If my latest ukulele piece “Counting Sheep” doesn’t put you to sleep, “Counting Sheep to Sleep” surely will. When I wrote it yesterday, I hadn’t thought of it as a lullaby but it should be. Laid out on two pages instead of one, the new piece explores the four-note melody of Bach’s famous aria in five different pentatonic scales. The repetitive nature invites you to explore different dynamics. Start soft. Get louder. Stay loud. Get softer.
Unlike “Counting Sheep” this piece is more like an etude than a performance piece. I’ve taken the two-bar four-note melody from Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” BWV 208 and expanded it.
I don’t introduce any new notes but I do reuse and repurpose the notes.
Before changing keys, I spell out the four notes.
Interestingly, I can play the melody all on the four open strings of the high G ukulele.
The sections are ordered in increasing difficulty. Suffice to say, it’s easiest to play on all open strings.
Unlike “Counting Sheep” this piece makes less use of left hand techniques. Instead, it’s focus is on fingerpicking the individual notes.
12 Chinese Zodiac Tunes
- Counting Sheep
- Wild Horses or Horse with a Name or Horse’s Mouth
- Year of the Snake
- Dragon Born
- Rabbit Hole
- Two Tigers
- Holy Cow
- Rat Race
For other recent compositions and arrangements by Anne Ku, please visit the Daily Music Writing Project.
