George Butterworth - The Banks of Green Willow - a Must for an Arrangement!

And still it rains... a Scottish lady on the short holiday I have just had told me that in the part of Scotland where she was brought up, there were lots of different names for the different kinds of rain. Beautiful-sounding names they were, too - I can't remember one, of course, but I think they were all onomatopoeic... beautiful.

So today I can only call it Scotch Mist - the English name for the fine, steady rain that just drenches you. I took one look at it early this morning, had a cup of tea and went back to bed. LSH got up and obligingly switched on my favourite radio station, Classic fm...

Now I love English 20th Century music, especially Vaughan-Williams and Elgar. But one of my favourites is "The Banks of Green Willow" by George Butterworth. It was on the radio this morning and I realised that it's a piece of music that puts you immediately at peace with that sort of rain... you can listen to it and not mind the rain at all - because the rain is at one with those banks of green willow.

Please, treat yourself and lay aside five minutes to listen to this gorgeous orchestral piece, and enjoy the beautiful images of the countryside...




So I want to play those themes on my ukulele. I'm working on it already - chords with a picked melody in between...I've done the eight bars of the first melody.... in C, of course... and if I can get something finished on the lines of the two melodies and a cheat link, I shall write down the tab. Now that, for me, will be some sort of challenge, and some sort of progress....

Ukulelemike, Mike Lynch, did an arrangement of the theme from Finlandia, with a video and tutorial, and I featured it here - and it was not too difficult to learn from those, without the tab; but what I have also learned from that, is that the chords used, (key of C again) I can use here....it's starting to learn my way around the fingerboard by playing music, not by studying a chart in isolation.

If you watch the video on Youtube, (it was shared with permission), you'll find more information about the music, for which the inspiration was two English folk tunes.

How tragic, that like Mozart, like Gershwin, Butterworth died young; a lieutenant in the Durham Light Infantry, at 31 years old, he was killed by a sniper's bullet in 1916, leading a raid in Pozieres in the battle of the Somme, WW1.

Celtic Fiddle Tune Medley - Ben Lyman

I'll be posting shortly on a real Ukafrolic of a weekend in Blackpool at the GFS - the George Formby Society. But as I was trying to catch up on posts I've missed on my subscribed threads on the Ukulele Underground Forum, I saw this video posted by Ben Lyman.

I've loved traditional folk music since I was introduced to it in my teens by a boyfriend back in 1967 - giving my age away again here! There is something deep and haunting about these old Celtic fiddle melodies, and Ben performs them beautifully here on his ukulele. I just had to share with you.

The tunes are
1. Banish Misfortune
2. Planxty Irwin
3. After the Battle of Aughrin
4. The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Thank you, Ben, for allowing me to share this on my blog; you play just beautifully - another inspiration for me!

I must practice, practice, practice......

"The Shearin's No' For You" - traditional Scottish folksong, Eugene Ukulele

I have loved traditional Scottish ballads and lullabies ever since my folk club days back in the late 60's. I rarely hear them now, and this one I have never heard before....but every now and then you hear a song that affects you so deeply that it actually catches your breath. This rendition of "The Shearin's No' For You" by "Eugene Ukulele" is so hauntingly beautiful that I watched and listened to it twice straight off, and woke up this morning with it on the brain. Just a gorgeous song - but it's Eugene's singing and playing that makes it so very moving. The baritone ukulele is a perfect choice - and it comes straight from the heart - you can tell.

Wow. Just Wow. This is why he is one of my Ukulele Heroes.......