Looking for Duets for 2 Ukes

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bhart

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I'm a fairly new ukulele player (1 1/2 years) looking for a book of duets to play with another new ukulele player who has experience playing guitar (she seems pretty good with finger picking and learned most of the ukulele chords in a couple of months). Is there a book of ukulele duets for two ukuleles? I'd like to play with her...
 
I'm not aware of a book myself, but any old uke song can be turned into a duet with some picking and strumming. Am sure you will get lots of suggestions on here.

Here is mine - Spanish Harlem - lovely song, a nice easy strum, but get the second uke to pick out the descending C pattern at the end of each line of "There is a rose in Spanish Harlem"
 
John King's book has a few, some for ukulele and guitar, some for 2 ukuleles. The Aloha quickstep is uke/gtr, Timothy at the Husking Bee is 2 ukes. Can't remember about any others... Sorry. My copy is at work.

I'm actually writing a book of ukulele duets right now. One done. One 90% done. One 70% done. I'm hoping to get them out for the summer. My day-job is really holding me back... <grumbles about mortgage>

Two of the pieces done are intermediate (i.e. you might find them tricky), but the 3rd isn't too bad, and I'll add at least another piece where one part is fairly straightforward.

Watch this space! :)
 
I've recommended this before... Paul's Dance by Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Sounds best with one high G and one low G. Check it out on YouTube. The first instrument in the video, along with being a Venezuelan Cuatro tuned lower, has the high "A" string replaced with a low "A" but it sounds good either way. You can use the same fingering as the video regardless of tuning.

 
Outside of the aforementioned John King books, the only published duets for ukulele I have seen are two books by Japanese uke player and arranger Kiyoshi Kobayashi. They can be ordered via Kinokuniya Books here and here. They include a mix of standards, Hawaiian, pop, and classical.
 
janeray1940 said:
Outside of the aforementioned John King books, the only published duets for ukulele I have seen are two books by Japanese uke player and arranger Kiyoshi Kobayashi. They can be ordered via Kinokuniya Books here and here. They include a mix of standards, Hawaiian, pop, and classical.
Click to expand...

Thanks for mentioning these books. I like the idea behind them. Do you think there might be some way to buy/use these books for someone who doesn't speak, read or write Japanese?
 
mds725 said:
Thanks for mentioning these books. I like the idea behind them. Do you think there might be some way to buy/use these books for someone who doesn't speak, read or write Japanese?
Click to expand...

Definitely! You can choose the "in English" option to order online from Kinokuniya, but since you're in SF I'd recommend going in person to the store in Japantown and having them order the books for you (shipping is free if you pick it up at the store). The books are in standard notation and tab, and most songs do have the title printed in English in the book. The CD track listing is in Japanese only though.
 
mds725 - just to be clear, if you click on "In Japanese", it changes to "In English".
janeray- any chance of getting you to post pictures of these books so we can get a sense of what we would be buying? There's no picture on the site that I can find.
 
Covers of both books:
IMAG0609.jpg

You Are My Sunshine, lead:
IMAG0610.jpg

You Are My Sunshine, harmony:
IMAG0611.jpg
 
IIRC, the original Lyle Ritz Jazz book contains only one chord solo, everything else is written for two ukes.
 
I remember PCO from the 80's--and never had heard this particular duet. Wow. It is delightful. What a loss of Simon Jeffes and reminds me of another lost British guitar duo--Acoustic Alchemy and Nick Webb who also was lost to cancer way too young.

Speaking of Paul's Dance: the sheet music is nearly unobtainable (it's in a score published by Editions Peters along with some other compositions by Jeffes) but there is a tab on Youtube that is very easy to play. I was surprised. I am a beginner-sort and was able to knock this off first run through. It is a deceptive piece; sounding quite intricate, but actually simple chord progression and not difficult at all.
 
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Hey thanks for the pictures Jane, those look awesome! I love that they have both music and tab, you don't see that often. A note to anyone who tries to order, when you fill out the order form, click the box at the bottom on the left. The right one resets the page. Also, I when a new page appears, I think you have to click the box at the bottom one more time. After that I got a message that Google translate said was "thank you for your order".
 
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Gwynedd said:
Speaking of Paul's Dance: the sheet music is nearly unobtainable (it's in a score published by Editions Peters along with some other compositions by Jeffes) but there is a tab on Youtube that is very easy to play. I was surprised. I am a beginner-sort and was able to knock this off first run through. It is a deceptive piece; sounding quite intricate, but actually simple chord progression and not difficult at all.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for posting that link to the tab -- I've used the PCO version for a little slide show and just love the tune -- and all this time had no idea what the instrumentation was (it might have helped if I'd looked at the CD insert, I suppose) and as soon as I get home tonight I'm going to try it!!!!
 
ukuhippo said:
Uhm, copyright anyone?
Click to expand...

One could argue that this falls under "fair use." Nobody is making any money off of the three lousy-quality cell phone pics that I posted. At least, I'm not! Sharing for informational/educational purposes only.
 
Hey, thanks for all the great suggestions. I'm going to check out some of those books. I love this forum!
 
I'd look elsewhere before trusting his TAB on this one. In the video, when he gets to the second section, he's way off the mark. I found it just as easy to listen to (and watch!) the original and I was playing it within minutes. I never bothered to write it down as it was really too easy to bother with, plus I didn't want to be blamed for any copyright issues by tabbing something that was already commercially available.

BlueLatitude said:
Cool, thanks for posting that link to the tab -- I've used the PCO version for a little slide show and just love the tune -- and all this time had no idea what the instrumentation was (it might have helped if I'd looked at the CD insert, I suppose) and as soon as I get home tonight I'm going to try it!!!!
Click to expand...
 
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DaveVisi said:
I'd look elsewhere before trusting his TAB on this one. In the video, when he gets to the second section, he's way off the mark. I found it just as easy to listen to (and watch!) the original and I was playing it within minutes. I never bothered to write it down as it was really too easy to bother with, plus I didn't want to be blamed for any copyright issues by tabbing something that was already commercially available.
Click to expand...

I'm nowhere near ready to play by ear yet.
 
I'm not playing part deux as tabbed either. I just pluck the double stops as I hear'em, or as I feel like it. It's a catchy tune.
 
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