I love the internet. For over 10 years, I’ve been getting basic music cheat-sheets from various places online, mostly stuff that was painstakingly transcribed by hand from fans of the songs. But a problem I’ve always had is that most of the music is written out for the guitar, and there are some differences if you want to play it on the ukulele.

I did a Google search for “transcribing guitar tabs to ukulele tabs”, and came up bust for the most part. Sadly, a lot of the results were along the lines of: “Chords are chords, no matter what the instrument, it stays the same, DUH.”

Thing is, there’s tabs, and then there’s chords. Different things.

Tab (or tablature) is written out so you don’t need to know the notes or how to read sheet music. It’s meant primarily for the single-note plucking stuff. Chords, on the other hand, are for the strumming. So for this example, I’m going to use REM’s “Everybody Hurts”. Because I have a thing for playing sad, morose songs on the sprightly ukulele. Anyhoo, here’s what both parts look like:

TAB:

CHORDS:

Totally different. So while the chords charts are universal, and can be used for any instrument, the tabs are much more instrument-specific because the strings of a guitar and a ukulele are tuned to different notes. I could play the top 4 strings as written on the ukulele, but the chords wouldn’t match.

Here’s a little recap for how each instrument is strung:

On the guitar, the six strings are tuned to the notes E-A-D-G-B-E, from the lowest-pitched string to the highest. For the sake of comparison to a ukulele, here I’m making the D chord. In this chord, you don’t play the two lowest-pitched strings, so you’re just strumming the D-G-B-E strings. Now check out the uke:

The same fingers are on the same strings in the same places. But because the ukulele’s strings are tuned to G-C-E-A, this chord is now a G.

The interesting part is that every string on the ukulele is 5 half-steps higher than the corresponding string on the guitar (that’s assuming that your uke has a low-G, and not a re-entrant high-G. Having that G string be higher adds another monkey wrench into the transcription).

So how the heck do I translate the one to the other? Well, there are several options.

1. Convert the chords: You could play the tabs as-is, and play different chords. That means that in “Everybody Hurts”, every G chord becomes a C chord, and every D chord becomes a G chord. It works for this song because the chords are still easy to strum. But you’ll most likely come across a song where the original chord is something easy like an F, and you’d have to play a Bb instead. Also, it means you can’t play along with the original recording, and it might end up in a wonky key that’s unsingable for you.

2. Bump everything up 5 spots: Keep the chords the same, and just bump everything in the tab up 5 spots. After all, the guitar is 5 half-steps off from the uke, so adding 5 to every number on the tab will put everything in the right key.

The problem is that you’re getting into some pretty high notes here. Things might sound a little shrill. Plus, the orignal was much easier with all of those zeroes — playing the open strings without having to put your fingers on the frets. For a beginner, it’ll be harder to play those 5s, 7s, and 8s. Also, we’ve totally lost the lowest notes, because they were on that very lowest string. A string the uke doesn’t have.

3. Capo up 5: So there’s a gadget called a capo that they make for guitars, but you can use it on your ukulele too. It’s a rubber-bottomed bar that locks across all the strings, so you’ve basically created a new ground zero for your instrument. If you put the capo right before the 5th fret on the ukulele, you’ve changed the base notes on the uke to D-G-B-E — the same notes as a guitar (only higher-pitched). So you could play everything as written! Two problems: One, again, the notes are higher and shriller. Two, on a uke, things get a little cramped higher up the fretboard:

Even for my little girly fingers, there’s not a lot of room to make that chord.

