First track in the can! Danny Gotham and I are hoping to release our new album sometime in late summer. Mostly acoustic instruments, #mandolin, #classical and steel string #guitar, #ukulele, #lute, a little electric guitar and lap steel, too. Nice variety of material, too! Big honor to get to do this with Danny, who’s one of the best pickers this side of the Mississippi.
My new book is out today, with arrangements of five famous classical pieces for a "ukulele quartet" of soprano, tenor and baritone ukuleles and classical guitar. The arrangements have been deliberately kept simple, to be accessible to the widest range of players. Find out more or get your copy in print or as a pay-what-you-like ebook at https://preecemusic.com/simple-ukulele-quartets
Tea break this morning involved a spot of plinking and strumming on my Ohana O'Nino sopranissimo. I've settled on CDAF tuning for this one, which sounds good and has also improved the intonation (always a problem with fretted instruments of this size). Pretty happy with it.
I might skip tomorrow, but this evening I had enough energy to tackle two more ukulele sheets:
"(Back Home Again in) Indiana" by Ballard MacDonald and James F. Hanley (1917) is an old jazz standard and still played today, so perhaps it doesn't matter that I couldn't find Cliff's version online (I have the album it's on, but nobody seems to have YouTubed it).
Gave my atrophied woodworking skills an outing this afternoon, taking a reamer to the headstock of my old Ohana soprano and fitting a set of Gotoh planetary gear tuning pegs (which I've had lying around for yonks. As you do). Switched the clear fluorocarbon strings for a set of Fremont Blacklines, et voilà! it sounds fantastic.
For all the amazing ukuleles out there, a decently made, lightweight, mahogany soprano is hard to beat. This one's no Ken Timms… but then that's what I have the Ken Timms for 😁
Felt slightly refreshed after the now customary (and currently unavoidable) afternoon nap, so spent an hour this evening working on another Cliff Friend composition. A jaunty little number, with the added bonus of some mild digs at the main figures of the 1928 United States presidential election, for those of you who enjoy topical comedy… Here's Cliff Edwards performing it:
Tackling chores in the morning leaves me completely unable to focus on doing stuff for myself in the afternoon (or anything at all: I generally fall asleep), so today I'm being a little self-indulgent and working on some Cliff Edwards Project tunes first.
"Here Comes The Sun" by George Harrison, and "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke, were both composed on an #ukulele -- at least that's what I've heard. #MusicHistory#20thCenturyMusic
Another song added to my Cliff Edwards Project folder, this one a very catchy Irving Berlin number also performed by Doris Day and many others. Unfortunately, the 1927 original includes some racially offensive lyrics, and later versions changed those to terms which didn't age as well as they might have hoped, so I've had to make a couple of very small tweaks. For that reason I'm not linking to Cliff's performance.
The wind today
Is strong and relentless
Throws dust in the air
Blows trash against fences
Puts grit in your teeth
And deadens your senses
The wind today
Is strong and relentless
Hold on
When the wind blows like that
Hold on
You better hold on to your hat