For Love of the Uke – Chordie Mellows my Mind

Though my brand new uke skills feel shy, small, and middling after watching tUnE yArDs and Courtney Wing make ukulele magic this weekend at POP Montreal, I still gotta say I love this little stringed thing, and suspect you would love one too, even if you just strum and hum alone in your room every once in a while. Here’s 2 quick videos from the aforementionned local sweethearts (one is tUnE yArDs rocking out, the other is mostly Courtney Wing in interview, but I swear he plays a gorgeous old ukulele and the sound is as charming as the man himself):

Though I’m nowhere near this crazy beautiful artistry, I can rock my purple ukulele to several Neil Young covers, plus some Britney Spears and Stars. I wanted an instrument that I could just play well enough to sing along to, and now I’ve got one. This is mostly thanks to one website that makes my hobbyist heart glad. It’s Chordie.com – a search engine for music tab and chord charts that provides the additional awesomeness on a majority of their songs of a drop down menu that lets you choose if you want to display tab for guitar or for mandolin, ukulele, baritone uke, banjo, and more. Now me and my bluegrass girl jam pals can sit cozy round the computer, just like in the old days, and rock out.

Here’s one of our favorites, Neil Young’s Mellow my Mind, performed here by yours truly in the key of pyjamas: