This is one of the best cover versions of any song that I’ve seen on the ukulele so far. I’m not a Drake fan at all and in fact I heard the Kierra Folsom version before I heard the original and far prefer it.
Kierra plays this song with a capo at fret 1. I’ve done the same for the initial demo of the song and then shown the chords without the capo (for those of you that don’t own one) – if you do want to play with a capo then move the chords shown below up by 1 fret.
The Chords
So without a capo the chords used are Em, D6, and C6. Aside from the Em those are not particularly regular chords but they’re really easy to play. The D6 is just a barre at fret 2 across all the strings and the C6 is perhaps the greatest chord ever, you don’t need your left hand at all.
The sequence throughout follows this pattern and doesn’t deviate at all… Em, D6, C6, D6 so once you’ve nailed the strumming, you’re done.
Rhythm/Strumming Pattern
I love the strumming pattern on this one. Kierra has done a great job of transcribing a pretty awkward song and the pattern she uses is this…
DUDUX—
The X is a chuck/chunk (whatever you want to call it) and gives a slight percussive sound to the last strum. To play a chuck/chunk you need to rest the fleshy part of your strumming hand palm on the strings and then strum the strings with your index finger as you usually would. Your palm will dampen the sound and it will make more of a clicking noise. It may take a bit of getting used to but it’s worth persisting with as it’s a commonly used technique on the uke.
And finally, here’s Kierra’s brilliant cover version…
Hope you like the lesson!
That is how to make a Drake song appealing!
You are absolutely brilliant, I find it so enjoyable and relatable to watch your tutorials. There are a lot of ukulele tutorials online but only your ones make me feel like I can take it step by step, easy to understand and making it fun 🙂 Thank you so so much.