New classical book "From Lute to Uke"

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Just got this today.

It's a Jumpin' Jim/Hal Leonard edition with CD.

From Lute To Uke Early Music For Ukulele Tony Mizen

Bear Dance
Schiarazula Marazula
Orlando Sleepeth
Pavana
Bransle de Champagne
My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home
Les Bouffons
Mr Dowland's Midnight
Der Haupff Auff
Welscher Tanz
Allemande
Round Battle Galliard
Kemp's Jig
Pastime With Good Company
Tarleton's Resurrection
Ballett
La Volta
Cancion del Emperador
Almayne
Melancholy Galliard
A Toy
The Shoemaker's Wife
Bransle de la Royne
Allemande (My Lady Hunssdon's Puffe)

I've only played a few tunes so far, but I like the arrangements. They are not for beginners, but an intermediate player shouldn't find them out of reach. Haven't noticed any of those John King finger stretch challenges yet.

The CD drive in my PC is on the fritz, but I had my husband play "Cancion del Emperador" for me on his and the playing is very nice. Gonna have to find an opportune moment to use his PC to rip the CD to MP3. :eek:

If you like classical I'd definitely recommend it. Renaissance lute music is a bit off the beaten track of the usual Bach stuff, but a lot of it is very beautiful and fun to play as well. :)
 
Mine arrived yesterday but I haven't had much time to spend with it - can't wait for the weekend to get here :)

Until you get that CD ripped, you can listen to some of the songs on Flea Market Music, here.

There's also one audio track and a sample of the tab on the Hal Leonard site, here.
 
I got mine last week and I've been listening to the CD just as a "listening" CD. The first couple of tunes don't look too hard but those in the back are more than I'll ever be able to do. It's hard to believe you're listening to a ukulele and not a lute.
 
It's wonderful. I've memorized the first two songs and am on the third. If you change the timing and rock them you see where rock got some of its roots. No joke. Interesting structures with subtle variations. You have to find the beat that anchors the movement. thank you Tony Mizen for your work. Many of the songs are just plain beautiful. You can hear Arabic influences. There are also dance tunes. Train your fingers. Pretty soon all you've learned will be internalized and you can improvise Renaissance tunes. Only God creates from nothing.
 
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Awesome!
I'm happy that there are others out there interested in playing early music on ukulele.

I recent bought a lute-kulele from another UU member and have really enjoyed playing "Bransle de Champaigne" by Adrian le Roy (i'm not sure if this is the same Branle de Champaigne" that is is this book.
I found the music for the version I am playing at delcamp.net - had to transcribe it from standard notation, but it's still a blast to play.


Is the Lute to Uke book written for low g? (I just listened to a couple of the tracks from the FMM website - sounds like high g tuning to me)

I found using a low g is really well suited to early music.
 
Awesome!
I'm happy that there are others out there interested in playing early music on ukulele.

I recent bought a lute-kulele from another UU member and have really enjoyed playing "Bransle de Champaigne" by Adrian le Roy (i'm not sure if this is the same Branle de Champaigne" that is is this book.
I found the music for the version I am playing at delcamp.net - had to transcribe it from standard notation, but it's still a blast to play.


Is the Lute to Uke book written for low g? (I just listened to a couple of the tracks from the FMM website - sounds like high g tuning to me)

I found using a low g is really well suited to early music.
The book is written for high g.

The "Bransle de Champagne" in it is by Claude Gervaise.

Why don't you share your transcription here? That's something I'd really like to get into. There's so much good stuff for CG out there, and so little (relatively speaking) classical for uke.
 
high low

I've been playing the lute to uke arrangements on all my ukes---soprano, concert, tenor, bari and with high and low g.
They all sound good. The high g gives it that little extra Renaissance feel but it's not necessary.
 
I've been playing the lute to uke arrangements on all my ukes---soprano, concert, tenor, bari and with high and low g.
They all sound good. The high g gives it that little extra Renaissance feel but it's not necessary.
I'll give low g a try with it later. :)

In my experience, I've found some pieces work well in either tuning, others not so well. John King's "campanella" style works beautifully with reentrant, but just doesn't sound right to me or have the same "sparkle" in low g.
 
I have an uncle who plays lute fluidly and to hear him play a tune with a ukulele ...Yeah it's amazing. Glad this book came out. Bravo to the publishers!
I think there's just something about the simplicity of Renaissance lute music that suits the uke so well, even when it's whittled down to four strings. As much as I love Bach and baroque on uke, I do think Renaissance just sounds even more natural on it.

For anyone who's not aware of Michael Parmenter's blog, he's posted oodles of Renaissance transcriptions for uke. He has a knack for finding obscure stuff that works well on uke.

http://ukeclassicaltabs.blogspot.com/

Just keep going back thru "older posts". BTW, his PDFs are usually tab only, but he also offers the raw TablEdit format. If you get the free TEF viewer, you can print out the pieces with standard notation as well as tab. That's how I like to roll. :)
 
what makes uu forum worthwhile

Cool info on the other sites re; Renaissance music. thanks!

The simplicity of Renaissance does lend itself to the ukulele.

And, when one goes pack to other genres, the finger training and feel for structure make other things easier.

I've given myself the project this year of learning walking jazz bass on a Road Toad semi-hollow uke bass and all of the theory therein plus learning this Lute to Uke book. Surprisingly complementary.

I improvise better.

Thanks for the other Renaissance links.

Mark Nelson's finger-picking book is also good. Learning the Lute makes Mark's finger-picking easier.
 
Thanks for the links! Cool stuff!
 
I just got this book for Christmas. The first thing I did was turn to a random song - in this case, "Les Bouffons" - and spent a few minutes learning it. I wasn't sure how the song actually sounded, what tempo to go for, and whether I should be picking or strumming in parts, so I just sorta learned it the way I wanted to play it. I even added a few notes here and there to fill in parts where I was naturally pausing.

Then I put in the CD and listened to what it's *supposed* to sound like.

Oh. It's utterly different.

So basically I'm bastardizing these songs by learning the melodies but playing them completely different from how they were intended. Part of me feels like I'm committing some sort of heresy, but the other part of me feels like I'm creating something sort of new by reworking them. It's fun.
 
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