10 Etudes for Ukulele

The first sparks of composing the collection of ukulele etudes were struck after my mother’s (Fahimeh Fough, member of the board of trustees of Yarava Music Group) first encounter with this instrument.

Her interest in learning this instrument, despite having dozens of different instruments from all over the world in our house for more than twenty years, became the motivation for me to write easy etudes for this instrument and for my mother.

The first experience in composing easy pieces was not very successful. The result was my Etude No.10. But I continued working with Etudes No. 1 and 2. Until halfway through the writing of Etude No. 2, with the loss of Fahimeh Fough, this project was halted for nearly two years. From the beginning of 1402 (2023), with the accompaniment of Sousan Sargazi, my wife, who learned ukulele from me, I continued the project and the result is the following collection.

I want to thank Sousan Sargazi, Anahita Jafari and Nastaran Ghaffari for performing and reviewing the pieces, Amin Khoshsabk and Soheil Tabatabaie for their help with writing the notes for this collection, Rojin Monibi for editing and translating the texts, and Farzia Fallah for the final review of the book. I am especially grateful to maestro Fozie Majd who revived the motivation to publish the pieces in me and provided the initiatives for this in Mahoor Institute of Culture and Arts, and thanks to Mohammad Mousavi, the director of the Mahoor Institute, who generously paved the way for this.

Mehdi Jalali, Spring 2024