It’s that time of the year when ukulele players play songs from the Halloween set list. Although Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” is purely instrumental, it works well for the ukulele. It can be played as a solo, duet, and ensemble, in different keys, for low G and high G ukuleles. Let’s take a look at the music.
“In the Hall of the Mountain King” is the fourth piece in Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46, which opens with the famous pentatonic melody of “Morning Mood.” The lesser known second piece in this suite “Ase’s Death” is also a candidate for Halloween.
What makes “In the Hall of the Mountain King” easy to learn and fun to play?
- Learn three segments: A, B, and C.
- It’s repetitive.
- Start slowly and softly.
- Get faster and more intense.
- Express yourself with dynamics: as softly as possible, grow in volume, loud attacks
- Articulate: staccato, accents
- Single notes vs down strum or rolls on chords
As the ukulele arrangements I found on Youtube were not written in the original key of B minor, I wasn’t able to play along to the orchestra or piano version, which I had arranged for easy piano. It would be fun to memorize the few chord progressions and strum along to this exciting video below.
The three segments in the original key of Bm for low G ukulele are shown below.
So as not to exclude those with high G ukuleles, I transposed the piece into D minor and C minor. It was much easier to play in C minor. That’s why the versions I found on the Internet were mainly transposed to C minor!
These arrangements serve as excellent teaching material for my classes: fingerstyle ukulele (in-person), classical ukulele 1 (high G uke), classical ukulele 2 (low G uke), and music appreciation. Hopefully this music for ukulele will inspire someone to perform at the forthcoming Classical Music for Ukulele theme on 16th December 2021.
Check out the the videos, video tutorials, and free downloads.
- James Hill’s jazz arrangement for ensemble (free tab download)
- Colin Tribe’s chord melody arrangement for solo ukulele in Cm (e-mail to request for tab)
- Rainy Day Studio’s chord melody arrangement for solo ukulele in Dm (order online for the tab)
- Peter Edvinsson’s arrangement for solo ukulele in Cm (single notes) (download free tab)
- Nathan Hill’s arrangement for ukulele duet in Cm
My arrangement for low G ukulele in the original key of Bm can be used to play along to the orchestra or piano. The score is part of Volume V of a book of new arrangements for ukulele, with original illustrations by Eve Myles. Please contact to enquire.
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