Today, classical string instruments specialist Herman Vandecauter kindly shares the ukulele tab for a solo piece by Italian guitarist and composer Francesco Molino (1775 – 1847).
Here is some extra information kindly provided by Herman.
Francesco Molino arranged this small happy dancing solo piece written for guitar from his 19th century guitar method. I have the original 19th century book at home. He was a guitarist but also a violinist working in Paris!
Pictures provided byHerman: Francesco Molino’s guitar method and a lovely lithography of his best student, the Duchess of Berry.
If you grow tired of playing ukulele on the western scales, today is your chance to discover the Japanese Yo scale and on the Indian C majorscale.
The Japanese Yo scale is a pentatonic scale using 5 notes instead of the 7 which are commonly used in western scales. Besides, the Yo scale does not contain semitones. You can read explanations about the Japanese Yo scale on Wikipedia.
Listen to Ken Middleton improvising some traditional Japanese folk music on the Yo scale on an Ohana TK-35CG tenor ukulele.
If you are into music theory and would like to read more about the various Japanese scales, this post for guitar players might interest you.
Here is another improvisation, on the C majorIndian scale this time by tittlescwats11.
For further reading on the subject of scales and ukulele, this thread on the Ukulele Underground forum will provide you with plenty of information on scales from the Middle East.
Herman Vandecauter has recently uploaded a new video in which he performs a Courante he has arranged for the ukulele. A ‘courante’ is a tripple meter dance from the late Renaissance or the Baroque music era.
I have asked Herman for more information about the piece, but let’s first listen to and enjoy the Schmitt Courante beautifully performed on a soprano Ohana SK 100G.
Here is what Herman can tell us about the piece :
This piece made my new Ohana a pleasure to play.
There is hardly anything to say about the origin of the piece: I got it with the annotation Anonymous and a wrong estimation about its century of origin which is the 16th century and not later.
When I did play the piece I got the impression that I had heard it before and thought it could have been Thieleman Susato or Michael Praetorius and indeed I did find a similar courante from the German composer Michael Praetorius where the second part is the same. This can’t just be pure coincidence! But the first part doesn’t really fit.
The tremolo part is uncommon for lute pieces but it can be that the original was written for another instrument. Since the base part is too slow for a nice tremolo I played a quadruple tremolo with 4 notes instead of 3.
Today’s post will focus on fingerstyle or classical ukulele with beautiful playing from Herman Vandecauter, Wilfried Welti, Josh Skaja and Ken Middleton.
Check out the end of this post to find out about the latest releases of classical style ukulele ebooks.
Herman Vandecauter from Belgium performs Paisanne, a piece by Silvius Leopold Weiss and treats us with a slide show of nice ukulele pictures and cunning photo montages.
Wilfried Welti from Germany plays Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór, the first composition by Turlough O’Carolan on his Glyph soprano ukulele.
Josh Skaja from Tall Grass Ukesin the United-States plays John King‘s arrangement of Gloria. It is great to hear such lovely performances of John King‘s arrangements as John is sorely missed in the classical ukulele world.
New fingerstyle ebooks released :
Ken Middleton has released a new ebook entitled 12 Hymn Tunes for Ukulele. The hymn tunes featured included Abide With Me, Amazing Grace, Away In A Manger and nine others, all very neatly laid out with explanations on the ukulele techniques used. You can purchase the ebook on Ken’s website.
Listen to Ken performing his arrangement of Abide With Me :
Jamie Holding has released 2 new ebooks, one ebook aimed at beginners in classical ukulele, entitled 20 melodies, featuring 20 one-line melodies from famous British composers such as Campion, Purcell, Dowland and Rosseter. The book can be purchased from Jamie’s website.
The other ebook consists of 5 arrangements of pieces by John Dowland and one piece (Pavana) by Gaspar Sanz. It is entitled John Dowland -- 5 pieces. Purchase the ebook from Jamie’s website.
I have been asked several times when Rob MacKillop‘s ebooks will be published by Mel Bay so I will update this post as soon as I find out.
Today multi-string-instrumentalist Herman Vandecauter from Belgium discusses the importance of using the little finger when playing the ukulele and illustrates his point with an exercise for ukuleles in GCEA tuning which you can hear and download further in this post.
I am always impressed when I see good left hand technique on the ukulele. I attach the greatest possible importance on the use of the fourth finger (the little finger or pinky) of the left hand, so often neglected.
Your little finger can become extremely flexible and fast if trained in the right manner.
The 4th finger should be your first choice when you reach the third fret of the first string.
Using it instead of the 3rd finger grants freedom to your other fingers and this technique is used in nearly all embellishments.
Keep the 3rd finger free for the third and fourth strings where it belongs unless you are using the ukulele as a violin in melodic passages.
Besides, keeping your little finger in the air is a form of inefficiency.
In order to help you train your little finger, download and practise Herman‘s exercise. The idea is to practise daily in order to gain the necessary strength and flexibility in your little finger.
The exercise sounds very nice when Herman plays it. You can download the MP3 here.
You’ve chosen to learn to play the ukulele. Read interviews of skilled ukulele players and find out about tips they are giving. See my posts on useful tutorials and links.
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