4. Retranscribe using actual notes: If you can get hold of sheet music, and if you can read sheet music, that’ll help immensely. You’d basically take the whole thing down to the notes, and then recraft tabs from scratch. Here’s the sheet music (And how intriguing, the sheet music includes guitar tabs!) for this opening riff:

This is where some knowledge of sheet music comes in handy. You can look at the sheet and figure out that the notes are:
D-A-D-F#-D-A / D-A-D-F#-D-A / G-D-G-G-D-G / G-D-G-G-D-G

So during that second part, I need 3 G notes: one low, one medium, one high. So that’s where I’ll start. The lowest note on my ukulele is the base note on my low-G string. Next up is the 3rd fret on my E string, and then … the 10th fret on the A string. So the second section alone is:

My friends, that’s ugly. And hard to play, to boot. So transcribing as actually written is maybe not the best move.

5. Creative re-arrangement: As Tim Gunn would say, it’s make-it-work time. Let’s take another look at the chord structures from the original guitar tablature — not the tabs, but the chords, which are D and G:

If you place your fingers where they’re supposed to go when you pluck the first half, you’ll see that your fingers are naturally in the spots for the D chord on the guitar. So what if we do the same with the uke? Place our fingers in the D chord, then just pluck one note at a time. Same with the second part, in the G chord. You end up with something like this:

Much easier to play, and it sounds really good! It’s not perfect, but as the saying goes, perfect is the enemy of good. If you’re just learning, or even if you’re any level of player less expert than Jake Shimabukuro, I think it’s better to alter things to be good but achievable, instead of striving for crazy-fingered perfection and giving up in frustration.

For another exercise in plucking chords, I highly recommend Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”. Not only is it a morose ballad (something I love to play on the uke), but it has really easy chords. Especially the chorus, which is the chords D-A-D-A, then C-G-C-G. All easy on the uke. Just make the chord shapes, then pluck the strings from highest to lowest four times through in each chord.

What with the growing interest in ukuleles in recent years, you’d think that there would be some good strap technology. It gets tiring to clutch your uke to your bosom all the time, after all. But there only appear to be three types of strap tech out there:

1. The kind that hooks onto the sound hole, and puts the weight in a sort of noose around your neck;

2. The kind that’s just like a smaller version of a guitar strap, and requires you to drill a hole and install a strap button on the bottom of the uke;

3. And the kind that only holds the uke in one spot, leashing it to your body but still requiring you to clutch it all the time.

I didn’t want to drill holes in any of my ukes, so I asked at my local music store (the delightful Orlando location of George’s Music, where they have more ukes than all of our area Guitar Centers combined) if there was such a thing as a stick-on button for a ukulele strap. The guy told me he’d never heard of anything like that, but if I could invent it, it’d be an awesome thing.

So off I went to the store!

I got a set of the Command mini-hooks I’d seen advertised on TV. They have a sticky pad with a tab that’s supposed to make them quick and easy to remove, and they won’t damage your walls. Sounds good! There were several sizes to choose from — I went with the size that holds up to a half-pound; they seemed to be the right cross between big enough to hold the weight of the uke, but small enough to be relatively unobtrusive. For reference, the hooks I got are model #17006, and they cost around three bucks.

Then I went to my local craft megastore (Michael’s is my nearest. Wish there were a Jo-Ann closer, though.) and bought some cheap ribbon. This was 3/8″ polyester ribbon from the 50¢ bin. I’d advise that you get yourself the softest ribbon you can find; this is going to be resting against your neck, after all. I’m sure you can tell that I got the high-quality stuff from the classy packaging.

I broke one hook off the sprue, and got one of the sticky pads. You stick the red side to the hook, and the black side to the wall/surface/ukulele. I don’t know what horrible things would happen if you stuck the black side to the hook and the red side to the uke. I didn’t want to chance anything, so I obeyed the directions on the package.

Then, the challenging question: which way to face the hook? I was worried that the bottom of the uke would be just curved enough that the pad wouldn’t stick. But I also figured that a hook facing downward would be the best angle for holding the uke, so I went ahead and tried it. On this particular concert-sized uke, there was no problem getting the pad to stick. The bottom of the ukulele was just flat enough. In checking out my soprano-sized uke, the bottom center is also just flat enough to take one of these hooks.

