No sheet music for the next song, since Cliff wrote it and he really seems to have had an extremely relaxed approach to publishing and copyright where his own compositions were concerned.
Bit of an experiment here: I've taken the chords from Chordify (no sheet music to work from, you see) and left them in the original key. That means you can play along with Cliff's performance, but it also means that they are slightly more complicated chords. The fact that they are mostly closed chords (no unfretted strings) does mean that it's possible to get that swinging, jazzy sound by slightly releasing the pressure after each strum, which is far harder to do with open chords. In that respect it's a lot closer to how Cliff played, but transposing to a different key is always an option if this looks a bit daunting. It's certainly going to take me a while.
Tea break this morning involved a spot of plinking and strumming on my Ohana O'Nino sopranissimo. I've settled on CDAF tuning for this one, which sounds good and has also improved the intonation (always a problem with fretted instruments of this size). Pretty happy with it.
I might skip tomorrow, but this evening I had enough energy to tackle two more ukulele sheets:
"(Back Home Again in) Indiana" by Ballard MacDonald and James F. Hanley (1917) is an old jazz standard and still played today, so perhaps it doesn't matter that I couldn't find Cliff's version online (I have the album it's on, but nobody seems to have YouTubed it).
Gave my atrophied woodworking skills an outing this afternoon, taking a reamer to the headstock of my old Ohana soprano and fitting a set of Gotoh planetary gear tuning pegs (which I've had lying around for yonks. As you do). Switched the clear fluorocarbon strings for a set of Fremont Blacklines, et voilà! it sounds fantastic.
For all the amazing ukuleles out there, a decently made, lightweight, mahogany soprano is hard to beat. This one's no Ken Timms… but then that's what I have the Ken Timms for 😁
Felt slightly refreshed after the now customary (and currently unavoidable) afternoon nap, so spent an hour this evening working on another Cliff Friend composition. A jaunty little number, with the added bonus of some mild digs at the main figures of the 1928 United States presidential election, for those of you who enjoy topical comedy… Here's Cliff Edwards performing it:
Tackling chores in the morning leaves me completely unable to focus on doing stuff for myself in the afternoon (or anything at all: I generally fall asleep), so today I'm being a little self-indulgent and working on some Cliff Edwards Project tunes first.
I should have guessed that after "Am I Blue?" went so smoothly I was bound to hit the rocks on my second song of the day. Cliff's version changes the lyrics substantially and I can't always make out what he said. Although I'm confident I've managed to get it 99% right there are still two or three words I can't deduce from context. Which is annoying.
I've uploaded Cliff's performance of "Clap Hands! Here Comes Charley!" (the spelling of which changes between printings of the sheet music, just to be extra annoying) to YouTube, since I couldn't find it there and I don't believe it shows up on any recent compilations of his songs. If you have a better ear than I do and can make out the words highlighted on the songsheet (also on YouTube) then please let me know, because I'm not convinced I have the lyrics exactly right.
"Here Comes The Sun" by George Harrison, and "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke, were both composed on an #ukulele -- at least that's what I've heard. #MusicHistory#20thCenturyMusic
Another song added to my Cliff Edwards Project folder, this one a very catchy Irving Berlin number also performed by Doris Day and many others. Unfortunately, the 1927 original includes some racially offensive lyrics, and later versions changed those to terms which didn't age as well as they might have hoped, so I've had to make a couple of very small tweaks. For that reason I'm not linking to Cliff's performance.
I restringed it and tied some thinner nylon cord as frets, like you would tie gut frets on lutes. They're roo sliperry to stay in place but I think it's starting to sound more palatable and I can play chords now!
(Tuning is mandolin's GDEA)
The wind today
Is strong and relentless
Throws dust in the air
Blows trash against fences
Puts grit in your teeth
And deadens your senses
The wind today
Is strong and relentless
Hold on
When the wind blows like that
Hold on
You better hold on to your hat