I’m a big fan of Uke of Carl’s arrangements of various theme tunes for ukulele. A while back I had him write a guest post with a bunch of his tabs. Now’s he’s launched his own website and a series of ebooks so I asked him to write another guest post. And he was kind enough to do just that.

I didn’t begin life as a Ukulele player. I started off on the guitar, and like many have, gravitated toward the Uke. Despite being a metal head at heart, I couldn’t help but be drawn to the Spanish guitar sound. One day I was lucky enough to stumble upon the Julio S, Sagreras Guitar Method and it changed the way I looked at the instrument. For this book, I’ve taken a few of his exercises and tried to do something new with them. I’ve changed some keys to be more Uke friendly, played around with the time signatures and chopped them up so they are almost entirely new pieces.

This book is suited to the beginner who is up for a challenge and for the more advanced player looking to add further tunes to their repertoire.

Example MP3 – Leccion 81

http://ukeofcarl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Leccion-81.mp3

Example TAB – Leccion 5/2 (Original)

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This one was tricky begin with, as there are so many great Classical pieces to choose from. However, I scoured my library and carefully picked 8 pieces which I then adapted for the Uke. Classical guitarists will be familiar with many of these pieces but even if you haven’t heard them before, you’ll find them pleasing to the ear. It’s a well paced book which begins with some simple pieces and develops into something a little more challenging.

Example MP3 – Etude-Op.44-No.2-Fernando-Sor

http://ukeofcarl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Etude-Op.44-No.2-Fernando-Sor.mp3

Example TAB – Op.60 No.1 – Sor – Campanella

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This is the perfect compliment to book one. It features a further 8 pieces of varying levels. I’ve kept it quite diverse with regard to composers and have chosen memorable pieces from, amongst others, Sor, Giuliani, Carulli and Tarrega. These pieces will really test your playing skills and will serve as ideal party pieces once you master them.

Example MP3 – Andantino – Carcassi

http://ukeofcarl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Andantino.mp3

Example TAB – Andantino – Carcassi

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There’s something about Jewish music and, in particular, Klezmer that gets me excited. I play a lot of it on my Clarinet and when I scoured the web for Ukulele pieces, I found very few. That’s when the idea for this book came to me. It was a pleasure researching this one. As well as the obvious, ‘Hava Nagila’, I’ve included ‘Hatikvah’ ‘Dance of Delight’ and ‘Ez Pachach’, which is my own composition. You’ll have great fun with this book. There are some challenges but even a beginner will be able to play through some of the pieces.

Example MP3 – Hatikvah

http://ukeofcarl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Hatikvah.mp3

Example TAB – Hatikvah – The National Anthem of Israel

Hopefully there’s plenty to choose from here and you might find something you’ve not tried before. Make sure you subscribe to my site for future updates. I have a couple of more books in the works and have only just finished the tab for ‘Mr. Benn’ and ‘Duck Tales’, which will appear very soon.

Thanks to Al for this opportunity. Without his encouragement I wouldn’t have had half the publicity I’ve had. Also thanks for the inspiration. When I first saw this, I thought, ‘It can be done!’ and I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen this.