Ukulele World Tour Posts

20 2011

HappySad, Maja Koman, Ukulele and Polish

Let me invite you to a trip to Poland today where you’ll get to hear two Polish ukulele players in two different styles. Tune your ears to the Polish language while listening to the songs and the interviews…

HappySad is a popular Polish rock band formed in 2001. In the following acoustic live session for Balcony TV Poznan, two members of the band perform the song Kostuchna from their album Mów mi dobrze on ukulele and guitar. Check out the steady ukulele strumming and interesting chord progression.

If you wish to skip the introduction of the band in Polish, start the video at 1:47.

If anyone would like to try and study the ukulele strumming from the song Kostuchna, this instrumental cover by Szymon should help you visualise the chords played.

Maja Koman is a Polish singer and ukulele player. The only performance in Polish I could find was her participation in a Polish Music Contest where she seems to have impressed the jury with a children lullaby called Stary niedźwiedź mocno śpi. (Old Bear sleeps heavily)

Maja Koman seems to sing mostly in English. Here is her acoustic performance for Balcony TV Poznan.

If you wish to skip the introduction and simply listen to the song, start the video at 0:48.

Sunday, 20th November 2011 by Armelle Europe
Category: Ukulele World Tour
Tags: HappySad, Maja Koman, Poland, Polish, Ukulele
Comments: ( 2 )

17 2011

Ukulele Online Magazine : Pluck n°2

Why not learn French while reading about your favourite subject _ the ukulele ?

The PLUCK is an online ukulele magazine created by a team of French ukulele aficionados, dealing with a wide variety of ukulele aspects and very neatly laid out. At the moment, the PLUCK is all in French but the PLUCK team has already announced that they would work on an English translation.

Here is an overview of what you can find in the PLUCK n° 2:

- A PLUCK Express page informs you of the latest ukulele related events and includes a review of Al Wood‘s Ukulele for Dummies.

- Discover the luthier workshop of Wild Wood Lutherie Ukulélé, created by Christophe Chabaud.

- Find out the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain A to Z. It has to be mentioned that Julie from the PLUCK team is also behind the French blog UOGBfrogsfan.

- An account of the FIUL (International Ukulele Fest. of Lerrain)

- An interview of James Hill

- A review of Gus and Fin‘s CD, Ukezotica

- A trip to sunny places with information on the Polynesian ukulele.

- A section about a French organization teaching ukulele to kids.

- A brief history of the plastic ukulele.

- A music lesson about rhythm.

For 2.50 euros you get a great 36-page online magazine with international ukulele information. You can download a copy here on the PLUCK website.

If you wish to be informed as to when an English version of the magazine will be available, send a message to redaction@pluckmag.org.

Thursday, 17th November 2011 by Armelle Europe
Category: Ukulele World Tour
Tags: French, magazine, online, pluck, Ukulele
Comments: ( 2 )

15 2011

Siri Nilsen, ukulele and Norwegian

Norwegian singer and ukulele player Siri Nilsen has just released a new album, Alle Snakker Sant (Everybody is telling the truth). Those of you looking to learn or pratise Norwegian will definitely appreciate her lovely voice and very clear lyrics together with her ukulele fingerpicking.

[Update of the 16.11.2011 : Lillebjørn Nilsen, who is a renowned Norwegian singer and songwriter and also Siri's father sent me the link to a performance of 'Alle Snakker Sant' Siri and himself gave a few days ago during a TV show. It is the first time I see Lillebjørn perform on the uke, the guitar being his instrument of choice. The complicity between father and daughter is obvious in the video which you can view here (after a short ad).]

Here is a live version of the title song of the album, Alle Snakker Sant (Hvor skal du gå?)

And here is the studio version of the same song:

The album can be purchased on iTunes here.

Tuesday, 15th November 2011 by Armelle Europe
Category: Ukulele Albums, Ukulele World Tour
Tags: Lillebjørn, Lillebjørn Nilsen, Norway, norwegian, Siri, Siri Nilsen
Comments: ( 3 )

24 2011

Polish, Serbian, Thai, Greek, Kadazan : Ukulele World Tour

This World Tour Post will make you travel to Eastern and Southern Europe as well as Asia and should delight your ears with a wide variety of languages.

Many thanks to Al from the best ukulele blog Uke Hunt for sending me links to many of the videos featured in this post.

1. Country: United-Kingdom / Language : Polish

British singer and songwriter Katy Carr performs O Moj Rozmarynie

2. Country: Serbia / Language: Serbian

Jelena Petošević performs Želim da ti otkrijem čarobnu baštu

3. Country: Japan / Language: Thai

Shigeto Takahashi performs the theme song of the Thailand Ukulele Festival

4. Country: Greece / Language: Greek

A cover of a song by Greek singer Leonida Balafas (Λεωνίδας Μπαλάφας). The song is called Πυροσβεστήρας [Purosbesteras] -- Fire Extinguisher and is performed by the band Apostolos Gougoulakis & Band.

5. Country: Malaysia / Language: Instrumental

An instrumental ukulele cover of a Kadazan song written by Irene Thaddeus, Ka’Andaman Ku Doid Kampung. I wish this were not an instrumental cover as Kadazan would have been a nice addition to the collection of languages of this blog. Kadazan is an Austronesian language spoken in the State of Sabah in Malaysia.

Wednesday, 24th August 2011 by Armelle Europe
Category: Ukulele World Tour
Tags: Greece, Greek, Japan, Kadazan, Malaysia, Poland, Polish, Serbia, Serbian, Thai, Thailand, United-Kingdom
Comments: ( 0 )

17 2011

Ukulele song in Gujarati, Aav re varsaad

After a much needed long break I am back to share a ukulele song in a language not yet featured on Ukulele & Languages: Gujarati ( Gujarātī).

Many thanks to Canadian language lover and ukulele player Peter Forrest who informed me that he had endeavoured to learn a song in Gujarati.

The song, a poem for children, is called Aav Re Varsaad (Inviting Rain) and Peter has had the good idea to add the lyrics to the video.

I tried in vain to find a full translation of the lyrics. This site however, besides inviting you to try out a Gujarati recipe, provides an explanation of the first verses:

” Let the rain spread its shower again and again, to enjoy the hot chapatis (Roti) with bitter Gourd curry”.

Here are the lyrics :

Aav re varsaad

Aav re varsaad, dhebariyo parsaad,
Ooni ooni rotli ne Kaarela nu shaak.

Aav re varsaad, nevale paani,
Nathaaree chhokree ne dedke taani.

Aav re varsaad, dhebariyo parsaad,
Ooni ooni rotli ne kaarelaa nu shaak

As I didn’t know anything about the Gujarātī language, I used this excellent opportunity to become less ignorant and to do a bit of research.

Wikipedia tells me that Gujarātī is an Indo-Aryan language evolved from Sanskrit and originating from the state of Gujarat in Western India.

Gujarātī has its own writing system which I find both fascinating and complex. For further reading on the Gujarātī alphabet, check out these articles on Omniglot (Where the alphabet and its conjuncts can be downloaded in Word, Excel or PDF formats) and on Wikipedia.

To give you an idea, here is what the word Gujarātī looks like : ગુજરાતી . Please note that Gujarātī is written from left to right).

You may also wish to learn a few basic sentences in Gujarati.