Songs and arrangements
83 posts
Pachelbel's Canon in D
Tamás GállPachelbel's name may not be familiar to everyone, but there are very few people who have never heard the chords of his Canon in D. This great Baroque composer created a chord progression that went on to inspire countless other composers and popular-song writers. The progression is catchy in the best…
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Pachelbel's Canon in D - How to Play It
Tamás GállThe Pachelbel Brothers are on a world tour, but before they left we managed to persuade their ukulele player to reveal the secret recipe behind their canon . The piece is worth learning not only because wedding planners will be demanding our services from now on, but also because it makes an excelle…
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Proud Mary
Tamás GállSeven years ago I already wrote a post about this excellent song, and now the blog has apparently caught the Hollywood trend of rewriting and remaking its biggest hits. That is not really true, of course, because we try to publish articles and videos that remain useful over time, but Proud Mary dese…
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Raiders of the Lost Ukulele
Tamás GállWho would believe that people have been raiding the Lost Ark for more than thirty-one years already? Yes, Raiders of the Lost Ark reached cinemas in 1981, and I confidently maintain that it can still compete with any modern action-adventure film. It won four Oscars, all in technical categories. The…
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Republic — Szállj el, kismadár
Tamás GállI know there is no comma in the original title, but I put one in. Sorry. :) It needs one. We continue the Hungarian section with a popular song by Republic which appeared on their 1995 album Tüzet viszek. The chords in this song really are not difficult; it is built from basic shapes. If I wanted to…
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Schubert — Die Forelle (The Trout), Op. 32
Tamás GállThis wonderful Schubert piece is one of the best-known classical compositions and one that many people may remember from school. This year marks exactly 205 years since Schubert wrote down the song that later provided the basis for the Trout Quintet two years afterwards. It has an exceptionally beau…
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Scott Joplin — The Entertainer
Tamás GállThis year I have had less time for song-learning posts, but I am trying to make up for that now. In fact, I have made one of the most serious and longest videos in the history of the Hungaria Ukulele Blog, based on a ukulele arrangement of the piano piece in the title. If the title does not immediat…
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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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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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Something Stupid
Tamás GállWhen most of us see the title, perhaps the Robbie Williams–Nicole Kidman version comes to mind. Yet we need to go back to 1967 to talk about the Sinatra version—and even that was not the original. Something Stupid originated with the duo Carson and Gaile, but the pairs mentioned above made it truly…
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Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Tamás GállWhen someone asks what instrument I am carrying and I tell them that it is a ukulele, they immediately smile and say, “Ah, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, right?” The history of the song goes back to 1939, when the world first heard this lovely piece as a song in the classic film The Wizard of Oz under…
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The Beatles — Here Comes the Sun
Tamás GállI would like to teach you the intro to a wonderful Beatles song. Here Comes the Sun was released on the Abbey Road album in 1969, so it belongs to the Beatles' later period. And, for anyone who may not know, this one is unusually not a Lennon–McCartney composition: it was written by George Harrison,…
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