50 Miniature Studies for Ukulele
Improve your musicianship and fingerpicking abilities
50 Miniature Studies for Ukulele is a set of brief pieces created to develop a variety of musical performance abilities and fingerpicking techniques. All of these studies are written for C6 re-entrant tuning and can be played on any sized instrument within a range of 12 frets. Take your ukulele abilities one step beyond!
Print and digital editions are available from The Ukulele Bookshop.
Print edition
- ISMN
- 979-0-805446-20-2
- Format
- 80 pages, A4 format, wire-o binding
Digital edition
- ISMN
- 979-0-805446-18-9
- Format
- Printable PDF file, 80 pages, A4 format
From the back cover
This collection of short studies by Choan Gálvez is presented as a comprehensive fingerpicking ukulele method. It covers the presentation of a broad range of mandatory ukulele techniques and typical musical issues for beginner and intermediate players. Such subjects are pragmatically listed in a detailed index to guide the reader. In addition, the studies are not sorted by difficulty, and usually tackle more than one technical issue each: this makes for an interesting interplay of part and whole and several ways to approach and go back over them.
The extra-musical inspirational framework—that is evident in the beautiful titles—and the variety of musical styles elevate the pedagogical aims to a set of independent miniatures of delightful music that is a pleasure to browse.
Gálvez’s compositions for ukulele meaningfully contribute to the affirmation of the ukulele and its repertoire, and this wonderful study book is no exception.
Choan Gálvez is an admirably versatile and innovative composer who, when writing with an educator’s pen, does so not to emphasize a concept as much as to create an enjoyable piece of music in which such a concept evolves. From working through these pieces of music one gains not only increased technical proficiency but also a recognition of musical form, melodic and rhythmic development, and a pleasantly fresh harmonic palette. The collection offers a smorgasbord of musical flavors through an expansive variety of styles, tempos, keys, modes, meters, and diverse musical character. And every piece might elicit in the player a different aesthetic response, from joy, humor, excitement, and carefree whimsy to serious emotion and intense pathos.
I once made the observation to Choan of how beneficial to the study of any instrument a collection like “50 Miniature Studies” would be. How fortunate for us that his instrument is the ukulele.
Sample scores
The Ukulele Bookshop offers a free sample from the book including four full scores.
Some fellow ukelelists have shared my tabs on their websites to contribute to spreading the project:
-
On Ukulele Go you can get the tab for study no. 3, Salt del Grill, along with some notes by Dave.
-
Al Wood from Ukulele Hunt published the tablature for study no. 5, Drama-in-the-box and his own performance of the piece.
-
Also in Ukulele Hunt: the tab for Study No. 33, Medium Rare, Please along its performance notes.
-
Lazy Sunrise is featured in Ukulele Go.
The 50 Studies index
This is the list of all the studies, including links to their videos on YouTube.
