Greensleeves or What Child Is This for ukulele

What if …. What if I were to arrange or compose something every single day? A tune a day keeps the …. at bay. A tune a day keeps the …. away. The tune takes over and infests like an ear worm until it’s done. A new tune replaces the old. a tune a day keeps the earworm at bay. Or even away. Such is the story of how I revisited Greensleeves on New Year’s Eve.

What if I were to supply the sheet music to an audio or video recording I made? And vice versa? What if there’s a one to one correspondence between what you see and what you hear?

Take this morning. I created a reel from the short video recording of me playing the organ, showing the change in registration (i.e. instrumentation) and reharmonization (different chord progressions). I had wanted to include the hymn “What Child Is This” as one of the four for the New Year’s Eve mass.

I remembered arranging it for low G ukulele on Sibelius Notation Software. But did I do anything with it?

Now that I’m writing for high G ukulele Campanella Style, I wonder if I can play it on the high G ukulele. I would need to transpose it for the high G string.

Earlier, I had arranged a lead sheet in F minor for high G ukulele.

I transposed it to G minor to see if it’s easier to play.

Curiosity got the better of me. Before long, I had arranged a chord melody version (instrumental solo) for Greensleeves in G minor on the high G ukulele.

Writing music for Campanella Style playing is like making a mosaic. Which fret and which string do should I place the notes so that it’s easy and fun for both left and right hand fingers? So that the notes sound as long as possible and sound good?

Two years ago, I had recorded myself playing Jeff Peterson’s arrangement of the melody of Greensleeves in A minor on low G ukulele. I’ve not yet recorded his chord melody arrangement. By studying chord melody arrangements, I learn new possibilities.

How are the chord melody arrangements for low G and high G ukulele different?

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