I've just spent a few days away and wanted to take a small instrument
which was not too precious. I've just got "108 pieces pour renaissance
guitare" arranged by Pascale Boquet (Vol 18 of Le Secret des Muses)
published by the French Lute Society. I haven't got a four-course guitar.
I tried a uke (well a cavaquinho) - 33cms string length, and what feels
like a very wide string spacing and a little 6-string guitar (half
size?) with a string length of 47.5 cms and, even ignoring the lower two
strings and widening the spaces a bit between the top four strings,
still is very closely spaced.
I find the little 6-string guitar, much more satisfactory than the
uke/cavaquinho - which is just too small. I'd go for a baritone uke or
a half-size guitar (I got mine in an auction for £5 but they are really
cheap anyway). I hired the Lute Society's good-quality Renaissance
guitar recently and I realise that modern ukes/guitars are very
different - but still well worth a go.
It was fun looking at the Boquet arrangements (including some originals
from Phalese). The pieces are arranged according to country of origin,
beginning with France and ending with 'Angleterre' (which includes
O'Neill arrangements!). Some of the arrangements (including many
familiar pieces) work better than others but it's a delightful book and
must have taken a lot of work.
Stuart
Thanks everybody,
encouraged by your answers and especially the amazing site of Rob
MacKillop (Rob, this is really georgeous!),
I went to my local guitar dealer. ( By the way, his initial selling
point was that, "the babes like small instruments" ;-)
Finally I bought a tenor uke tuned like a guitar, which sounds good
with Aquila strings. In an old Django version,
I found Le Roys "Tablature de Gviterre", which was good starter.
Here is a sample: [1]http://www.lutecast.com
I think the uke is perfect for outdoor playing. Tomorrow, I will test
my new small tool on the babes lingering in the park.
Uhuh, Beavis, he said "small tool".
Thanks, oh collective stringdom and keep the strings swinging.
we
Rob MacKillop schrieb:
I have played ukulele on and off from the age of eight and actually now
have more income from uke students than from lute and guitar students
put together. This has been a recent phenomenom, and YouTube has a lot
to do with it, that and the economic downturn. Mostly people just want
to strum pop songs, but I've been developing some repertoire for
fingerstyle playing, including arrangements of baroque guitar pieces by
Sanz and others, which I think work a LOT better than such music on a
classical guitar. You can see and hear some of these pieces on this
website [2]www.FingerstyleUke.com - in fact you can find there more
than 70 mp3 files for free download alongside some videos.
As regards 4c guitar literature on the uke - I'm less of an enthusiast,
but it can sound ok. The problem is the fourth string, which on a uke
is up an octave - re-entrant - which is one of the reasons the music of
Sanz sits happilly on the fretboard. Aquila is THE major string maker
for ukuleles, and they do sell a set with a low 4th string, so in
theory you could have exactly the same tuning as a 4c guitar, except
for the single strings. Another instrument available over the net is
the Taropatch Fiddle - not a fiddle, imagine a uke with double strings,
and this could give you a more 4c-like sound for peanuts. BTW, Aquila
also sell a gut set for uke!
I currently have five students playing Sanz on the uke - none of whom
had shown the slightest interest in so-called 'classical music' before.
They are loving it, and three of them have bought baroque guitar CDs
now.
Rob MacKillop
References
1. http://www.lutecast.com/
2. http://www.fingerstyleuke.com/
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