AVE MARIA – Bach/Gounod – Arranged for Ukulele by Ukulele Mike Lynch

Ave Maria is a popular and much-recorded setting of the Latin text Ave Maria, originally published in 1853 as Méditation sur le Premier Prélude de Piano de S. Bach. The piece consists of a melody by the French Romantic composer Charles Gounod especially designed to be superimposed over the Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846, from Book I of J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, written some 137 years earlier.
Ukulele Mike Lynch has transposed this piece from the original Key of Cmaj to allow for a more practical fingering for standard GCEA ukulele tuning. By the way, this was arranged for standard High G Tuning. He’s broken away from the original 8th note figures that Bach utilized for his original Prelude in C maj and instead uses a rhythmic figure identical to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. . . It’s in 4/4 time with 4 triplet 8th note figures in each measure. It’s a techniqhe that Ukulele Mike has chosen numerous times in such pieces as his Paris Nocturne Cherry Blossoms and in the French love song: Plaisir d’amour. Since the ukulele typically has very little sustain, by using this triplet figure it allows the chordal accompaniment to ring out longer and continue to sustain more consistently underneath the melody that rides on top. In most cases the Gounod melody is found on the first and second strings with just a few cases of the melody jumping over to the third or fourth string. Since this arrangement was writeen with a High G tuning the 4th string notes are crucial so don’t come off all that well with a Low G tuning. Sorry all of those you have ukes with Low G. . . That does bring up a point though, that it’s really important to consider having 2 ukes at hand. One with Low G, one with High G. Both tunings do have their strong points so having both at hand gives the player much more flexibility.

There are several right hand fingering patterns that are suggested in this arrangement.
p – Thumb
I – Index Finger
M – Middle Finger

Thumb plays 4th and 3rd strings
Index plays 2nd string
Middle finger plays 1st string
There are only a few minor times that this rule is broken in this piece.

So here are several of those fingerings used in this arrangement.
M P I M P I M P I M P I
M I P M I P M I P M I P
P I M P I M P I M P I M

This arrangement comes in both tablature as well as standard treble clef notation. Here is a small example from page one:

Here is a video performance by Ukulele Mike with voice over commentary:
https://vimeo.com/68666360
Tablature is available for purchase $5.39 by simply paying through the paypal donate button on the Ukulele Mike website: http://www.ukulelemikelynch.com Once purchased it will be emailed to you within the day.

Note: We also have available the UKULELE SOLO INSTRUMENTAL eBook 2013 Enlarged edition: $28.95 as well as several separate solo ukulele instrumentals: AKAKA FALLS, PLAISIR D’AMOUR available for purchase.

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