Ukulele & Languages

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

Posts Tagged ‘fingerstyle’

Today I’d like to relay several pieces of information pertaining to fingerstyle ukulele which I found interesting.

New ebook released by Jamie Holding :

Jamie Holding has published a new ebook entitled Joan Ambrosio Dalza -- 10 Pieces

Joan Ambrosio Dalza was an Italian lutenist and composer who played an important part in early Renaissance lute music. Jamie has arranged 10 of his works for the ukulele.

Jamie describes Dalza’s works as catchy and moderately easy to pick and play.

As a preview to his ebook, you can get a free sample music sheet of a piece called Piva here.

Buy the full ebook on Jamie Holding’s site here.

Familiarise yourself with Dalza’s work and listen to Valéry Sauvage playing Jamie Holding’s arrangement of Pavana alla Venetiana.

Rob MacKillop’s ebooks will be published by Mel Bay

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Today’s post will feature a selection of ukulele tutorials which should help you improve both your strumming and your fingerstyle techniques.

Before we move on to the tutorials, here is a link to a nice chord chart complete with fingering information created by Japanese Kunihisa Ogawa.

Tutorials for fingerpicking

Aaron has uploaded a very good fingerstyle ukulele tutorial. It is progressive, well explained and should help you get up to speed with a fingerpicking pattern. Aaron is giving a few useful tips for fingerpicking throughout the video.

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Today I am inviting you to listen to fingerstyle uke from all around the globe and to find out the latest news/videos from the fingerstyle ukulele players that I have interviewed this year.

Firstly, let’s travel to the Andes with Herman Vandecauter skillfully exploring another musical style, with 3 beautiful arrangements of pieces from the Andes. The tunes are played on a Kiwaya-KTC2 that Herman has just acquired.

Read Herman’s tips on ukulele fingerpicking here.

Subscribe to his YouTube channel here.

While we are in Latin America, here is a ukulele improvisation from Mexico, combining fingerpicking and strumming.

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The very first fingerpicking e-book that I purchased was Rob MacKillop’s 20 Celtic Fingerstyle Uke Tunes which I enjoy greatly. Even though I bought the e-book in April, I’m far from finished with it as there are a few challenging pieces that I haven’t even tried to play yet.

In order to find out a bit more about Rob MacKillop, I have asked him a few questions. But first things first, let’s hear him play in this flamencolele, a flamenco improvisation played on a Koloa UK-600 :

U&L : I read on your website that you actually started to play the ukulele at the age of eight then went over to the guitar before coming back to the uke : did your playing the ukulele influence the way you played guitar or did the guitar way take over and influence the way you play the uke now ?

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Today I’m inviting you to a world tour of fingerstyle ukulele players from 9 different countries. You’ll be able to hear different styles of music interpreted by players from different horizons, showing the versatility of the ukulele.

1. United-States

Tim, from the United States is playing a version of Larry O’Gaff. The parts where the video is in color are from John King’s version, and those where the video is in black and white are adapted from James Hill’s version.

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