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339 posts
Silent Night
Tamás GállThe German lyrics of the Christmas carol Silent Night were written by the Austrian priest Josef Mohr under the title Stille Nacht, and the melody was composed by Franz X. Gruber in 1818. The melody commonly sung today differs slightly from Gruber's original, especially towards the end. The song was…
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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…
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*(l)ele
Tamás GállI watch with admiration these inventive and highly skilled people who make instruments for themselves out of all sorts of objects. From shoeboxes and bedpans to tennis rackets, they stretch four strings across almost anything and there you have it: an instrument. Some of them sound surprisingly good…
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Music Theory Basics — for the Patient!
Tamás GállI promise this is the longest and most boring tutorial video so far. The video below is about intervals and chords. I spent a long time thinking about the best way to introduce the subject, and it was not an easy task. There is a reason why children study all of this for weeks, months and even years…
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You Played Ukulele, M'Lord?
Tamás GállWho has not heard of theYou Rang, M'Lord? television series, which is both wonderfully charming and very funny. (If by chance you have never seen it, catch up — you will not regret it!) There is a reason I am writing a few lines about it here: in episode 11, one of the scenes shared by Mr Twelvetree…
Read moreUkulele Blog in the Goldenblog Top 10!
Tamás GállI will admit that I never expected the blog to do this well in its very first year! We finished somewhere in the middle of the public vote (thank you for your votes!), but I received an enormous honour because the Goldenblog jury liked Ukulele Blog so much that they selected it for the top 10 in the…
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A Guest in the House: Piano
Tamás GállThis weekend I exchanged four strings for eighty-eight keys. At the beginning of the video you can see and hear a little warm-up over “free” chords, meaning that I did not follow the blues progression exactly. This is followed by a short boogie improvisation: Unfortunately, the same cannot be said a…
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The Beatles — Nowhere Man
Tamás GállI make no secret of the fact that the Beatles are my favourite band. They composed such colourful, imaginative music that I never tire of their songs. In this post we are working on a song from 1965. It is often mentioned among the first Beatles songs to contain, under Lennon's influence, a certain…
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From Me To You, Egérkém!
Tamás GállAfter a break of more than a month, the blog is finally being updated again. The move and unpacking are behind us, although more big tasks lie ahead. In any case I finally managed to record raw material for several tutorial videos. First up is the excellent Beatles song From Me To You, presented in…
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Music and Humour
Tamás GállWe are right in the middle of moving house (if I close my eyes, all I see are bags, boxes, a fridge, cupboards, chairs and other things waiting to be lifted and moved), so unfortunately I have barely been able to take out my ukulele in recent weeks and no new tutorial video could be made. For now I…
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The Case for a Case
Tamás GállOnce we have settled the case question, we can say we have never had it so good. (With apologies to Illés.) I receive emails not only asking what kind of ukulele to buy (and where), but also quite often asking what sort of case is worth getting. My answer is unequivocal: a hard case. If we store and…
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Banjolele
Tamás GállAmong plucked string instruments, the banjo has always been one of my favourites. Its distinctive shape and sound make it almost impossible to confuse with anything else. It works beautifully as a solo instrument, but bluegrass, country and Dixieland bands are almost unimaginable without a banjo. It…
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