Pearl Jam were some of the key players in the grunge scene of the late 80s and early 90s. I was especially drawn to Eddie Vedder’s coarse vocals. They are so penetrative.
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Eddie is also a king in the ukulele community. His album Ukulele Songs was crafted entirely on the four-string instrument. He first picked one up in a Hawaiian convenience store in the mid-1990s as a traveling companion and songwriting tool.
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Today we are learning to play Alive from their Ten album. If you would like to see a full arrangement of that album, you can do so here.
Pearl Jam Ukulele Tabs
Not sure how to read these? Check out this guide and you will be learning these ukulele tabs in no time.
This is a fantastic little arrangement to play as we incorporating many different styles of playing.Â
The first step is to strum the A major chord.
Then, using your middle finger, we are hammering on. This is a technique that means you pluck the string for the first note. Then place your middle finger for the next note without plucking.
We are then doing four strums, the pattern is up, down, up and down. The final strum is the start of the next section.
Its much of the same expect the ending involves a pull off. This is a similar concept to the hammer on. It means only plucking once and creating the rest of the notes using your fretting fingers.Â
Repeat this entire part 4 times
A|-0-----0h2----0---------|-0-----0h2----0-2h3p2p0---|- E|-0----------------------|-0----------------------3-|- C|-1-0h2----------0-1-0-1-|-1-0h2--------------------|- G|-2--------------0-2-0-2-|-2------------------------|-
Chords at the end
A|-0-0-0-0----3----
E|-1-1-1-1----0----
C|-0-0-0-0----0----
G|-2-2-2-2----0----

I recently arranged Eddie Vedder’s soundtrack to the Into The Wild film on the ukulele too. The tabs for that can be found here.
