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339 posts
Chords 11: G minor
Tamás GállG minor is the drunk person's staircase. If E minor is a beautiful, orderly staircase, G minor looks as though the bricklayer forgot to sort the bricks by size. :) Compared with G major, only one note is different, but because of where that note falls, the fingering changes completely: 0231. The upp…
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Report from the First Ukulele Course of the 2020s
Tamás GállI do not think people who teach courses usually write experience reports about their own classes, but somehow it has become a habit of mine. A course is a big experience for me too (and I hope for the participants as well ). I meet lots of new people whom it is a pleasure to teach and with whom it i…
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DIY Electric Mahalo
Tamás GállIn the [klub], a very interesting series of photographs caught my eye. It documented the "electrification" of a Mahalo soprano ukulele. I asked the author of the post, Béla Csongrádi, whether he would like to describe the installation process, because I would be happy to publish it on ukulele.hu . A…
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Lanikai ZR-C
Tamás GállI would like to introduce you to a very elegant Lanikai ukulele. This concert-size instrument made from ziricote is like a small, tasteful jewelry box — except that instead of putting treasures into it, we take them out, conjuring one beautiful sound after another. Every ZR-C ukulele is unique becau…
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Chords 12: D minor
Tamás GállI often say that anyone who knows F major also knows D minor. That is a slight exaggeration, of course, but it is true in the sense that F major provides an excellent starting point. We simply add a ring finger capable of flattening neatly and squeeze it onto the second fret of the second string, be…
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Rhythm and Strumming 1
Tamás GállDear Ukulele Players! Before I turn to the subject in the title, please allow me a brief announcement. As you may have noticed, we removed the blog posts about the Spring Ukulele Meetup planned for March 24, and we also posted on Facebook that — because of circumstances I think everyone is familiar…
Read moreFacebook Live Sessions — When the Saints
Tamás GállAccording to our plans, we should already have held both a ukulele course and a meetup this year, but unfortunately the current public-health situation forced us to postpone these programs. I hope you are all well and managing to get through this more difficult period. Make plenty of music and sing…
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Chords 13: C minor
Tamás GállC minor is the second chord in our series where barre technique is effectively required. We touched on the subject with D major, but here it becomes much more important. We will learn two C-minor fingerings, 0333 and 5333. In the first we use a small barre covering only the three lower strings. In t…
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Virtual Meetups
Tamás GállIn these difficult times, I think all of us miss making music together. We are trying to ease that feeling a little with Facebook Live sessions , where we play one or two songs together. There is no visual or audio feedback from you, because I cannot see or hear anyone (apart from a few refreshing e…
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Cifra Palota
Tamás GállFrom time to time, a kind acquaintance of mine, Orsi, posts pictures on Facebook of stones she has painted. The pictures on the stones are inspired by Hungarian folk songs or children's songs, and the game is to guess which song each picture represents. I really enjoy this game — not because I know…
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How to Restring a Ukulele
Tamás GállThis restringing video arrived very late compared with the launch of the blog — you only had to wait about nine and a half years for it. One reason is that, slightly embarrassingly, I do not have a huge amount of experience restringing ukuleles. The other is that I am one of those people who do not…
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Trying a Baritone Ukulele
Tamás GállWhenever I write a blog post about a ukulele I have tested, I usually use the brand and model designation as the title. That would have been difficult this time, because a fantastically beautiful custom-built baritone ukulele stayed with me for a few days. Apart from its unusual body shape, one of i…
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