About Me

Samantha Muir & Uke.jpeg — Copyright Josie Elias 2018

My name is Samantha Muir and I am an Associate of the Royal College of Music, London. After many years as a professional classical guitarist I fell in love with the ukulele. I am an arranger, composer, teacher and performer. I have self published 11 ebooks of arrangements ranging from Bach, Carulli, Sor and Giuliani to sea shanties and Christmas songs. Please visit my personal website for more detailed information about all of my ebooks and CDs. In 2015 music publisher Schott commissioned me to arrange a book called 35 Scottish Tunes for Ukulele. This book includes a CD of all 35 arrangements. Since 2018 my new works for classical ukulele are published by Les Productions d’OZ.

I’m one of the few people outside Madeira to play the machete – one of the forerunners of the ukulele – and have a keen interest in the history of the ukulele. I have given papers on the ukulele at the GFA, IGRC, EGTA, the University of Surrey, the 21st Century Guitar Conference, the Dublin Guitar Symposium and the Consortium for Guitar Research Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge – of which I am a member.

In January 2021 I was featured in the Spring issue of Ukulele Magazine. You can read the interview here.

Here’s my arrangement of Annie Laurie from 35 Scottish Folk Tunes:

This is me playing my arrangement of Prelude BWV 1007 by JS Bach:

I am also interested in the history of the ukulele and play the machete de braga – one of the forerunners of the ukulele. In the photo below I am playing a machete made by Carlos Jorge Pereira Rodrigues of Funchal. The machete de braga, or machete, is from the island of Madeira where nowadays it is called a braguinha.