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339 posts
Farewell to Bill Tapia
Tamás GállBill Tapia, one of the world's oldest active musicians and a man famous for his ukulele playing, has died at the age of 103. (He played other instruments as well.) He was born on 1 January 1908, so he was only a few weeks short of his 104th birthday. He received his first ukulele at the age of seven…
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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End-of-Summer Ukulele Course — Report
Tamás GállOn the second-to-last day of August — yesterday — I met fifteen very enthusiastic beginner ukulele players at a lovely venue in central Budapest. I arrived together with a kind fellow ukulele player, who was a great help carrying things and setting up the room, so many thanks to her once again . Soo…
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Elvis – Heartbreak Hotel
Tamás GállI usually begin blog posts about song arrangements by briefly introducing the performer and the song. I hope nobody minds if I skip the introduction to Elvis. And if anyone happens not to know this song, which is already 62 years old this year, they should urgently correct that omission! You can fin…
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Eight Tips for Beginners
Tamás GállBased on the experience of many, many years, I have collected a few thoughts that I would like to share with you in a slightly unusual video. It is unusual because this time you will hear only a few random chords — in other words, we are not learning a song — and I will be talking even more than usu…
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Egyszer egy királyfi — and a giveaway!
Tamás GállIn the video below I would like to teach you a ukulele arrangement of a sung fairy tale. The story itself continues for many, many “verses”, or sections. Memorizing the text is almost an impossible mission for me , but the chord accompaniment is much simpler, and the bright, chiming sound of the uku…
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Egy boszorka van...
Tamás GállIn this blog post and video I would like to show you and teach you a ukulele accompaniment for the Slovak folk song beginning “Egy boszorka van...” (“There is a witch...”). I find it hard to imagine that anyone in Hungary does not know it . I loved it as a child, and now I very much enjoy singing it…
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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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Dream a Little Dream of Me - How to Play It
Tamás GállHere, then, is the video intended to help you learn how to play Dream a Little Dream of Me on the ukulele. What I wrote earlier about Mennyből az angyal also applies to this arrangement: naturally, this is not the one and only correct way to play the song. Everyone can adapt it to their own taste. O…
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Dream a Little Dream of Me
Tamás GállDream a Little Dream of Me was written by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt in 1931. This brilliant song achieved its greatest success in 1968 in a version by The Mamas & the Papas. The quality of the song is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that at least sixty "official" recordings are known, i…
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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…
Read moreDownloads
Tamás GállEver since ukulele.hu launched, I have had one outstanding item on my to-do list: the DOWNLOADSmenu item. By now this subpage is complete both technically and in terms of content. Naturally the content will not remain static: from time to time we will add new songs and chords. Existing lyrics and ch…
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