We spent most of our sixth and final one-hour beginner ukulele class playing a duet with Alberti accompaniment, the last piece in the 20-page Fun with Uke Festive Edition. The melody is used for many songs, most famously Alphabet, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Miss Arabella Miller, and Twinkle Twinkle. What else can the Alberti accompaniment used for? The folk song “Long, Long Ago” requires only two chords. You might have heard of it, long long ago.
The Alberti accompaniment can be fingered best with right hand fingers: index, thumb, middle, and thumb. Keep these fingers on the three strings of the ukulele throughout.
To fingerpick the melody, use alternating index and middle fingers on the C, E, and A strings. Reserve the G-string for the thumb.
Modulation – change of key
One way to make this some more interesting is to change the key for the last verse. Instead of staying in C major, let’s go up a whole step to the key of D major.
The change in chords result in playing the Alberti accompaniment differently — on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd strings (C, E, A-strings) instead of the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd (G, C, E-strings) and different order, too. It feels intuitively more correct because we are no longer using the reentrant high G string.
Teaching points or learning outcomes
“Long, Long Ago” works well for the following reasons.
- Only two chords. Great practice for fingering and switching between two chords (for the left hand).
- Alberti accompaniment works well for this piece.
- Modulation exercise
- Small melodic range – easy to sing
