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Wednesday 20 December 2017

Tárrega: Adelita (Mazurka)

Francisco Tárrega (1852 – 1909)

Well, this is a foray into the future: the romantic late 19th century, to be more exact. A correspondent asked me if I knew of any arrangements of Tárrega's work for low-G ukulele, and I had this one on file, so here it is. I have not transcribed Tárrega's more famous Lagrima because the version published in Mark K Nelson's Favorite fingerstyle solos ... (Mel Bay)* needs little modification to fit the low-G uke.

Adelita is a mazurka, which my trusty music dictionary describes as "... a Polish dance, in a moderate to fast triple time, with the second or third beat often strongly accented". Adelita needs to be played with as much emotion as you can muster, and I've included the expression instructions from the original. The bland MIDI version shows you what happens when you don't.

Some of the fingerings feel rather strange, but it's just a matter of practice. I have modified the original guitar fingerings in places to better suit the uke, and to enable position playing as far as possible.

You can find the transcriptions here:
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* See Resources page