Nana para Eva (translated as lullaby for Eva) is a beautiful solo ukulele arrangement from Choan Gálvez. Choan has very kindly allowed me to publish the tab here for you to learn.
Taken from Choan’s album Lullabies for Astronauts this beautiful arrangement was the first Choan ever wrote for solo ukulele. It was an improvised piece to help his wife get to sleep.
You can listen to Nana para Eva by pressing the play button below…
I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a beautiful piece of music that would make a great addition to your repertoire. The good news is, it’s not too difficult to play and should be good for anyone that’s tinkered around with a little bit of fingerpicking before or is considering it. Essentially, if you’re fairly comfortable playing chords and changing between them, this should be a great piece for you to tackle.
Playing Tips
Choan very kindly put together a few playing tips to help you get the best out of this one. Who better to tell you than the composer himself.
- Try and let every note ring out for a long as possible. This means keeping notes fretted after you’ve plucked the string. You can also aid this by not smothering your ukulele when you hold it.
- You can play the double stops on adjacent strings (bar 3 is a good example) using a short thumb strum.
- Try and play it softly with a relaxed, calm feel. Remember, you’re playing a lullaby. It needs to be treated like a lullaby (you’re not trying to wake anyone up with it).
- Breathe with the rhythm. This will aid the feel of the piece.
- Feel free to adapt and change. Once you’ve learned the song, break the rules and add a little bit of your own magic to it.
The Tab
Here’s the first part of the tab (you can grab the 2 page PDF by hitting the button at the bottom of this article).
And finally, if you like Nana para Eva and would be interested in listening (and learning) more of Choan Gálvez’s beautiful ukulele arrangements you can check out the album Lullabies for Astronauts. It features 10 arrangements all with supporting tab and is released on 15 October. You can pre-order it for just €5.
You can check out the rest of Choan’s work over at his website.