Tan y Bwlch for Ukulele

It's unusual to have a multi-part piece composed entirely for ukulele. This programmatic three-movement offering from Richard Durrant takes inspiration from the Welsh countryside & steam railway & is arranged for three groups plus solo uke. It mixes lyrical, melodic themes evoking the countryside, with a more humorous mixture of repeated motifs & percussive sound effects for the train itself. Nicely layered, it sounds very intricate as a whole & is largely based on short repeated sections within each part. There are several ways of listening to the entire piece and to each movement - with all parts playing together & also individually, both video & mp3. The videos are great, with Richard gently counting you into when you need to start playing for your part. And then group parts 1, 2 & 3 each have their own tutorial videos for movements I, II & III. As with his other courses, the videos are clearly shot, with concise, helpful instructions & tips on any tricky sections from Richard as he walks you through each tutorial. In case you are unfamiliar with reading music, he also explains how the notation works in the pdf scores, including things like repeat marks & pauses. If you've done his Ukulele Launch Pad, you will already be familiar with the notation for hand positioning & fingering, plus things like the strumming pattern & tremolo. Richard takes you through carefully, explaining you will benefit from learning your part rather than rely on reading the score. As there are various repeated sections in each movement, you soon start to pick this up & play more confidently. As with anything like this, he gently reminds you to rewind & watch repeatedly until you absorb his teaching. I haven't yet chosen which part to concentrate on - my fingers ideally need to grow in length slightly to make a couple of the chord shapes in a few places (good job I only play a soprano)! - but it's enjoyable to play along in the tutorial & I look forward to having practised enough to play along properly to the full piece. It's challenging but certainly not as difficult as I thought it would be when I first heard the music, now it's all been broken down. If there are several of you, you can play this as a proper ensemble along to the recordings. It would have been nice to have tutorials on the solo uke part but maybe Richard is hoping to travel round & play at various ukulele groups round the country to accompany his work :) Or perhaps that's going to be another course available soon. Hugely enjoyable & I hope plenty of uke players take up the challenge of learning Tan y Bwlch. Many thanks. Jeanette People of Lewisham's Ukulele Club (PLUC)