Today’s question comes from Ramille Matsoukis of the Mother Pluckers Ukulele Ensemble:

The ukulele instrumental trio I play in have been loving your book, Christmas Carols for Ukulele Orchestra. We ladies are strictly instrumentalists, and enjoy your arrangements immensely. One of our members reads only tablature. In addition to your book we also play some pdf songs which I rearranged from an old book of recorder ensemble music.

I would like to make some post-Christmas arrangements for us to play, and am having no luck finding an app which will let me compose with ukulele tablature. Everything is either guitar tab or bass with notation on top. Do you have a specific app for writing ukulele tab? … Any advice or lead on composing with a ukes tab would be much appreciated.

As far as notation software goes, I’ve used Finale since the late 90s and think it is a great program. It is pretty pricey though and has a learning curve that people often complain about. It produces great looking music though.

A free option is Musescore, which I know will do ukulele tablature, but I don’t have much experience with using it myself. You can get it free at https://musescore.org and they have a section of their manual dedicated to tablature at https://musescore.org/en/handbook/tablature … you might also check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34DIkmmVIv0 to get an overview.

No matter which program you use, tablature always seems to be a little harder to input than standard notation, so there’s a learning curve.
I also found this interesting online program that will only deal with one ukulele at a time: http://www.pluckinukes.com/tabcreator … simple, but lacking rhythm indications.

As far as arranging tips, I usually find that two or three ukulele parts plus chord indications for rhythm players make for a nice sound.

1. Melody (may include double/triple stops or ‘chord melody’ if you have players that can handle that)
2. Harmony / Countermelody / Descant (at times optional, at others really needed)
3. Bass (always great for less-experienced players or giving someone a break)
4. Chord Indications (with some strumming or fingerpicking indications, where desired)

Anyway, I’d love to see what you come up with. Best of luck in your endeavor!

Post filed under All UkulelePlay! Blog Posts.