UK Christmas Number Ones – 2003

Michael Andrews & Gary Jules covered this Tear For Fears number, taking their stripped down version of  Mad World from the soundtrack of Donnie Darko.

Here’s Jonathan Lewis of Jon’s Ukuleles with his performance & tabs:

More info on Wikipedia.

PS For those of you wanting the answer to the other UK number one single than Bohemian Rhapsody to contain the word ‘fandango’, it was this classic song.

 

Carry On Campanella

A rather pretty style of playing ukulele is campanella (from the Italian for ‘little bell’), a way of picking which allows multiple strings to ring at the same time, creating a harp-like sound.

Jonathan Lewis devotes his site Jon’s Ukulele to campanella fingerstyle ukulele, including some interesting examples of Celtic, medieval, Baroque & folk tunes. He has a number of tutorials on there, including a useful free How To Play Campanella Ukulele guide. Many of his posts and YouTubes include a tab of his arrangement.

Recently he made the following free book available for circulation. It contains ten traditional tunes (some are known by different titles in various regions):

Campanella Ukulele: Ten Morris tunes now available to download for free (or a contribution if you insist). I may expand it at some point in the future but as I’ve been promising to publish the tabs for a long time I decided to release it now.
Here’s the link to Gumroad
Go to my YouTube to hear all of the tunes, there’s a playlist of Morris tunes

1. The Banks of the Dee
2. Brighton Camp
3. Bumpus O’Stretton
4. The Cuckoo’s Nest
5. Galopede
6. Lads a Bunchum
7. The Nutting Girl
8. Old Molly Oxford
9. The Princess Royal
10. Ribbon Dance

Here he is performing Brighton Camp (also known as The Girl I Left Behind Me & Waxie’s Dargle) :