Ukulele & Languages

Different countries,
Different cultures
one common language... the ukulele.

Posts Tagged ‘classical’

Discover ukulele instrumentals and fingerpicking at its best with the following selection of fingerstyle videos from around the world.

Whether it be in theme tunes, classical pieces, Celtic tunes, Brazilian music, flamenco and gipsy jazz, rock songs, the ukulele sounds really great. Enjoy this demonstration of the versatility of our favourite instrument !

United-Kingdom

Ken Middleton skillfully demonstrates the campanella technique on Loch Na Garr, a beautiful arrangement which I find very relaxing to listen to.

The arrangement can be purchased in Ken‘s ebook of Celtic arrangements : Celtic Ukulele ebook.

Germany

Jo. Vogel has made a lovely arrangement of a piece by Brazilian

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Today I’d like to take a look at the latest fingerstyle videos and include some useful fingerpicking tutorials.

First a really lovely ukulele duo performed by Herman Vandecauter and one of his students. The piece, arranged by Herman, is called Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) and shows how good a teacher he is!

Relax and enjoy this beautiful piece of Renaissance music. If you’d like to learn to play along, Herman has posted the tabs of the first part here.

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Ken Middleton has just released an ebook entitled 12 tunes for Celtic Ukulele and has been very kind to send me a copy so I’d like to share some information as to what is in the ebook. I haven’t had time to try the arrangements myself yet, but I am looking forward to it.

First things first, let’s listen to Ken himself playing one of his lovely arrangements, Fisher’s Hornpipe.

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I am very briefly emerging from my blog break to dedicate this post to my friend who succumbed to cancer a week ago. Thanks to everyone who sent a word of support, that meant a lot to me.

Here is a selection of  fingerstyle ukulele videos I really like.

Pablo9000 is playing some Henry Purcell on the ukulele and it sounds great :

Jens from Germany plays a Study by Spanish Dioniso Aguado

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If you’ve been following the blog, you will know that I have been learning classical uke with Herman Vandecauter over Skype for the past 8 months.

I was therefore thrilled when Herman told me he and his wife would stop over at my place on his holiday tour.

It was certainly a very enriching weekend and I have learnt a great deal. Besides being a very skilled player of various plucked string instruments, Herman knows many stories about the history of music and has many an anecdote to tell about his 40 years of experience as a classical guitarist.

Herman took it on himself to play Tico Tico, a piece he had just finished arranging for the classical guitar, while at the same time teaching myself and a newly ukulele-converted friend to strum along on our ukes. Tico Tico was composed in 1917 by Brazilian musician and composer de Abreu.

The result is not that bad considering we learnt the piece in one afternoon. Many thanks to Herman’s wifefor filming.

Herman demonstrated his skills on both the guitar and the ukulele and seeing him play here was a truly amazing experience. He played so many complex pieces from memory,

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