I cut a way-too-long strip of ribbon, then looped it around the headstock, just above the nut and under the strings. Then I tossed it around my body, figured out the right length for my personal tastes, and tied a single loop knot at that length.

Now I have a strap of just the right length, and can easily put that loop on the hook. I wiggled and jiggled everything around, and it holds really well. Nice and secure. So now I can stand and make jazz hands with my uke at the ready!

Top 7. Because 5 is never enough, but I’m too lazy for 10.

I’ve covered my favorite band, Duran Duran, already. (And I just bought their new album All You Need Is Now over at Amazon so I don’t have to give any money to the devil iTunes.) So now we move on to my second favorite band, Pink Floyd.

That’s right, Pink Floyd. Because I was raised on a hearty musical diet of ’70s wuss-rock, adult alternative, and psychedelic concept albums. I’ve seen them (and various versions of them) in concert several times, and own most of the stuff after Syd Barrett left. Not a big Barrett fan, I. And just like when fans of the Beatles have to declare a Lennon/McCartney preference (McCartney, FYI), so must Floyd fans declare Barrett/Waters/Gilmour. Personally: Gilmour.

Onward to my top 7!

7. “Us and Them” – The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973

So Dark Side is the earliest album that will appear on this list. And it’s an amazing album in its entirety — if you haven’t seen it yet, check out the episode of Classic Albums to see some of the amazing, ahead-of-their-time the guys did. Oh, and it’s also available on Netflix streaming. Seriously, it’s worth it alone for the live footage in the studio. As for “Us and Them,” it’s a gorgeous song with a great sax solo. And the original instrumental done for the film Zabriskie Point (again, see the Classic Albums episode) is gut-wrenchingly beautiful.

6. “Coming Back to Life” – The Divison Bell, 1994

This song has it all. It’s a ballad, which you know I love. It’s all Gilmour-ish, with guitar solos galore. The lyrics are deep and dark and meaningful, and yet the song itself is in the upbeat key of C-major without sounding like peppy pop.

5. “Learning to Fly” – A Momentary Lapse of Reason, 1987

I don’t recall my parents buying The Final Cut in 1983, so this was the first fresh Floyd in the house since the late ’70s. And in 1987, I was in the midst of my teenage years. So the album must have been good, to suck me into listening into parent music. This song struck me with the literal interpretation (I wanted to learn to fly [still do, and one day I'll finish flight school, dagnabbit]) and with the metaphorical meaning — reaching out and trying something new and different and exciting. Plus, of course, Gilmour all over.

4. “The Great Gig in the Sky” – The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973

This is one of my all-time favorites for singing along in the privacy of my car. I’d also choose this as my entry if I ever got involved in a professional whistling contest. It’s even more amazing when you know that Clare Torry’s vocals are completely improvised. And like any good improviser, after she was done she apologized to everyone for being so terrible.

3. “Terminal Frost” – A Momentary Lapse of Reason, 1987

I love it when bands put an instrumental track on their album. This one is all about Gilmour and Mason (Wright wasn’t there, so the track uses a drum machine), as well as two saxophones (one of them clearly the sax player for Supertramp). For some reason, a bunch of the saxophone parts make me think of Trevor Jones’s instrumental tracks on the sountrack for the movie Labyrinth. This is one of those songs that’s best when you put on a pair of big can headphones and block out the rest of the world.

2. “Comfortably Numb” – The Wall, 1979

Of course, the entirety of The Wall is incredible. A one-of-a-kind concept album, the likes of which we may never see again. And there are a ton of good songs on that album. But this one has always stood out for me musically. In looking up information online right now, I see that it’s one of the few songs on The Wall that wasn’t completely written by Waters, so that may be part of it. Another part is that it’s one of the first songs I learned on the ukulele. Which sounds like a joke, but really, the chords are dead simple on a uke. (“Mother” is even easier.) Next I’m working on the guitar solos. I’ve actually sat with the uke and the chords and played through most of The Wall while listening to it — Waters wasn’t exactly all about the hard chords.

