Here's how to play the Brown Sugar riff on the uke

[David Barnes]

This is a fun "guitar riff for the uke" that I am addicted to playing...

Here's how it sounds on a crappy Mahalo: http://davidbarnes.posterous.com/private/XRQ8g0qid2

The basic chords are:

Eb, C, Ab, Bb, C.

Try that, it’ll sound roughly right. The Eb and C are for a full bar, the Ab and Bb for half a bar each.

There are some embellishments:

The Eb starts with the normal 0331 but you throw in a 0311 as well.
The C chord starts the normal 0003 but goes to 0010.
Ab is hard enough without any embellishments. But if I’m feeling dexterous I’ll play the Bb with with a bit of 3213 thrown in.
The C at the end is like the C at the first.

PS It wasn't obvious to me where mini tutorials like this should go on the Cosmos. Hope I got it right. Playing Tips and Ditty Dissection also seemed sensible places.

[J Boy Shyne]

Hey David-

The Stones did this tune by tuning their geetars to G (DGDGBD). On a re-entrant C tuned uke (gCEA), (from memory), I guess I would do something like this:

Code: Select all

     C  G   C  C F F  C
A||--3--2---3--3-3-3--3-------||
E||--3--3---0--0-5-5--0----1-3||  4 times
C||--4--2---0--0-5-5--0-0-2---||
g||--5--4---0--0-5-5--0-------|| 


Then

   Eb EbsusEb C Csus C Ab Abadd9 Bb  C   F  C
A||-1-1-1--1--3-3-3--3--3-3-3----1-1-3-3-3--3-||
E||-3-4-4--3--3-3-3--3--4-4-4----1-1-3-3-5--3-|| 2 times
C||-3-3-3--3--4-5-5--4--3-3-3----2-2-4-4-5--4-||
g||-3-3-3--3--5-5-5--5--1-3-3----3-3-5-5-5--5-||


Vocal Bit


    C   C6    C   C  F F F6           C               Bb       C
A|--3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3--1-1-3-1-3-1-3-1--3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3--1-------3-----------|
E|--3-3-5-3-5-3-5-3--3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3--3-3-5-3-5-3-5-3--1-------0-----------|
C|--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--2-------0-----------|
g|--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--3-------0-----------| 

    G       C
A||-2-------2-----------||
E||-3-------3-----------||
C||-2-------2-----------|| 2 TIMES
g||-0-------0-----------||

Play along with recording. The above should give you a guide line of the whole tune.

[David Barnes]

Thanks JBoy. I'm pretty sure my own approach is only slightly different from yours, and sounds OK to me. I'm not sure if you're saying my way is wrong, or providing a tidied arrangement, or what.

The classic Stones sound is based around alternating between the normal major chord and the 6sus4. On a Open G guitar the fingering for doing that with a C is:

5-5
5-6
5-5
5-7
5-5
x-x

(Keef doesn't use the bottom E at all.)

Most Keef parts are based on moving that shape around the fret board. More info here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/66495/Instant ... h-Richards

[J Boy Shyne]

I was just showing all the parts.

[David Barnes]

Once again I provide the vision, you provide the details. Nice work and thanks.

What is in your mouth in the 2nd frame of your avatar?

[Uncle Rufus]

He'll tell you it's a kazoo, but we all know it's an enormous Camberwell Carrot.

[David Barnes]

I see. I've been trying to work out how it appears out of nowhere. I suppose it's some kind of trick photography.

It's wonderful how in 2 tiny images J Boy makes playing ukulele appear to be the seediest activity known to man.

[J Boy Shyne]

On the topic of Stones' riff's, here's the Brian Jones riff from The Last Time:

Code: Select all

    E         D      A
A|-----5--7-------5------4-|
E|-5/7---7------5------5---|
C|------------2------------|
G|-------------------2-----|


[Shindig]

I always thought that was JBoy's Gene Simmons-like tongue.

[Birdman]

Thanks David. I guess you could equally go from the C 0003 to C sus4 0013, instead of to 0010.

[David Barnes]

Hi Birdman, both options sound good -- but a little different. I find the 0010 option sounds a little looser / sloppier / more Stones-y.

[Birdman]

Yep, see what you mean.

[David Barnes]

Try playing with these other variations:

Most Rolling Stones songs are played in 'Open G' on a guitar and use chord shapes that are hard to play on a standard guitar. Hence the distinctive Keef riffage you get on songs like Start Me Up, Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Woman, and most of the other songs they've released since 1970.

You can give your playing a Rolling Stones feel using these chords:

For a C, alternate between a normal C: 0003 and a Keef C: 0010 (C6sus4, is it?)

For a G, alternate between 0232 and 0203.

For F, alternate between 2010 and 2211 (this is a bit harder).

Because quite a lot of Stones songs are three chord wonders, you can transpose many of them to use these chords.

If that F shape doesn't work for your fingers, try 3210 instead.

For example you can do the Start Me Up with just 2 bars of G followed by 2 bars of F, but throwing in those variations above.

[J Boy Shyne]

Ya know, the easiest way to do this tune is just to tune gCEG and then just use one finger and slap down 2 more when you need em. So

Code: Select all

     C   G   C   C6sus
G||--12--7---0-0-0-0--0-||
E||--12--7---0-0-1-1--0-||  4 times
C||--12--7---0-0-0-0--0-||
g||--12--7---0-0-2-2--0-|| 

Then

  Eb Eb6sus Eb 
G|3--3--3---3-|
E|3--4--4---3-|
C|3--3--3---3-|
g|3--5--5---3-|



Then do the same thing for C (0000) C6sus (2010) then Ab (8888) to (10-8-9-8), to Bb (10-10-10-10), (12-10-11-10) to C again, etc...

For the vocal bit you just mess around on the C, so: C (0000) to C6sus(2010) and the F would be (5555) to (7565) and the G would be (7777)

[dstewart]

Just one qualm. The Eb part of the intro riff is not played, by Keef, as an Ebsus4. He plays an Ebsus9. (Or if you prefer, Ebsus2.) Take a very close listen to the recording, maybe with your guitar in hand as a check, and I think you'll hear that it's the Ebsus9; there's no Ab (or C); there is an F.

Playing a 5-string (no low E) Tele, tuned G D G B D, he barres across at the 8th fret (Eb), muting the high D, and bangs the ring finger down on the 10th fret of the G string to play the suspension. That makes it move much cooler when he plays the C / Csus4 bit -- the repetition of the F extension, starting over a different origin note, really is cool.

Looks like this on ukulele:

(Barre at 3rd fret with index finger for both chords)
Ebsus9
3 5 3 x

Eb (muted top string)
3 3 3 x

Code: Select all

Ebsus9          Eb   (muted top string)
0 ===x          0 ===x
1 ||||          1 ||||
2 ||||          2 ||||
3 •|•|          3 •••|
4 ||||          4 ||||
5 |•||          5 ||||

(Barre at 3rd fret with index finger for both chords)