More Gaspar Sanz for Uke

Luke El U

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Do you love playing the "20 Spanish Baroque Pieces" by Gaspar Sanz arranged for uke by Rob MacKillop?

Do you wish you could play more of Sanz's music on the ukulele, but have no idea how to arrange it for our beloved instrument?

Well, it's not as hard as one might think. With a few little tricks, you can play Sanz's music on the uke using these modern tabs written for the baroque guitar from free-scores.com The first URL has the PDF for "Livre 1 Complet" The second URL has the PDF for ""Livre 2 Complet"

http://www.free-scores.com/partitions_telecharger.php?partition=64566

http://www.free-scores.com/partitions_telecharger.php?partition=64567

What you need to know:

The baroque guitar has a re-entrant tuning with 5 strings. The lowest note, as with a re-entrant ukulele, is the third string. The question is, how can we play the tab written for the 5th string of a baroque guitar on a uke with only 4 strings? The answer is deceptively simple. Without getting into the theory of why, just do the following steps, and nearly all of it falls perfectly into place on the uke. Really!

Step 1. Most important. You will play what is written for the baroque guitar's 5th string on the uke's 3rd string. Take whatever fret number is written for the guitar's fifth string, add 2, and play it on the uke's 3rd string.

So, if it's 0 (open string) on the guitar's 5th string, you can play that same note on the uke's 3rd string 2nd fret. 0+2=2. Fret 1 on the guitar's 5th string is played on the uke's 3rd string 3rd fret. 1+2=3. 2 on the 4th, 3 on the 5th, and so on.

Writing the new numbers on the third line of the tab in red ink can help. That way you can just forget what has been written on the fifth line.

Step 2. You may find it easier sometimes to play the note you've assigned to the 3rd string on the 2nd string instead. For example, the note F on the 5th fret of the 3rd (C) string of a uke can be played on the first fret of the second string.

Step 3. In a few cases, it may be easier to shift a note up or down an octave. As MacKillop states: "There are many passages in Sanz's music where notes of a melody suddenly leap up or down octaves. Apparently this was acceptable, and is commonplace in other guitar publications of the period. This is helpful when arranging for the ukulele . . ."

Step 4. In very few cases it might be necessary to omit a harmony note altogether, but it is also possible to add some extra unisons to give the uke a slightly fuller sound not unlike a real baroque guitar. And of course, playing in campanella style gives it more authenticity.

Why it took me so long to figure this out, I don't know, but hopefully now we all can play much more of Sanz's baroque guitar music on our ukuleles.

Enjoy!
 
Thanks for this tutorial. I enjoying playing Rob MacKillop's Sanz arrangements, and I wish there were more.
 
Cheers for that info Sir.
 
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