Renaissance Ukulele: Posts listed by hardness

As this blog has grown, it has become more and more difficult to navigate, to see what is on offer. You can access the transcriptions, arranged in alphabetical order, using Quick links to transcriptions towards the bottom of the right-hand column.

However, a number of correspondents have asked me to give some idea of difficulty of the pieces that I post – as I know, it can be off-putting download a piece and then find that it is apparently impossible. So, I have played the pieces through and ranked them on a scale of hardness, from
1 = very easy, as in a simple melody, to
10 = so hard, I doubt that I will ever be able to play it.
It's all very personal, but it will give you a rough idea.

A scale of 10 points may seem excessively precise, but I found on attempting a simpler scale I needed half points. And, of course, it's only an impression, and depends on how fast you play - the slower, the easier.

I have graded the pieces according to the hardness of the whole arrangement, but it is worth bearing in mind that this is determined by later variations on the theme which are always more complex; the theme itself will be several grades easier, and well worth playing on its own, so don't be put off.

Apology: To my great shame, I have not updated this page since February 2018. As a rule of thumb, the pieces by Le Roy, which were written for 4-course Renaissance guitar, fit very well on the ukulele, and are not too hard. They would be a good place to start.

Veneto: Woman playing a lute.
Note the naughty wrap-around left thumb.

Why are some of the arrangements so difficult? Well, I decided that I would try to make the adaptations from the lute originals as complete as possible, so the fault (if fault it be) really lies with the composers. It's always easier for you, the player, to further reduce the arrangements than it is to add missing bits. As I get more experienced in transcription, I will attempt the more difficult task of simplifying further to make versions that are more accessible. Sometimes, even changing the key makes an appreciable difference, but if I take that too far every piece will end up in the key of G.

I have indicated the upper and lower voices in the music by stems that point up or down respectively. For a quick and easy(?) play-through, you might want to keep to the top voice only.

(If you wonder why I use the term 'hardness' rather than 'difficulty' it's because the former seems more appropriate to 16th century English, as earlier dictionaries were sold as lists of 'hard words'. Also, there's a certain resonance with the scale used by geologists.)

Just click on the title below to go to the blog post for the tabs. Don't forget: even the hard ones start much easier, so will be worth a try.

(There may be a few inactive entries of pieces yet to be loaded.)