Ukulele & Languages

Chinese songs on Ukulele

你好 ! (Ni Hao) Feel like practising Chinese and ukulele today ?

Here are a couple of songs performed by Zhang Songtao.

First, a Cantonese song :

and another song :

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Adventures in 19th-century Iceland : Les Fumerolles de Thulé

And now for something completely different… Today it is time to reveal what my big project was all about…

My friend Guillaume and I started a discussion one day on how broad and eclectic our subjects of interest were and how difficult it was to find a thread to make sense of them all. We both enjoyed writing, were captivated by nineteenth century litterature and beautiful books with engravings from this period. Besides, I was fascinated by Iceland and the Icelandic language while Guillaume would spend hours copying Olaus Magnus‘ Carta Marina.

One day we  decided to board a brig heading towards northern latitudes and see where it would lead us. The journey was a long and perilous one, the outcome uncertain… After more than a year of brain turmoil, writing whirlwinds, and drawing maelströms, a book was born : Les Fumerolles de Thulé.

Guillaume, who has co-written Les Fumerolles de Thulé with me, has also

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Ukulele and Guitar Improvisation

One of the things I find most difficult in my ukulele learning process is to keep time while playing. An excellent exercise is to play with others.

My friend Ganymede Gwilym and I often like to play a series of chords to practise keeping time when playing together. Today we had great fun doing a video of an improvisation on 4 chords of Clocks by Coldplay (initially D Am C Em, transposed to G Dm F Am). Trying to keep a steady ukulele fingerpicking while the guitar is changing rhythm is excellent practice.

Here is our rendition of passing time :

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