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Recent Posts
- Holy Cow for high G ukulele January 30, 2025
- Two Tigers for high G ukulele January 29, 2025
- Rabbit Hole for high G ukulele January 29, 2025
- Dragon Born for high G ukulele January 27, 2025
- Year of the Snake for high G ukulele January 27, 2025
- Music terminology January 25, 2025
- Homage to Carcassi for low G ukulele January 25, 2025
- Take Five on Five ukulele duet January 24, 2025
- The Five Note Dance duet for high G ukulele January 24, 2025
- Fill and connect melody with passing notes January 23, 2025
- The pedal tone applied to a lead sheet for ukulele January 23, 2025
- Harmonized major scale exercises for high G ukulele January 23, 2025
- Dance on Mostly Open Strings for high G ukulele January 22, 2025
- Dance on Open Strings for high G ukulele January 22, 2025
- Simplifying Midnight Diner theme, Omoide 思ひで, for ukulele January 21, 2025
- Body Surfing for easy ukulele transposed January 20, 2025
- Daily Music Writing Project January 20, 2025
- Body Surfing for easy ukulele January 19, 2025
- 3 Chord Thursday 2025 Ukulele + January 15, 2025
- World Ukulele Day Workshops January 15, 2025
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Recent Posts: Concert Blog
REVIEW: Discovering Fingerstyle Ukulele Songbook by Colin Tribe
Colin Tribe’s new book offers new possibilities for ukulele players who aspire to fingerpick their way through thirty of the most popular songs of all time. These chord melody arrangements show a variety of ways the high G ukulele can be used for instrumental solo or duet (such as chord accompaniment and melodic fingerpicking) . […]
REVIEW: Piano Animals (duet) by Heleen Verleur
This 31-page book of four hand piano music is sheer FUN with a capital F. The composer Heleen Verleur knows just what pianists love playing: music that is easy to read, sounds hard to play, but is so much fun that you don’t want to stop until it ends.
REVIEW: Ukulele Picking Tunes Classical Gems by Paul Mansell
This 40-page book is the latest contribution to the ukulele repertoire by the UK-based ukulele and guitar composer Paul Mansell. Guitarists who play the ukulele are few and far between, for many adult learners pick up the ukulele without knowing the guitar. Yet it takes a guitarist who understands the possibilities of the re-entrant tuned […]
REVIEW: Modern Pieces for Ukulele by Paul Mansell
Review of first three pieces from the new book Modern Pieces for Ukulele by Paul Mansell
Group piano class in Zoom
Introducing my group piano class online: Group Piano Class in Zoom. The first series of seven weekly one-hour class started in June 2021. The second (continuation of the first) started in October 2021 at alternating weeks, until end of December (seven sessions). The third series of 16 consecutive weeks started at the beginning of 2022. […]
Monthly Archives: September 2023
Fall 2023 Classes in Zoom
Hot off the press! In response to student feedback, I’m offering two Music Theory courses: One for anyone who has not taken any music theory previously. And another 2.0 for those who have. I’m co-teaching a new course SONGWRITING with … Continue reading
Brown Eyed Girl double stops in Margaritaville
Catchy instrumental introductions hook you in, especially if they return as an instrumental interlude later in the song. Without these intros and interludes, the song seems incomplete. Such is the case of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” and Jimmy Buffett’s … Continue reading
Puff, the Magic Dragon
An instrumental introduction sets the tempo, establishes the rhythm, and anticipates the starting note of the melody for a song. Here’s my attempt to capture Peter, Paul and Mary’s version of “Puff, the Magic Dragon” in a key I can … Continue reading
Canon for a Wedding
Why did Pachelbel write the Canon in D? He was an organist not a violinist. Yet he wrote the Canon and the Gigue for three violins, later accompanied by basso continuo (e.g. harpsichord, lute, or cello). One speculation is that … Continue reading
Pachelbel Medley (workshops in Zoom)
For Pachelbel’s Birthday Party, I made a medley of songs that follow the eight-bar chord progression in Pachelbel’s Canon. In selecting the songs, I noticed that most of the 24 songs I had listed did NOT follow the progression in … Continue reading