1. “Shine on You Crazy Diamond (parts I-VI)” – Wish You Were Here, 1975

If anyone out there wants to get technical and say that this is five songs, I say to you: suck it. This rips from the CD as one 17-minute track, so I’m calling it one song. The thing is, for all seventeen minutes, it just rocks. Weirdly enough, it totally kicks the ass of parts VII-IX. It’s like they frontloaded the best stuff into the whole “Shine on” suite. Although on my CD, it appears that part VI is both at the end of the first set and at the beginning of the second set, bookending the rest of the album content. I use the 4-note theme (technically at the beginning of part II) as a ringtone on my phone. And when we lived at our old apartment, I’d occasionally use this song as a timer for my drive home, which usually took between 15 and 18 minutes, depending on how generous the traffic signals were. It just hits all of my Floyd sweet spots: sax solos, guitar solos, lots of Gilmour, instrumental chunks, slow tempo. Oh, and it’s my second choice for a whistling contest. So come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and SHINE!

Yes, top 7. Because 5 is never enough, but I’m too lazy for 10.

What better way to launch a new category — my personal top 7 lists — than with the songs from my favorite band, Duran Duran. They’re still as fantastic to me now as they were 28 years ago. I have to make some tough choices, since their discography includes 14 albums, as well as numerous B-sides, demos, and other rare songs that didn’t make it onto an LP. My MP3 collection, which is incomplete (but has some remixes, demos, and live versions) contains 137 songs. Tough choosies!

7. “Someone Else Not Me” – Pop Trash, 2000

This is probably a song you’ve never heard of, from an album you’ve likewise never heard of. Unless you’re a big ol’ Durannie. But it hits me right in my mellow sweet spot — Duran Duran made great party music, to be sure, but they also really knew their way around a ballad.

6. “Serious” – Liberty, 1990

Again, you ask: what? From what? That’s right, another track from a little-listened record. Not only is it the best cut from Liberty, it’s really the only great song on that album. The rest are fair to good, but this album suffered from musical musicians and the boys figuring out what they were doing. The band liked the song enough to play it on MTV Unplugged in 1993, so there’s that. A great ballad with a great sound.

5. “Rio” – Rio, 1982

Wait, what? “Rio” isn’t the number one song? Not for me, it’s not. Although it’s an excellent piece of work, with an upbeat tempo, full of fun, and a bassline I’ve always loved. It is, however, hindered by that long super-quiet lead-in, which always makes me think my CD player is suddenly on the fritz. But the big problem is, Rio is an amazing album full of outstanding songs. Which means for me, personally, the song “Rio” isn’t even the number two song on that record.

4. “Lonely in Your Nightmare” – Rio, 1982

Because this song is my number-two from Rio. The third track on the album, sandwiched between radio giants “Rio” and “Hungry Like the Wolf”, has always been one of my favorites. And it’s made even more awesome by a game we play at the House of Meyer, where we try to fit whatever we’re saying into the cadence, “if blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, let me in.” So just remember: if it’s time to fold the laundry, let me in. (Now please excuse me for a moment, because it actually is time to fold the laundry.)

3. “What Happens Tomorrow” – Astronaut, 2004

I just about exploded when I first heard that the original five were getting back together for this album. I fretted greatly that it wouldn’t be good, but my frets were unfounded. The album as a whole is quite good, with a few songs that stray into great territory. They managed to capture a lot of the fun positivity that made their early stuff successful, but they also tweaked things enough to be current. “What Happens Tomorrow” is a perfect combination of hopefulness and smooth ballad.

2. “Save a Prayer” – Rio, 1982

Okay, so you may have realized by now that I like ballads. Probably 80% of my music collection in general consists of slower songs. And this is one of the best damned ballads ever made. What girl who heard this song didn’t want to be the one whose one-night-stand Simon LeBon called “paradise”?

