Ukulele Tunings I once met a professional guitarist who happens to be a Monk expert, and I shared my idea for the Monkulele project. He rolled his eyes and said something to the effect of “Good luck with that.”
For good reason. The limited chromatic range of a reentrant-tunedukulele is indeed a major challenge for playing Monk’s music.
But I always enjoy a challenge. After a lot of experimentation, I came up with two ways to overcome this issue:
Low G String Tuning: Most of these songs are arranged in standard ukulele C tuning, but with a low G string. If you’re not familiar with this, read about low-G tuning here: https://www.ukuleleworld.com/tuning-ukulele-to-low-g/ .Low G tuning is being adopted by a growing number of uke players. It extends the chromatic range of this little instrument, and it helps quite a bit.
Bb Tuning: About a third of these arrangements go a step further, and use Bb tuning rather than C tuning. In Bb tuning, each string is lowered a full step (two ukulele frets) from C tuning. This is the case with all of Monk’s blues songs, which are all written in the key of Bb. This tuning provides the low F note that are essential for these songs.
For the songs arranged for Bb tuning, the tabs will work just fine with a uke tuned to C, but the result will be a full tone higher than the original Monk version, and you won’t be able to play along with original recordings.
I happen to use a pair of ukes, one in each tuning. To use a single uke without constantly retuning, you can tune it to Bb and use a capo on the second fret for the songs in C tuning.
Playing the songs with a high G string (or high F string, for Bb tuning) is not advised—they will just sound wrong.
Instrumentation My intent has been to provide a guide to playing Monk tunes on a single ukulele, and I initially wrote arrangements exclusively for solo uke. However, there are a few songs that seem better suited to two ukuleles, so I’ve opted to post those arrangements instead. (See, e.g., Epistrophy, I Mean You, Friday The 13th, Green Chimneys). Just know that you can also play the same arrangements on solo uke, but with a little extra effort.
You’ll notice that many of the audio transcripts include a bass track. I did this for two reasons:
Many of Monk’s songs were written for jazz combos, and, to me, playing them solo on a little ukulele loses a lot of their magic. A bass line provides a more complete sense of the composition.
I once read of Branford Marsalis speaking about “the criminal stupidity of messing with the tempo of Thelonious Monk.” Including a bass track was a way to emphasize the tempo of these songs, which often have long rests that can create a challenge for anyone new to Monk. The bass provides a subtle, but steady, beat to help keep the proper tempo on the ukulele.