Listen and watch the brief tutorial below on YouTube
From Wikipedia, we learn:
Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano, commonly known as “Für Elise” or “Fuer Elise” (German: [fyːʁ eːˈliːzə], English: “For Elise”, commonly written without German diacritical marks as “Fur Elise”), is one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s most popular compositions. It is usually classified as a bagatelle, but it is also sometimes referred to as an Albumblatt.
The score was not published until 1867, 40 years after the composer’s death in 1827. The discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, affirmed that the original autographed manuscript, now lost, was dated 27 April 1810.[4]
It’s become very clear to me that Chord/Melody format is the way to go for making solo ukulele pieces truly accessible to more people. I did a fingerpicking arrangement of FUR ELISE some time ago, but in the process of compiling this new collection…
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When it comes to Solo Instrumental Ukulele playing it’s all about the STRUM OF THE THUMB . . . Chord/Melody Series from Ukulele Mike Lynch
The response to all of the chord/melody arrangements I’ve published over this past year has been absolutely remarkable. It just confirms that chord/melody style is ultimately the way to go when approaching
Instrumental solo ukulele playing.
The greatest advantage we have with this arrangement format is that
There are absolutely no decisions to be made as to which finger plays which string since it’s all done with merely the strum of the thumb. . . Simply rolling the chord, be it a 2 note interval, 3 note chord or full 4 note chord we simultaneously play the melody note which always sits on top. . . What could be more easy? Now, keep in mind that the chords we play may not look entirely like those we first learned when beginning ukulele. Those chords are still used to be sure, but to achieve the melody part which often goes up…
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Enjoy the video performance and tutorial I made for this song on VIMEO
Source information derived from Wikipedia:
The New Christy Minstrels are an American folk music group founded by Randy Sparks in 1961. They recorded over 20 albums and had several hits, including “Green, Green”, “Saturday Night” and “Everybody Loves Saturday Night” (two different songs), “Today”, “Denver”, and “This Land Is Your Land”. Their 1962 debut album, Presenting The New Christy Minstrels won a Grammy Award and sat in the Billboard charts for two years. The group sold millions of records and were in demand at concerts and on television shows.They also launched the musical careers of several musicians, including Kenny Rogers, Larry Ramos, Gene Clark, Kim Carnes, and Barry McGuire.
Randy Sparks (b. 29 July 1933, Leavenworth, Kansas) is a musician, singer-songwriter and founder of The New Christy Minstrels and The Back Porch Majority. Sparks grew up…
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Watch and listen to the arrangement as performed on VIMEO
Hedy West (April 6, 1938 – July 3, 2005) was an American folksinger and songwriter.
West was of the same generation as Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and others of the American folk music revival. Her most famous song “500 Miles” is one of America’s best loved and best known folk songs. She was described by the English folk musician AL Lloyd as “far and away the best of American girl singers in the [folk] revival.”
Hedy West played the guitar and the banjo. She played both clawhammer style and a unique type of three finger picking that wasn’t quite bluegrass, and wasn’t quite old-time, exhibiting influences from blues and jazz.
Hedy West will be remembered for a long time as the composer of the beloved American folk song “500 Miles” This song has been covered by nearly every folk from…
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Announcing the release of UKULELE MIKE’S FAVORITES for Beginning Ukulele Songbook – $15.95 and can be purchased at this time by paying directly thru the paypal donate button on the UKULELE MIKE website: www.ukulelemikelynch.com
I’ve selected and arranged these songs into the best possible Ukulele friendly keys along with multiple suggested strumming and fingerpicking patterns. I’ve also noted the beginning vocal note for singing. In some cases I’ve leaned out the chord progressions to allow for ease of playing for newbie players without harming the essence of each tune. In the back of the book I’ve added my “OFFICIAL” UKULELE MIKE chord chart. Some of these songs go a bit beyond the chords taught in the DVD so the chord chart will effectively help the player expand their chord knowledge.
This is perfect for beginning players as a stand alone book or as a supplement to THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE…
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“I’ll Be Home For Christmas” a beloved World War II Christmas song, dedicated to “The Greatest Generation”
“I’ll Be Home For Christmas” by Kim Gannon, Walter Kent & Buck Ram
“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is a Christmas song recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby who scored a top ten hit with the song. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” has since gone on to become a Christmas standard.
