Season 318: Sing in the Spring.

April Come She Will - Simon & Garfunkel - outdoors with Alicia

I got together with my friend Alicia today to play our ukes together. Since it's Sunday, and both themes seems to fit each other well, we went for both ... hope it's okay with you, Geoff. So we played a song about spring outdoors.

I searched in our local group's 2000-song Dropbox folder for "spring", which came up with about 20 Springsteen songs. My next thought was "April" ... and this turned up.

Alicia hasn't played uke all that much, so we started out playing some two- and three-chord songs, and worked our way up to this. And she added some gorgeous harmonies ... I was so impressed with how quickly she ramped up, and really pleased with this intuitively perfect song choice.

April Come She Will ... can't come soon enough for either of us!

 
I hope you don't mind me NOT singing. I let my mandolin do the job.
Anyway, the lyrics would be in German, the name of the song being
"Im Märzen der Bauer" which means something like "In the month of march, the farmer..."
 
For Season 318 of the Ukulele, we're playing songs about Spring. Here's “Lullaby of Spring" by Donovan, played on baritone ukulele with singing, with overdubs of Ubass, secondary vocal, and chiff chaff birdsong sample. I'll mention here there is a bit of a strange dub echo effect on the secondary vocal on the final chorus.

I had the record ("A Gift From A Flower To A Garden") when I was a young fellow - don't know where it walked off to.



I had planned on getting this done early and having some time to listen to earlier posts in the thread, but I kept messing around with it, and now it's past midnight... think I'll catch up with you all tomorrow.
 
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thank you for this week, Geoff.
a reading of Anne Sexton's poem, 'It Is A Spring Afternoon'
with improvised accompaniment on the baritone.
 
lovely theme, geoff! i hope we can sing it in - here in the UK right now, the spring definitely needs some encouragement!

Forecast for the rest of the week is looking better. The late snow has been very offputting. I missed a regular open mic yesterday as the roads weren't safe and there's some nasty steep banks on the roads thereabouts.
 
I had some time to catch up on the overnight videos. There were some beauties. Some really excellent stuff here. I can commend Jon's reading of a poem with an improvised accompaniment as being both a little different and also highly effective.
 



Hi Geoff! Found this song by Donovan, which I've never heard before, but which seems to fit in really well with this week's theme. (And we've just had a flurry of snow this afternoon ... nothing like the UK's, but certainly not even remotely Spring-like!)
 
I got together with my friend Alicia today to play our ukes together. Since it's Sunday, and both themes seems to fit each other well, we went for both ... hope it's okay with you, Geoff. So we played a song about spring outdoors.

I searched in our local group's 2000-song Dropbox folder for "spring", which came up with about 20 Springsteen songs. My next thought was "April" ... and this turned up.

Alicia hasn't played uke all that much, so we started out playing some two- and three-chord songs, and worked our way up to this. And she added some gorgeous harmonies ... I was so impressed with how quickly she ramped up, and really pleased with this intuitively perfect song choice.

April Come She Will ... can't come soon enough for either of us!



Hi Wendy! Tried to PM you re the FB group, but your inbox is full!
 
Rodgers and Hart song much loved by Jazz Afficianados.Great chords by Lyle Ritz.The keys a bit high for me but what the hell
 
Today is the spring equinox, equal length day and night.

So, for the next 24 hours try to concentrate on songs specifically about the equinox or festivals celebrating the equinox. In many ancient religions, the turning of the year was a time for celebration, especially with those cultures well away from the equator where the length of day and night varies significantly through the year.
 
Well, it's a particularly cold Spring Equinox here, Geoff ... wind and a strange icy precipitation. Is there any chance that you might put the Playlist up ... or is it up and for some daft reason I'm unable to access it?
 
Silent Spring

Seven years of Famine in Egypt or so the bible says
Famines in Ireland Biafra Ethiopia... most folks have
never experienced hunger. Farmers in Finland are
predicting crop failure because of this strange inclemant
climate in the northern hemisphere. Famine was the pale
horse from the apocalypse. Strange weather

They all talked about the beast from the east
Was he a rider on a pale horse?
No birds fly by, in the blue and empty sky
The field remain frozen with frost
Snow all around covering the ground
The frost in the forest does not relent.
Not a blossum to be seen, no a hint of green
This is the winter of our discontent
Its the silent Spring, no new songs to sing
Something has really gone wrong.
No food on the shelves, can’t feed ourselves.
Winter has stolen Spring’s song
The bud has blackened on the bough
What price salvation now?
 
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Here south of the Tropic of Cancer, we don't notice Spring so much except that it's going from being hot to being hellishly hot. That said, Spring is also a time for cleaning. Just after I'd finished recording the main track for this springy tune, there was a knock at my door. It was the landlady introducing the new cleaning woman (last one got sacked for stealing from a neighbor). Sure! Come on in! Don't mind me; I'm just going to be playing some uke... clean around me.

 
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