The first movement is almost finished: Three more pages to go! Video for the final page will be released on October 8. On October 9, I’ve committed to perform the entire first movement as part of the Music Faculty Recital at Regis University, where I work. Here’s Episode 16 of “Beethoven of the Ukulele”. The […]
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Beethoven’s “Pastorale” and ‘Ukulele scales in thirds
On February 6 of this year, who would have thought that there would be a ‘Ukulele transcription of Beethoven’s 6th Symphony going out in the world? Certainly not me, but here we are at the beginning of September with page 15 of the first movement! Here’s a performance of pages 14 and 15 of the […]
Beethoven for Uke Geeks Only: Campanella Tetrachords
Here is Episode 14 of “Beethoven of the Ukulele”. In this video I am performing pages 13 and 14 of the first movement score: Only five more pages to go to the completion of the first movement, which will happen on October 8. Yay! At that point the first movement will be ready to perform […]
The Pastorale and the Dystopian Future of “Soylent Green”
Here’s a performance of pages 12 and 13 of my ‘Ukulele transcription of Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony: When most people think of Beethoven’s Sixth symphony being used in a film, they probably think of Disney’s Fantasia, which includes abbreviated versions of all five movements of the work as a soundtrack for animation of magical creatures inspired […]
The ‘Ukulele, The Symphony, a Thought, and One Decision Leading to Another…
Here is my transcription for solo ‘Ukulele of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, First Movement, Pages 11-12: Like any other project you might consider, it started with a thought: In this case, the thought was that it would be possible to create an ‘Ukulele version of the Pastorale symphony. The thought […]
Letting Go of the Impossible: Beethoven, the ‘Ukulele and the Revision Process
The “Pastoralele” project is coming along. Here’s me performing pages 10 and 11: Page 11 had some tricky bits, which meant more revision than usual was necessary to arrive at something that was playable. Here’s one of several examples on the page: In the first draft, I thought I had come up with a very […]
3 Ways Beethoven and the ‘Ukulele are helping me live my purpose
purpose [pur-puhs] noun 1. the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used, etc. 2. an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal. 3. determination; resoluteness. (Definition from dictionary.com) I’ve been thinking a lot about my purpose the past few days. Why? For one, it’s the subject of this month’s activities in Self-Coaching […]
How to get the sheet music for any piece by Beethoven (or almost any other composer), in seconds!
Here’s my performance of pages 8 and 9 of the ‘Ukulele transcription of the Pastorale symphony: Nancy, one of my readers, asked last week what the source was for the music I used to make the Pastorale transcription. I actually considered several different sources before I finally decided what I would use, and it’s amazing […]
How a mistake at the record store helped me fall in love with the “Pastorale” Symphony
I’m gonna put this right at the top if you feel like you need to “cut to the chase”…Here’s the eighth installment of “Beethoven of the ‘Ukulele“, including a performance of pages 7 and 8 of the Pastorale solo transcription: When I was a kid (we’re talking the late 1970s!), it was all about the […]
Beethoven’s “Victorious Young Triads” on the ‘Ukulele
In Episode 7 of Beethoven of the ‘Ukulele, I start to play the development section of the Pastorale’s first movement. This is where the composer starts to “develop”, or play around with, elements that were introduced in the opening of the movement. Beethoven kicks off the development of this movement by taking the “1 &a 2 […]