Choan Gálvez (born in Zaragoza, Spain) has had a long relationship with traditional Aragonese music: he started playing bandurria when he was nine years old, and the bulk of the repertoire of the students’ ensemble he played with consisted of jotas and local folk music. In his teens, he played guitar with Peirot e Compaña, a five-member band that played Aragonese, Celtic, and world music spiced up with punk, rock, and metal styles.

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Mathilda is a unique ukulele. She’s a flat-body five-string soprano who has travelled all around Germany since 2013, visiting many ukulele players’ homes.

Choan Gálvez got hold of her in December, 2023, and after some doodling, Mathilda soon revealed some of the songs she had within.

This is how Songs Mathilda Taught Me: Four waltzes and a polka, a collection agnostic of your favourite fourth-string octave, was created: the arrangements in this book work great on low-g, high-g, and doubled-course instruments.

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While Hawaiian slack key guitar masters use a great variety of alternate tunings, ukulele players are usually stuck in major sixth tunings (albeit in differing pitches, and linear or re-entrant). Retuning a couple of strings—or even just one—can help one discover new sonic worlds, makes some elusive voicings possible, and, in general, stimulates inspiration.

In this anthology, Choan Gálvez proposes you to work on a few scordaturas, all of them feasible using a standard low G string set. Your instrument won’t be at risk as all of the suggested tunings decrease the total tension supported by the ukulele.

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Playing ragtime on the ukulele is always big fun! After including a few pieces of this style in my recent books, I thought it was time to write a dedicated collection. Eight Rags a Week includes eight original ragtime pieces for re-entrant ukulele that I’m confident will delight players and audiences alike.

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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!

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May the Low 4th is a collection of new original works for low G ukulele written by Choan Gálvez. Most of the pieces will fit beginner and intermediate fingerpickers—though mastering them may be challenging.

Among the repertoire you’ll find tango, samba, melancholic waltzes, Renaissance inspired brief works… Check the playlist!

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Brevities is a collection of short solo pieces for baritone ukulele aimed at the intermediate fingerpicker. In this set Choan Gálvez profits from the extended range, the sustain, and the resonance that this instrument and its tuning provide.

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For Four Fingers is a collection of ten one-minute pieces for re-entrant ukulele. They are, mostly, simple melodies where the movement of the fretting hand has been intentionally restricted to the four frets at reach in a single position.

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This set is inspired by the collections published by the great guitarists of the romantic era. Each of these 12 waltzes is named after some ukulele player I appreciate.

All pieces are written for re-entrant tuned ukulele and presented in notation and tablature. Their performance difficulty ranges from fairly basic fingerpicking to advanced playing. Styles include classical, romantic, jazz and even latin-american grooves and avant-garde harmonies, always within the realm of ternary rhythms. Shall we dance?

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