1. “Girls on Film” – Duran Duran, 1981

I have three versions of this song in my collection. One from the original album, one from 1984′s live Arena album, and the “night version” from the 12″ single. The song is peppy, and fun, and vibrant. The full Godley & Creme video was shockingly full of boobs, while the concert video from Arena had leather-and-lace girls playing roller derby. Which was awesome. But it’s the song’s personal staying power that puts it in the number one spot: whenever I make a new mix CD for the car, a version of this song is always on it. In fact, my current car mix has both the Arena version (I put the whole album on this one, except for I omitted “Wild Boys”) and the night version on it. Just hearing it makes me want to dance around. Or skate fast in a circle. (But not in leather and lace.)

I got a new musical instrument last week. It’s like a couple of musical instruments I already have, but it’s SO SO different.

My new baby is the center instrument — a Kala Makala concert ukulele. “Concert” is a size — the next size up from soprano, which is the smallest of the ukes. The right-hand ukulele is a soprano, my old cheap Johnson (my, that sounds a little dirty). I felt ready to move up to something that sounds better and is a little higher quality. Mind you, this concert is pretty cheap still. The Johnson soprano was around $25, this Kala concert is $50. Although I got a package deal, which included the ukulele, a really nice padded bag, and an electric tuner. The tuner alone is worth the package price.

I got it locally at George’s Music, a chain with stores in Florida and Pennsylvania. What a weird mix. Anyhoo, they had a much better selection of ukuleles than our local Guitar Center, Sam Ash, and that creepy independent place by the freeway combined. Plus, they had a little one-hour Ukulele 101 class, which I forced Scott to attend. Either he’ll start playing with me, or he’ll get a comic out of it, or both. I’m hoping for both.

I also did a little IKEA hacking here. Instead of paying 15 bucks each for guitar and uke wall hangers, I got shelf brackets for 50 cents each. Two for each instrument, and that’s three bucks for my display wall. Works for me!

Here you can also admire some of our books and DVDs, as well as the collection of fezzes and Mexican wrestling masks. And my American Idol Experience lanyard. FUN! Also, for the curious, my guitar is a student size, because I have tiny girl hands.

Anyhoo, you may wonder how the new uke sounds. It sounds GREAT! You can really tell the difference in quality. Although I wouldn’t scoff at little Johnson; he’s been a great uke, and I’ll still play him. My very first uke (which died years ago when two tuning pegs broke the same week) was a super-cheap yellow floral job, and until it broke, it still sounded OK. I’ve already told Scott that if I had unlimited space and budget, we’d have a massive collection of ukuleles.

If you’re interested in learning to play, you could do worse than finding music to play at Dr. Uke, printing out the Ukulele Lady’s chord chart (although I prefer Dr. Uke’s D-chord) and visiting the massive archive at Ultimate Guitar for the chords to your favorite rock/pop songs.

I’m in the middle of reading the February 26th issue of Entertainment Weekly, which was delivered to my home earlier this week. I don’t understand why it was delivered, since the label on the front clearly states my EW subscription expiration month as JAN10, but if they want to keep sending me free magazines, I’ll keep on reading them.

There’s an article in this issue about Lady Antebellum. The article taught me that Lady Antebellum is actually a group of three people, not one single person. My confusion stems from two sources: one is that the names Lady Antebellum and Lady Gaga both appeared on my radar around the same time, and since Lady Gaga is one person, I figured Lady Antebellum was as well. This, of course, is the same kind of rash assumption that caused Darius Rucker to shout at a friend of mine, “MY NAME IS NOT HOOTIE.”

I’ve never actually heard music from either Lady; country isn’t my thing, and although a friend of mine gave me a copy of a Lady Gaga album, I’ve been too busy listening to classic acts like Duran Duran to give it a shot. Although I do get to hear “Poker Face” almost every week at the roller rink.

