PlaysoloistStringsUkuleleSongsThe Wild Rover
ukulele song · Strings
The Wild Rover Ukulele Tab
- Composer
- Traditional
- Year
- —
- Key
- C
- Time
- 3/4
- Tempo
- 126 BPM
- Difficulty
- Beginner · ★
- First note
- C4
The Wild Rover on ukulele
The full melody, rendered as four-string ukulele tab in re-entrant High-G (gCEA) you can read on screen or print for the stand — free, and never truncated.
Notes marked with a dot are folded up an octave to sit in the ukulele’s range — the app arranges them the same way.
Arranged for the standard re-entrant High-G (gCEA) ukulele. On Low G, Baritone or D tuning the app re-fingers the same melody live. Left-handed? The app can mirror the whole tab.
Lyrics
Bar 1 — I've been a wild rover for many's the year
Bar 6 — and I've spent all my money on whiskey and beer
Bar 11 — but now I'm returning with gold in great store
Bar 16 — and I never will play the wild rover no more
Bar 20 — And it's no, nay, never
Bar 25 — no, nay, never no more
Bar 28 — will I play the wild rover
Bar 32 — no, never, no more
Trad. Irish, 17th c. — public domain.
How to practise this on ukulele
The Wild Rover is in C and opens on C4. This tab is arranged for the standard re-entrant High-G ukulele: the fourth string (the top of the written tab, marked g) is tuned above the two strings under it, which is why a melody can dip onto the open g and come out sounding high — that's the instrument's signature, not a misprint. If you play Low G, the app re-fingers the same melody for your tuning live.
Pick the melody with alternating thumb and index, or the index alone on slower pieces, and keep your fretting fingers curled so open strings ring clear. Set the metronome under around 126 BPM, watch the tab rather than your hands, and loop the bar your take review grades worst until it comes back clean twice in a row. By the numbers, this setting runs 79 notes across 36 bars, from G3 up to G4 in 3/4 time.
Also playable on
The same melody is graded across 6 Playsoloist instruments. See every version, with difficulty and provenance, on the The Wild Rover cross-instrument hub.
Keep exploring
Free on the App Store
Play The Wild Rover — and hear every note graded.
Soloist Ukulele reads this four-string ukulele tab in re-entrant High-G (gCEA) under the notation and grades your take on-device, note by note — free on iPhone, no ads, no account.
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