Song Help Request Need Help!! Family thing!

albertmunoz

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Ok, I know I dont post much but I read the forums quite often.

Here is the situation. My girl comes from an extremely musical family, all starting from her grandparents. She has two cousins in symphony orchestras (viola and violin), her mother and aunts have played to huge crowds (piano), two nephews in high school music scholarships (flute and bagpipes), the list goes on and on. I owe a lot to this heritage, I never picked up an instrument until I met Rachael, and with her patience and tuition I have learned and developed a passion for making music I would have never imagined possible. Although I am not all that good, I blush a bit when my girl is asked if I am any good and she responds; 'he is very competent!'. In any case, before I go to far let me explain the deadline.

My girl's grandfather's birthday is coming up. Usually for the grandparents the whole family gets together and do individual concerts for them. There is usually some pretty crazy stuff going down (string quartets playing chopin perfectly!), and some fun stuff (percussion clapping songs). The inlaws are typically roped in and I have avoided this for long enough. My girl has an amazing voice and we were planning of doing Woodshed's/Jason Castro/Israel version of 'somewhere over the rainbow' me playing the uke and her singing. But most of her family knows I can play more than that and I dont really know anything suitable.

What I would like are some suggestions, and tabs of anything suiting the occassion that would fit and I could learn in a month as a picking/instrumental solo from either a classical genre or a pre 1960's popular tune.

I think I have set the stage pretty well, and I have a few ideas, but any others would be great. My two ideas are; 1. invention no.4 as played by Jake but transcribed by Ed Whitehead (I can play about 16 bars, but not all that impressive) and 2. Dominator's transcription of canon in D, but the only uke I have with low g is a banjo uke or alternatively I can capo my guitar at the 5th fret. However, my girl's family knows me more as a uke player so canon is a backup plan but not plan A.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Albert
 
How about "A Lover's Concerto"?

  • It was a pop hit in the mid-60's (not "pre 60's", but close!)
  • It's based on classical music
  • It has lyrics, so your gal can sing with you
  • It shouldn't be that hard to learn and maybe come up with a cool arrangement

JJ


P.S. Sounds like a cool family!
 
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Don't look down upon Over the Rainbow just because any beginning ukulele player has a throw at it. The solo version is really pretty, you could tune up the vocal/uke combo a bit by doing a solo piece in the middle or something. Either that, or pick one song and practice until your fingers bleed. And that takes a long time with nylon, trust me ;)
 
Thanks for the feedback guys, but in the end I was looking for a classical/instrumental piece I could do solo on top of playing along with my girl.

Her family is well aware that my uke playing is not just limited to simple strumming songs, they have seen me play hef's version of sailors hornpipe before and an instrumental version of Cindy Lauper's 'true colours' a friend of mine transcribed for me. So if I only do strumming up there it will kinda look like I am doing things half assed and not really making an effort.
 
How about Gently Weeps? That's become a classic(al) piece in the world of ukulele and probably the first vid that inspired most uke players as well as people who have never heard of a uke. Ok, granted, it's not exactly "classical" music but it's more than impressive.
 
Thanks guys for all your support, in the end I ended up sticking to what I already know. Which was a good thing too because I didnt have much time since my first post to really learn anything new.

I ended up playing Sailor's Hornpipe (arrangement by Brian Hefferan, posted on UkeHunt). I was going along fine until my girl's family started tapping along with my playing, which distracted me a bit, making me screw up the ending a bit.

For this piece I was scheduled right after the bagpipe medley, and a flute/piano duet which made my skin tingle it was so beautiful. After me were two musicians who make a pretty good living out of playing violin (symphony orchestra members both of them).

Then, my girl and I got scheduled as the last act and played 'somewhere over the rainbow' (again, thanks to Woodshed for posting this on his site), I made up a quick instrumental arrangement as an intro and strummed the rest of the time, my girl sang (she has an awesome voice, she has been in choruses, barber shop quartets, etc.). By the end of that song half the room was in tears which just gives you a hint as to how hauntingly beautifully she sang that song.

It all came off well, no regrets there... needless to say we will probably have to do that again. I just hope I get a bit more time to prepare something next time.
 
Surely there was some video footage.....
 
For this piece I was scheduled right after the bagpipe medley, and a flute/piano duet which made my skin tingle it was so beautiful. After me were two musicians who make a pretty good living out of playing violin (symphony orchestra members both of them).

Good job, glad it worked out so well!

but I got one question: do you know what type of bagpipe he played? scottish? irish? french? anything else?
 
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