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339 posts
Late-summer Ukulele Course I — report
Tamás GállAfter the June courses I received a steady stream of emails and Facebook messages asking about new course dates, so I did not waste any time: I organised Course I and Course II for 29 August and 5 September respectively courses. Yesterday, 29 August 2021, greeted us with a cooler-than-usual but stil…
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Házasodik a tücsök — accompaniment tutorial
Tamás GállRecently we learned the melody of the song beginning “Hol jártál, báránykám?”. This time I would like to show you the accompaniment to “Házasodik a tücsök”. It is a lovely folk song from western Hungary, and I am sure very many people — probably everyone — know it. We need three chords for this song…
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Early-autumn Ukulele Course II — report
Tamás GállAs a continuation of last week's late-summer Ukulele Course I, I held Course II yesterday. During the morning we learned new chords, and in the afternoon we moved on to the foundations of music theory and barre chords. We covered a dense and substantial amount of material. It looked as though I mana…
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Report from the autumn ukulele meetup
Tamás GállI have had an extremely busy three weeks packed with ukulele events. After two course weekends — one Course I and one Course II — the ukulele meetup followed on 11 September 2021. When I started organising the courses and meetup in the summer, I hoped we would just manage to fit them in before the f…
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Lanikai FM-CET
Tamás GállThe Lanikai FM-CET is made of flamed maple and is a truly eye-catching ukulele. I already introduced its smaller acoustic concert-size sibling, also made of flamed maple, back in December 2019. This, then, is the bigger brother, with a cutaway body and onboard electronics. You get the excellent qual…
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Ohana O'Nino
Tamás GállA few months ago I had already had the pleasure of trying an Ohana — a beautiful pineapple-shaped ukulele . I had always known that Ohana does not do things by halves: they make genuinely premium-quality ukuleles. This time I got my hands on a truly unusual little instrument, the Ohana O'Nino, a min…
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Dream a Little Dream — intro
Tamás GállDream a Little Dream is one of my eternal favourites, so it is no surprise that it was one of the first songs I arranged , now eight years ago. Back then, of course, I played it a little differently, using less fingerstyle technique. Since then I have developed that side of my playing and added an i…
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Flight — DUC-525 CEQ
Tamás Gáll...or: tuning with a built-in tuner. A few months ago I already showed you the acoustic sibling of this ukulele, the regular DUC-525, and even then I praised its wood combination, tone and volume. This time you can watch a longer video about the electro-acoustic version, which differs from the acous…
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Blue Moon of Kentucky
Tamás GállI hope there are some bluegrass fans among you, because I would like to show you the chord accompaniment to one of the genre's evergreen classics. Bill Monroe wrote the song in 1946 — at least that is what he said; I do not understand why Wikipedia gives 1945 — and recorded it that year with his ban…
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Silent Night — reloaded
Tamás GállSilent Night was one of the first fingerstyle arrangements I ever learned. Ten years ago around this time I practised it diligently until, on 11 December 2011, I published a blog postabout it. I remember how hard I struggled to work out how the chords and melody should fit together, choose the finge…
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With a strap or without?
Tamás GállOne of the eternal questions among ukulele players is whether you may, can, should, ought to — and so on — attach a strap to a ukulele. There may be no single correct answer, and that is perfectly fine: everyone can decide how they prefer to hold their instrument. The earliest ukuleles had no strap…
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Lanikai ACST-B
Tamás GállBaritone ukuleles do not come my way very often, so it is always exciting when I get to try a genuinely large ukulele. This is not an entry-level instrument either, as it has a solid acacia top. That is where the model name comes from: ACacia Solid Top — Baritone. It is practically a miracle that I…
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