Hi there fantastic fingerpicking fans,

There's a ton of new stuff over on my Youtube, from country to Celtic to renaissance, there's sure to be something to tickle your fancy!

Tabs are as always available to my patrons. Please consider supporting my work to arrange traditional music for ukulele - for the price of a coffee you'll get access to every tab I've ever made (and there are a lot) plus the added satisfaction of knowing what an awesome, generous and cultivated patron of the arts you are.

The Morpeth Rant: Traditional dance from the north-east of England, which my Geordie friends are sure to know, but I believe it has also made its way across the pond to some old-timey circles.

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/z0vNMWBJ2_Y

No Man's Land: also known as Willy Mcbride or The Green Fields of France, this classic anti war song by the legendary Eric Bogle has been covered by just about everyone. This is not an instrumental version but my attempt to make the backing chords sound nice on the uke. What doesn't sound nice is my singing, so to spare your ears I just recorded the first verse and chorus.

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/8_hyCLcS7r4

Camptown Hornpipe: Minstrel banjo tune from the mid-nineteenth century. I rerecorded this on my banjolele, it sounds great on uke too and is easy and a heap of fun to play

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/6dL_WPY_ug4

Volte: composed by the French renaissance composer Jean-Baptiste Bésard, this dance tune from the seventeenth century is pretty, and pretty easy to play. I made the video in the medieval town of Périgueux, in south-west France.

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/0yh4mhFossY

The Rocky Road to Dublin: a slip jig is a jig in 9/8 time and this slip jig is the most famous of them all, with the tune also being a song of the same name.

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/4MN0WwdwptY

Abe's Retreat: civil war tune, although I sourced this one on thesession.org, so it seems like a Celtic take on it. Play it with a swinging, almost dotted rhythm.

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/TXsBiVmqbW4

Lesson for Two Lutes: John Dowland must have written this as an étude for his students. If you don't have ukeist friend to do the duet, just play the two parts one after the other, in any order.

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/LDu7L4KW2Q4

Drowsy Maggie: this was the first tune I ever arranged for ukulele and my first YouTube uke video, made back in 2014 when I'd been playing uke for just over a month. I've revised the fingerings since I first published the tabs, so I thought it would be a good idea to record it again with a tutorial. It's a reel in D dorian, very popular session tune . And it was the tune that made us the most money back in the day when we'd busk on Durham bridge (we'd go busking as a way to earn a bit and rehearse for concerts at the same time, but playing in the street earned us more money than the concerts!)

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/V9RydT8fROw

Tam Lin: another great reel, not too dissimilar to Drowsy Maggie but in a different key, the thing they have in common is this 'bouncing' between a route note and the other notes. It's a great tune, the first part is easy, the second a bit tricky, but in the tutorial I give you an easier alternative which drops the campanella voices in a couple of places.

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/lhpsddnnhBU

Jolene: I posted this to Instagram a while back after seeing a few others doing it and didn't think much of it, but I've had a few requests for a tutorial so that's what I've done, It's more chord melody than fingerpicking, with just three chords. It's still a great song, and Dolly Parton is one awesome human being.

Watch it here: https://youtu.be/kpRD1ndgW2A

Go to my Patreon to get the same videos with onscreen tabs and a downloadable PDF. Thank you for your supporting traditional music on the ukulele!

And don't forget to follow me on Instagram where you can see short snippets of my work, and other stuff (mostly rock and pop riffs) which isn't posted to YouTube or Patreon.

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