The Lady mixup is not as confusing, however, as when a young female singer named Nelly Furtado appeared on the scene at roughly the same time as a young male rapper named Nelly. Man, that one boggled my mind. I was never really sure who was who most of the time. And I actually felt bad for both of them. Most of the confusion was probably in my own head anyway — many years ago, a girl I worked with said she was going to the Pink concert. I expressed my surprise, since I hadn’t heard that Pink Floyd was back together. Yes, I’d never heard of Pink at the time. And yes, she looked at me as if I’d grown a second head … because she’d never heard of Pink Floyd.

Bottom line, don’t call yourself Lady if you’re not a lady. That’s just confusing. Keep it normal and easily gender- and size-guessable, like that sweet young lady I’ve heard of recently, Flo Rida.

JoCo with Paul & Storm

Last night, we attended the Jonathan Coulton concert. This was his first time playing in Florida, and I think he’ll be back. The crowd was awesome (and what a fascinating, geek-tee-shirt wearing, bearded demographic he has), even though at this particular club (The Social) there’s no seating, so we stood for ~4 hours. This morning my back hurts, but my head is happy.

My friend Sarah took a picture of me and Scott with JoCo; she was the only one with a working camera with a flash (and it was her Blackberry, at that). So that’s still forthcoming. Lesson learned — take the good camera, not just the phone! We were concerned, because some venues really crack down on any photography, but The Social merely banned “really large video cameras”. Everything else was OK.

I’ve never been to a concert this intimate — almost all of my concertgoing experiences have been in massive arenas or sports stadiums. Even when I went to see the Puppini Sisters at the House of Blues, we were up on a balcony and were separated from the performers.

I actually got to help out a little bit with bringing JoCo and his family to WDW, so I got to meet him a couple of days ago. And I have to say: nicest. Guy. Ever. At the concert, when wandering around and mingling before and after the show, he called me by name. I gotta say, that’s an awesome feeling, having someone you think is so grand know who you are.

It’s getting harder and harder to find new internet music services. Sure, there are some like Live365 and Shoutcast and Accuradio that are pre-programmed stations, but I’m after stations where I can hear exactly what I want to hear.

Tastefully presented in basic black.

The latest system I’ve tried is finetune (they seem to not want the name capitalized, so I’ll follow suit). They seem to be completely free, with no alternate paid option to get ad-free or feature-rich service.

As with so many players, you start with a single artist and go from there. In order to take a break from the Depeche Mode and Cure that usually follows Duran Duran, I’ve gone a different direction and started with Poe. Clicking on her, I’m given a list of similar artists: Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, Dido, Sheryl Crow. All right, a fair place to start.

Finetune (sorry, finetune — couldn’t help capitalizing at the start of the sentence) appears to be solely a music discovery player. You can listen to other people’s playlists, but after searching their FAQ and then doing a Google search, it looks like they disabled the ability to build new playlists earlier this year. Most of the search engine results are postings from 2006 and 2007, when this player was apparently more feature-rich and user-friendly. Which sucks the big banana. So you can mark artists and albums as “favorites”, but you can’t pile them into your own list.

Speaking of marking things as favorites, finetune is lacking a very, VERY important feature for me: the ability to mark songs/albums/artists as NOT favorites. They have no red X, no frowny-face, no thumbs-down for me to click on. There’s a fast-forward button, but after you FF past five songs, you get a little pop up that reads, “You’re gonna have to listen to some of them…” and you’re stuck. Even if you call up a different artist and start listening to their station, you’re still blocked from any further fast-forward action. It looks like you have to wait 5 minutes, then you get the ability to fast-forward one more time, before you’re blocked again.

They have one feature I haven’t really seen anywhere else, which is user tags. You can tag artists or albums with whatever words you like, be it genres or feelings or emoticons. So instead of the player service classifying Poe as, say, “alternative rock, pop” … you get a list like this: “Alternative Rock, Grunge, alt rock, Hoobastank, I <3 Poe, Kassad, Malaysia, melayu, Melodic, mintyjulep, offspring, women who rock, zwan33's Rather soft". So clearly, people are using the tags as a work-around to the now-missing playlist feature. Which blows.