The song is sung from the point of view of an overseas soldier during WWII, writing a letter to his family. In the message, he tells the family that he will be coming home, and to prepare the holiday for him including requests for “snow”, “mistletoe”, and “presents by the tree”. The song ends on a melancholy note, with the soldier saying “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”
The song was written by the lyricist Kim Gannon and composer Walter Kent. Buck Ram, who previously wrote a poem and song with the same title…
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It’s about time we finally got that “barre” chord technique down. . . Check out these vintage YouTube vids wth Ukulele Mike Lynch
How often have we started to play a song and then notice there is a barre chord and we turn
the page to the next song? Or, more often, we just glance over that chord and move on?
This is a typical scenario with plenty of stringed instrument players but needen’t be once
we become comfortable with the technique. Once we can confidently play barre chords a whole
world of music will open up for us. This I can promise you.
More often than not barre chords only happen occasionally within a song. . . . We could be playing along just fine for 16 measures then in comes an Fminor or perhaps a Bbminor chord. . .
Then we move on to more easily played fingerings. The mere fact that those chords only come a few times in any given song points out that we don’t really get good…
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“MORNING IN SPRINGTIME” – A new JAZZY Ukulele chord progression designed to build JAZZ chording skills by Ukulele Mike Lynch
FULL STANDARD NOTATION & TABLATURE FOR “MORNING IN SPRINGTIME”
Performance VIDEO and FULL Tutorial . . .
“PLAY IT MELLOW #1” A mellow Jazzy Chord Progression to teach Jazz chording skills for the Ukulele by Ukulele Mike Lynch
For any questions regarding Ukuele resources such as eBooks, DVDs, etc. . . please email Mike Lynch:
TheUkuleleman2012@hotmail.com
The response to all of the chord/melody arrangements I’ve published over this past year has been absolutely remarkable. It just confirms that chord/melody style is ultimately the way to go when approaching
Instrumental solo ukulele playing.
The greatest advantage we have with this arrangement format is that
There are absolutely no decisions to be made as to which finger plays which string since it’s all done with merely the strum of the thumb. . . Simply rolling the chord, be it a 2 note interval, 3 note chord or full 4 note chord we simultaneously play the melody note which always sits on top. . . What could be more easy? Now, keep in mind that the chords we play may not look entirely like those we first learned when beginning ukulele. Those chords are still used to be sure, but to achieve the melody part which often goes up the fingerboard, we also need to move the chords up as well. . . This means that we end up playing upper register chord “inversions”. Don’t be afraid of that fancy word. . . All we are doing is just learning new chord shapes that are played further up the neck. After a period of time working with these chord melody songs we will begin to see a pattern, so to speak. These chord shapes recur over and over again as we go from piece to piece just as we would with those tried and true first position chords we have played for so long in a strumming and singing sessions. . . Did I say singing? Ah, yes. . . I’ve found that there are plenty of people who absolutely love to play the ukulele but who are not so comfortable with singing. At least, not by themselves. So when asked by others to share a song on the ukulele they are timid and often back away from public performance. But. . . . once we learn a few of these solo instrumental pieces, we can readily astound our friends with the beautiful song of this simple but elegant instrument . Let the ukulele do the singing for you. . .
All of these pieces are formatted with both standard treble clef notation as well as ukulee tablature notation. Tabature notation doesn’t always do the best job in terms of indicating the duration or length of a note so having the standard notation on top we can readily see the note timing with the standard whole note, quarter, half note etc. . .
Let’s take a look at several short excerpts below:
Listed below are the contents of each eBook . . .
All three Chord Melody eBooks can be purchased separately for just $20.00 or all together at a combined discount of $50.00. . . They can be purchased through the paypal donate button on the Ukulele Mike website: http://www.ukulelemikelynch.com Once the payment is made, paypal will give you the opportunity to add more information such as the name of the eBook or collection you want.
It will then be emailed to you personally as a pdf file within the day of purchase.
The Chord/Melody collections are a perfect way to get into solo instrumental playing. No fingerpicking is involved. . . Just the simple use of the thumb is all that’s needed.
These arrangements work equally well with High G or Low G tuning and all sound excellent on the baritone ukulele as well.
Of course, the eBooks can be purchased separately as well. Their individual prices can be seen in the above image.
P.S. Audio examples of many of these arrangements can be heard on You Tube or VIMEO. .
Now available the NEW Chord Melody eBook FOUR
For any questions regarding Ukulele Resources please email Mike Lynch: TheUkuleleMan2012@Hotmail.com
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