In sewing, often only 3 measurements are required on patterns to determine a size to follow: bust/chest, waist and hips. That’s about as impractical as anything I’ve ever seen considering people are all kinds of height and shapes outside of those measurements. The vast majority of people don’t even fit the standard sizes made!
sheet
Guitar and Ukulele Tabs for The Water is Wide (Traditional)
If you ever need to practice or familiarize yourself or someone with melismas (singing of a single syllable while moving between different notes), this song is a lovely example. Listen to the video below of Sarah McLachlan, Jewel and the Indigo Girls at Lilith Fair and see how many words with one syllables they stretch onto more than one note, or just any syllable having the same thing done to it. No need to count precisely. Just get an idea why I say this song is a great example of a song containing melismas, besides it being a lovely song rather than just some bad songwriting where the writer had to use melismas force things to fit into phrases. Here, the tune is simple and allows for “decorations” with melismas. It’s quite a difference!
Vodpod videos no longer available.
In tabbing this song, while I based it on another year’s Lilith Fair recording with the Dixie Chicks instead of the Indigo Girls (that sounded funny), I did not include all the melismas you heard. Unless you can sing like Sarah McLachlan or Jewel or some of them other gals, you’re not going to be able to pull off all those melismas anyway… and you wouldn’t be on this site scouring for music. 🙂
I just put in a few. You can add more if you like. The tune is robust enough to handle it. that’s why it’s been around since the 1600s.
With a tune around since the 1600s, there are also many lyric versions for it. Oddly enough, though, when I went to source some of them because I didn’t think the ones used in the Lilith Fair concerts were all that “cohesive” or “flowing”, I still couldn’t find a set I liked. So I wrote my own. Not completely off the path, but rather similar, with more cohesiveness and flow, in my opinion. You can read more on that on my poetry blog, if you care.
All you need to know is my reworked lyrics were generally meant for me. I’m not going to force it upon anyone, which is why in the PDFs you download of this song, there are also the lyrics used in the Lilith Fair concerts. It’s quite close to most other popular recordings of the song, too.
Furthermore, I’ve put each version in two keys, G and C, because you’re probably going to find one of them challenging pending your voice range. Either that or it won’t sound as good. I am challenged to sing it in C, with all those high notes, but the version an octave lower just sounds terrible. This ain’t Russian bass choral music, you know!
Anyhow, give this beautiful song a try. Give it some patience in working out some melismas. You’ll be glad you did!
Water Is Wide, Traditional Guitar Tabs Letter Sized PDF
Water Is Wide, Traditional Guitar Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF
Water Is Wide, Traditional Ukulele Tabs Letter Sized PDF
Water Is Wide, Traditional Ukulele Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF
If the letter size tabs (8.5″ x 11″) are too small for your eyes, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11″ x 17″) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11″ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.
Please click here for guitar and ukulele tabs and chords to other songs on this blog.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 7.1
Guitar and Ukulele Tabs for Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
Leaving on a Jet Plane is a fantastic example why tabs and chord files you tend to find online, without notes written out, can be so problematic. The slightest change in how you sing a phrase can cause a different chord to be used. But without the notes, you just see a chord. Unless you happen to sing the phrase the same way in terms of notes, the listed chords might sound quite wrong to you. Or singing by ear, you might find trying to fit the phrase into the chording given is rather awkward.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
John Denver
In my tabbed files below, I have two sets of chords for each file, though they are both in the same key. It’s just a matter of how you phrase the first line, and some subsequent lines like it within the verse. If a C is your high note, as John Denver sings it in the video above, then one set of chords works well for it. If B is your high note, just a semi-tone below that C, another set of chord works better. But if there were no notes written out, you’d be scrambling to try to figure it out. And you’d be wrong if you sang it with a B for the high note, if you were a purist to try to sing it “right”.
That said, though, on the ukulele, I would actually recommend singing the version with the B high note in that first line (page 2 of the ukulele tabs). The C chord is just too open for my liking in the middle of the phrase. But that’s just my take. You play what you want. Hopefully, having these two versions will give you one that’s reasonably close to how you would sing it. Any further deviations and well, you’re on your own, I’m afraid. 🙂
But this is a prime example of why I have notes written out with my tabs and chords, aside from helping you (and me) sing things correctly.
