These could be:

Physical altitude - for example up a mountain, in an aeroplane, down in a valley... you get the idea;
Emotional state - for example emotionally high on love or adrenaline or as a result of physical activity, or low because of rejection, depression, failure, loss or for another reason;
Substance induced - for example highs and lows induced by alcohol, drugs, sugar etc.
Vocal range - a song that pushes you up to, and even beyond, the highest and lowest notes you thought you were capable of singing;
Uke related - okay, so we’re all very comfortable at the low end of our ukulele’s fretboard, but how often do we visit the dusty end? (For me the answer is almost, but not quite, never!) So see if you can venture higher up the fretboard than you usually would at some point this week?

If you can think of any other interpretation of high and low I will accept your song. But I would like all entries, even the obvious ones, to point out in the text of their forum post how their song conforms to the theme please.

Usual rules apply - originals, collabs and multitracking very welcome as long as a uke is audible. No song limit, and the season will run from 12.01am Sunday 11th April to 11.59pm Sunday 18th April Hawaiian time.

There will be prizes - 3 awarded by me and 3 awarded by Lynda - details here:



Most of all... have fun!!!

PLAYLIST
 
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hello!

for my half of this week's challenge, i invite you to bring me...

:music: songs by nico

:music: songs by the velvet underground

:music: songs by nico and the velvet underground together

if you would like to bring an original song, i'd love it if you could try to write a nico-style song!

no song limit

new vids only please, recorded for this season

season begins midnight hawaii time on saturday 10th april, and ends midnight hawaii time on sunday 18th april

HAVE FUN!
 
Golly gosh ... you ARE early!!! How about "Climb Every Mountain" in the style of Nico????
 
Ooh - and don’t forget that Jon’s excellent ‘You Or Someone You Love’ season still has over 24 hours to go, so plenty of time to show him some love with a song or two! :)
 
So, new Season, Sunday morning - there's really only one song to do - side 1 track 1 on that Velvet Underground album with the banana on the cover. (Youtube informs me that the copyright holder may place adverts before this video - sorry about that)

 
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Serendipitous thread! I was learning this song yesterday. Almost as if it was written for Del's theme. Contains " It may be high, it may be low" mountains, underwater depths etc...also has action on the 15th fret. Guitarlele plugged in with tuning GDGCDG. That's guitarlele version of guitar DADGAD. From Luka Blooms's The Acoustic Motorbike album. Irish Singer songwriter...worth a listen. Will try and do a Nico too Lynda.
 
i'll go High & Low for this week's offering, it's all in the title ... it's an old song but i only know it from about ten years ago when it was performed by one of my favourite bands ever to come out of Liverpool, The Flamin' Mamies ...



just out of interest, as they do have a couple of ukulele players here's a link to The Flamin' Mamies' version ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQkMKzNIMok
 
In the Aeroplane Over The Sea, by Neutral Milk Hotel. I've only recently discovered this 1998 album, but I am enjoying it.

Aeroplanes go high, if you're lucky. Not that "high" necessarily implies a happy song of course - this song is mostly reminding us that we're all going to die. Still, we'll all be laughing when we meet on a cloud (oh yes, that's high up too!).



On a baritone 8 string, with a bit of harmonica and keyboard, and a tenor ukulele too.

It's only just occurred to me that this is a curious spelling of "aeroplane" for an American band. I guess it just scans better...
 
So Chris and Del threw the gauntlet down last night with this one and I'm only too happy to oblige.

It's a bit of a unique White Stripes song as, for a man famous for his minimalist production and arrangement Jack White kind of threw the kitchen sink at this one and the end result is an absolutely ridiculous song. I think it's a far superior riff to Seven Nation Army.

Anyway, I've tried to capture elements of this. If left a couple cues about the high pitched merits of this one, but the biggest of all is I played the highest note on my electric uke, the 19th fret of the A string, then bent it higher. Its not quite on the pitch shifter wizardry that Jack White uses but it'll still set all dogs within a five mile radius off. You've been warned.

 
And here is one from your co-host.
This is a cover of a James Blunt song. It has become somewhat unfashionable to admit to liking his music, but I’m not ashamed to say that I really like his stuff. This one fits my theme because of the title and also because I was at the upper reaches of my limited vocal range in places here.
And thanks to all contributors to the season so far - some really good entries on the playlist already! :)

 
here is a homemade song for del and his half of this week's theme...

low emotional state
singing about as low as my voice can go
over what i think are the lowest-sounding chords i can play? E and Em on the bari
and... er... sitting on the floor to play, which, given i don't have a basement, is about as low as i can go :rolleyes:

"feeling low"

 
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