If Freddie Mercury Had Owned a Ukulele...

Yesterday afternoon I was excitedly waiting for Bea, Sanyi and Imi so that we could spend a few hours under the spell of a total of sixteen strings. The intercom rang, and moments later I was sitting in a circle with three friendly, enthusiastic ukulele players. After a quick tuning we started playing and practising. During the first few songs our hands and ukuleles got used to one another, we tried to keep a steady tempo, and before we noticed it the minutes were flying past and the songs were floating through the air. We were having such a good time (and we hope the neighbours were too). When we played the Hungarian folk song Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt, I felt our performance was studio-ready, so we made a video of it - complete with outtakes at the end .

Sanyi, Imi and Bea (from left to right) played ukuleles, while I (on the right) picked up a bass guitar to support the bright, chiming ukulele sound with a deeper foundation. I hope folk-music experts will not stone us for this arrangement, and perhaps our singing did not quite rise above Freddie Mercury either. In any case, we had a wonderful time while recording it and throughout the whole afternoon. We played a great many songs, sometimes with modest success but more often with rather greater success - and most importantly, with joy. We recorded the video above at the very end of the practice session. By then a musical understanding had developed between us that resulted in the song's perfectly coordinated ending, even though we had never agreed when to stop strumming. Earlier we had played it several times as a continuously repeated, effectively endless loop.

The sixteen strings (two concert and two soprano ukuleles)

I would like to thank my guests for coming, and I hope they enjoyed the practice at least as much as I did.

And for anyone who would like to learn to play the song on the ukulele, here are the chords:

Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt...

G                D      G
Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt,
G     D       G D
Virágom, virágom.
G                   Am    Em
Minden madár társat választ,
Am  H7      Em
Virágom, virágom.

G                D      G
Hát én immár kit válasszak,
G     D       G D
Virágom, virágom?
G                Am    Em
Te engemet, én tégedet,
Am  H7      Em
Virágom, virágom.

I included two fingerings for H7 (B7 in English notation). In one, the index finger holds down all four strings at the second fret in a barre, while the middle finger is placed on the third fret of the C string. The other can be thought of simply as moving the Em shape "up" by one string.

So if Freddie Mercury had owned a ukulele, perhaps he would have performed it that way. Instead, Brian May accompanied him on guitar - and not just any old way!