Kids on Youtube playing my ukulele arrangement

In 2011, a friend recorded me playing the song Never on Sunday on ukulele.

For some reason it got shared around a bit and people started asking about the arrangement, despite the arrangement not being anything particularly interesting. Still, similar to my love of open source software, I love the idea of sharing music. So, in 2012 I notated it and I added a PDF of the tablature to the original blog post where I had initially shared it.

Two years later, in 2014, a teacher in Malaysia had their student Pung Jiunn Han play my arrangement for a talent competition!

Thanks so much to Mr Jordan Eldredge for providing the music score across the Oceans at the other part of the World that we are able to let Jiunn Han played your version.

And in 2020 Vera Wu, presumably another student of the same teacher, played it.

I also found this video on Facebook of her playing it again in 2021 with impressive improvement!

In 2022 Carlson Chin played it.

And in 2024 Kua Qian Xi played it.

Watching these videos is honestly surreal. It’s a remarkable feeling that I have this musical connection with these kids, who I’ve never met and who live on the opposite side of the world to me. It’s acted as a reminder to me that it’s always worth it to share your work, even if the work doesn’t feel particularly remarkable or unique.

While I enjoy playing ukulele, I’m not really that great at it. And my “arrangement” is pretty much what any hack would come up with once they picked that key. But, in retrospect that may be what made it such a good arrangement for these kids. My pedestrian playing meant I came up with a simplistic arrangement which is exactly what you want as a student!

I am truly grateful for the privilege of being a tiny part of these kids’ musical life. The internet is pretty amazing.