Ukulele Utopia

A Virtual Learning Experience

The Specials – Message To You Rudy

Message To You Rudy

Most of the prominent parts of The Specials songs are played by their phenomenal brass section. That doesn’t mean to say we can’t play some of them on the uke though. Let’s learn the signature motif from Message To You Rudy on the ukulele.

What Are We Learning To Play?

Below is a video of what you will be able to play by the end of this post. 

Ukulele Tabs

This is a short part of the riff but I figured that there’s likely somebody out there that would like to learn it. I have transposed it down a semitone to make it fit into a medley I was doing. If you would like to play along to the song, just play everything 1 fret up.

Use your middle finger on the 6th C string. That’s going to free up your first and middle fingers to hit the other two notes of the first section. For the strums use a Down, Up, Down pattern. That’s going to give it the nice skank that this song deserves.

A |----------------2-2---2---4-4---4-|
E |---5-7--5-7-----3-3---3---5-5---5-|
C |-6----------6---2-2---2---4-4---4-|
G |----------------------------------|

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The Basics

In this section, we will cover everything you need to know about starting to play the ukulele.