Awesome for Ukulele: Castle on a Cloud

After taking most of January through March 10th with ukuleles in my choir program (we still do daily sight singing work) and covering 16 chords and playing a lot of music, we switch back to a choral mode on Tuesday.

As a result, I have been making lead sheets for ALL of our music.

I have explained why I am doing what I am doing before...so I won't get into that. But for anyone new..my thought is that if we are going to take the time to learn ukulele in choir, we will perform with ukulele in our concerts as the primary instrument. This doesn't mean that I will always stick to my guns (as I have), and it certainly doesn't mean that I hate piano accompaniment or a cappella singing. But my goal is that every student who wanted to could actually take the music we are learning with them on their own. Not all will. But I don't know of any other setting where that can happen.

Of course, the significance of this isn't (generally) comprehended by (most of) the students, (most of) the parents, or fellow teachers/administrators. But from a standpoint of music education and standards in music education, I am standing on a pretty firm foundation with this work.

Anyway, I'm only a song or two away from being ready with MORE THAN enough songs for each choir to perform in the concert (all the 6th grade classes perform together, all the 7th grade, and so on).

Anyway, I have been looking through my Finale files of former piano accompaniments that might be good for ukulele...and sure enough...Castle on a Cloud from Les Miserables (missing the accent...forgive me, French speakers, Musical Theater aficionados, and fans of Great Literature) pops up to my attention.

I just reworked the existing piano accompaniment to ukulele...and with a picked pattern, Castle on a Cloud is A-MA-ZING. I can't put up my "lead sheet" because of copyright, but if you want a great song from a very famous musical to put in your repertoire...this is a great one!

Side note: all the choirs are going to learn Aloha 'Oe to play as a closer, and I will be equipped for language thanks to the new UU video by Aldrine and company.

P.S. Ryan...if you read this...I'll be sending a bunch of stuff to you once these final songs are arranged.

I can imagine! An inspired choice.

I'm glad you reminded me about Les Misérables. We have a songbook at home, the chords of which seemed very daunting last time I looked, but will probably seem quite playable now after a couple of years experience.

Sounds awesome man! We are looking to experiment as well with our May concert, so very excited to see how your groups turn out!

Keep up the good fight, Choirguy. You're students are lucky to have you as their teacher. It's not an easy job. I also teach, but on a much smaller scale than you, so I can empathize with you.