I also left out a few chords on the ukulele version which didn’t add as much colour as the chords in the guitar version did. Most noticeably, I left out a bunch of D7 chords in the ukulele version, or just used a D. They were arranged in the guitar as such to denote mid-verse and end verse points, leading to transitions or not. But on the ukulele, l;et’s just say I’m not the biggest fan of the D7 chord in the C6 tuning of GCEA. You get to avoid it if you use a ADF#B tuning like Chalmers Doane preferred his ukuleles. In this song, where the D7 is used, it follows a D. As such, then, instead of using the barred version of D7, I recommend just dropping your pinky (baby) finger on to the 3rd fret of the A string while hold the D previously with your other three fingers.
Leaving on a Jet Plane, John Denver Guitar Tabs Letter Sized PDF
Leaving on a Jet Plane, John Denver Guitar Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF
Leaving on a Jet Plane, John Denver Ukulele Tabs Letter Sized PDF
Leaving on a Jet Plane, John Denver Ukulele Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF
If the letter size tabs (8.5″ x 11″) are too small for your eyes, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11″ x 17″) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11″ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.
Please click here for guitar and ukulele tabs and chords to other songs on this blog.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 6.6
Guitar and Ukulele Tabs for Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)
Hallelujah is one of the truly great Canadian songs of all time, written by one of Canada’s best songwriters ever, Leonard Cohen. It is generally simple to play in terms of chords, and simple to hard to perform pending how much diva you want to put into your performance.
I’ve tabbed a version reasonably similar to the one sung by kd lang in the video below, though I’ve included the notes of the melody by which I sing it. Best version I could find out there, in my opinion.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Leonard Cohen
The nice thing about robust tunes such as this is that you can put all kinds of little variations in the phrasing and it wouldn’t matter much so long as you hit the right notes for the chord changes. So feel free to stray from my tabbed notes and just do it the way you feel it.
This is also a pretty long song so I’ve created several formats and sizes. Choose the one that works well for you.
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen Guitar Tabs Letter Sized PDF [1 pg]
(small, but use to enlarge to tabloid size on photocopier)
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen Guitar Tabs Letter Sized PDF [2 pgs]
(2 sheets means page turn or used spread out)
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen Guitar Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF
(for printing directly onto tabloid sized paper)
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen Ukulele Tabs Letter Sized PDF [1 pg]
(small, but use to enlarge to tabloid size on photocopier)
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen Ukulele Tabs Letter Sized PDF [2 pgs]
(2 sheets means page turn or used spread out)
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen Ukulele Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF
(for printing directly onto tabloid sized paper)
If the letter size tabs (8.5″ x 11″) are too small for your eyes, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11″ x 17″) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11″ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.
Please click here for guitar and ukulele tabs and chords to other songs on this blog.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 9.0
Guitar and Ukulele Tabs for It Never Rains in Southern California (Albert Hammond)
The 70s song is about the struggles of a singer who moves out to California to pursue a career in Hollywood but does not have any success and deteriorates in the process. That’s in the words of Wikipedia.
Being in Halifax, Nova Scotia, sometimes known as Haliwood for its local prominence in the movie industry, I sometimes substitute “Nova Scotia” for “California”. It’s just for the cheesy fun of it.
It’s a great and catchy song that’s fairly to play otherwise. For newbies to the song, you can just skip the intro and instrumental bit in the middle. Just go through the verses. There are a few small variations among some of the lines that seem to be repeated, like It never rains in California. Pay attention to those if you want to watch the details, but most people probably wouldn’t care or notice those variations much. Otherwise, the tune is pretty close to the one in the video below.
Albert Hammond
It Never Rains in Southern California, Albert Hammond Guitar Tabs Letter Sized PDF
It Never Rains in Southern California, Albert Hammond Guitar Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF
It Never Rains in Southern California, Albert Hammond Ukulele Tabs Letter Sized PDF
It Never Rains in Southern California, Albert Hammond Ukulele Tabs Tabloid Sized PDF
These tabs all fit on one page to avoid the inconvenience of page turns. However, the letter size tabs (8.5″ x 11″) may be too small for your eyes. If so, you can either enlarge to tabloid size (11″ x 17″) using an automatic enlarge feature on many photocopiers, or download the tabloid sized versions for printing. The tabloid size tabs can be inserted into a typical letter sized binder on the 11″ size, and folded almost in half to fit. You just open each tab to use it.
Please click here for guitar and ukulele tabs and chords to other songs on this blog.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 8.6
Digital Citizen 