Monthly Archives: July 2014

Week of 7/21/2014

Recent progress:

  • Finished and posted Visa Från Utanmyra
  • Created my own blank tablature template
  • Arranged, learned and posted Oh, What a Beautiful Morning
  • Arranged and learned two old songs I wrote on guitar for instrumental ukulele. I’ll post them up here soon
  • Arranged and learned the adagio theme from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto to solo ukulele (from piano sheet music) in both chord-melody and fingerstyle arrangements
  • Learned Mike Lynch’s chord-melody arrangement of Edelweiss – I like it better than my fingerstyle arrangement
  • Restored a bunch of old posts that were accidentally lost on this site

Practice plan:

  • Finish learning my fingerstyle arrangement of Clarinet Concerto
  • Learning clawhammer!
  • Still lingering from last time (I’ve been having too much fun arranging stuff):
    • Memorize the Godfather Theme as arranged by UkuleleHunt.com.
    • Learn to play Bach’s Gavotte II as arranged by John King.

Non-practice:

  • Record video of my Clarinet Concerto arrangements and post the tabs here
  • Record video of my two old guitar songs arranged for ukulele and post here

Spring Waltz

Here is an original tune written for solo ukulele. Tabs are below. This is played on a Pono MCD (mahogany concert deluxe).

I’ve changed up how I play this a bit since doing these tabs, but the fingering is the same. I used to finger pick the whole thing, but I started strumming that bit in the middle just to mix things up a bit.

Spring Waltz for Ukulele tabs (PDF)

Visa Från Utanmyra by Jan Johansson for Solo Ukulele

From Wikipedia: Jan Johansson (16 September 1931 – 9 November 1968) was a Swedish jazz pianist. He is little known outside Scandinavia, and his records are not widely available, though Jazz på svenska (Jazz in Swedish) has sold more than a quarter of a million copies, and is the best selling jazz release ever in Sweden.

Jazz på Svenska is a collection of Swedish folk tunes arranged for jazz piano with great mastery. Here’s Visa Från Utanmyra as he played it.

Here’s my substantially less subtle and masterful arrangement for the ukulele. Tab is linked below.

Download Tabs (PDF)

“Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” for Solo Ukulele

Here’s an arrangement I whipped up over the weekend. We had the remnants of a tropical storm pass through on Friday, and Saturday morning was one of those glorious, sunny, breezy, clean air days after a day of wind and rain. This song popped in my head. I thought it would work well for the uke, and it did.

The tabs are hand-written, something I’m trying out in lieu of having to fuss with Guitar Pro on the computer while holding the uke. Writing it out by hand is much easier and faster. I came up with a blank ukulele tab template for this purpose. I’d love some feedback on it.