Overall, finetune is near the bottom of the list. It's not even ON the list for playlist-based, play-on-demand services. And Pandora is still the top dog for discovery players.

My excitement levels are rising every day, for something that’s not happening for over two months. Forget Thanksgiving, the Winter Solstice, Christmas, Boxing Day, or even New Year’s Eve. What I’m looking forward to is January 14th, when Jonathan Coulton plays his first concert in Orlando.

You Seattleites have it so good. JoCo plays there practically every couple of months. It’s about time you shared the love!

This concert will also most likely be our first big trip to downtown Orlando. We’ve driven past downtown a couple of times, and I’ve visited places on the outskirts once or twice, but we’ve never really been down, down, downtown. We were actually hoping he’d play our House of Blues, but he’s opted to play some joint called The Social.

It wasn’t until I combed through my blog archives that I realized, I knew of JoCo four long years ago; I posted a link to his cover of Baby Got Back.

I’ve had “Flickr” stuck in my head for days. So here’s the video:

First off, I’m going to send Rhapsody to the garbage pile immediately. They only allow 25 song plays per month; if you want more, you have to pay $12.99 per month.

This week, I’ve been testing the Grooveshark service. As with most internet music sites, there’s a paid version that goes for $3/month or $30/year. But I’m just using the free version, because I’m a cheapskate.

Clean and neat. Queue and player along the bottom.

As far as making playlists and listening to specific songs anytime I want to, Grooveshark is the new winner. It’s almost more like a huge collective hard drive of music, with contributions from users, than it is a regular service. You can play any song instantly. You can play it over and over again, without limits. You can build and save playlists with any number of songs, and play them whenever you like. It’s far and away the best service I’ve found for playing what you want, when you want.

The selection of music is surprisingly large, I suppose because it’s contributed by users all over the world. Not only do they have every Duran Duran song I’d ever want to listen to (including the very hard to find “To the Shore,” which was dropped from their first album on re-issue to be replaced with “Is There Something I Should Know”). I’ve been able to find almost every rare thing I can think of, including the soundtrack to the 80s cartoon movie Animalympics and the original soundtrack to the videogame Psychonauts. If there are songs you own that aren’t on there, you can upload them to your account (and by doing so, share them with the world).

The interface can be a little sluggish at times, as it’s a big Flash program. But for the most part, search is snappy and there’s very little, if any, delay between songs. The player runs along the bottom of the screen, and you don’t have to navigate away from the player to browse or search. There’s one skyscraper ad banner on the right side, which isn’t too distracting. They even have a variety of themes to make the player pretty (although the coolest themes are reserved for the $3/month “VIP” members).

So it does playlists, but how about new music discovery? It’s available, but it’s not the best. Formerly called “Autoplay” and now called “Radio”, Grooveshark lets you put a song (or two, or three, or more) in your queue, then will feed similar songs. But it’s a bit too predictable — a couple of Duran Duran songs (my usual baseline) got me some Depeche Mode, some Cure, and Billy Idol. I think if I’m in the mood for discovery, I’ll head back over to Pandora, where they use the very cool music genome project to make more interesting and unexpected offers of new music.

If you wanted to pay, what does your $3/month or $30/year get you? More themes, more server space for your uploaded music, and a higher number of “favorite”-marked songs. You also get no ads, first shot at trying out any new updates, more screen size adjustability, and it appears there’s a desktop player (but it’s hard to find out information without ponying up the dough).

So there it is: Grooveshark is the new top dog for playlists and immediate specific-song playback. And it’s even earned a spot in my favorite bookmarks bar up at the top of IE. And I feel like I’m supporting a local business, since they’re based here in sunny Florida.