Greetings, friends! Our next monthly meeting is fast approaching! On Thursday, February 12, 7:00–9:00pm, we’ll meet again at St. John’s United Methodist Church, located at 2140 Allandale Rd, Austin, TX 78756.

At St. John’s, parking is available on both the Wynona Ave. and White Rock Dr. sides of the church. You can also park in the Lamar Middle School lots across White Rock Dr. from the church. Street parking is available all along Wynona Ave. The entrance is on the Wynona Ave. side of the church.

Since our February meeting occurs near (even occasionally on!) Valentine’s Day, we always choose a love song for the month. In past February meetings, we’ve covered many great love/romance tunes from a variety of genres and time periods including themes of heartbreak, romantic love, and love/compassion for all.

In keeping with our Valentine’s-themed tradition, and also this very famous songwriter’s oft-covered topic, we’ll learn Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.” Don’t hang up your (“Rhinestone Cowboy”) hats just yet since this 2008 mega-hit has a pop country feel. This global chart topper is considered one of Swift’s signature songs, and we know you’ll be singing and strumming along to its infectious tune with great lyrics. Does it have a happy or sad ending? You’ll just have to watch the original recording’s video to find out!

Taylor Swift’s 2008 original recording is in F#, so Bob moved it up a half-step to the uke-friendly key of G major. Bob edited Swift’s recording to make a play-along audio track in G – please check it out and practice with her. Bob’s kept his arrangement just like the original, though he slowed it down a bit. 🙂

Here are some details about Bob’s song sheet:

• Pages 1 – 3 have the chords and lyrics.
• Page 3 also has a description of the strum pattern, with a simplified alternative. Rhythm notes continue on page 4.
• Page 4 also has tab that can be played during the Interlude following Chorus 2 while other players strum the chords.
• Pages 5-7 have vocal melody and harmony options for the Chorus.

As always, we encourage practicing using Bob’s song sheet, Taylor Swift’s 2008 original recording, and the practice play-along audio track – before the 12th, if possible. 🙂

At the meeting, Bob will perform “You Belong With Me” to demonstrate his arrangement, and then take us through some helpful exercises to get us comfortable with the chords and chord progressions, strum patterns, vocal harmonizing and picking options in each section of the song, before we put it all together to play it through.

Our meeting format, as usual, will begin with introductions and some local ukulele news/events. We’ll also include some open mic time for those of you who’d like to showcase one tune you’ve been working on. A sign-up sheet will be available at 6:30. As open mic time is limited to three participants, please sign up when you arrive and understand that preference will be given to those who have not participated recently or ever before.

After the open mic portion of the eve, we’ll play through our new-to-us song again and record a performance video. We’ll share this video on our YouTube channel about a week after the meeting – so please subscribe if you haven’t yet, and you’ll be notified when it’s available! 

Ukulele Society T-shirts and Merch!

We’re very excited about our 2026 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Ukin’ Armadillo,” designed by Lyda Guz. This cool design features a rockin’ and rollin’ armadillo happily strumming his favorite ukulele decorated with 16 stars to celebrates the Austin Ukulele Society’s 16th year of making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

You can purchase our $25 shirts with digital payment via our Square Shop and/or via cash/check before and after the meeting. We know you’ll love adding our terrific, new, iconic Austin Ukulele Society shirt to your wardrobe!

We also have patches for $5 and vinyl stickers for $1 each.

Please bring cash or a check made out to Austin Ukulele Society; you can also pay via our Square shop.

Location
Our meetings take place at St. John’s United Methodist Church, located at 2140 Allandale Rd, Austin, TX 78756. Map it!

Parking is available on the Wynona Ave. and White Rock Dr. sides of the church. You can also park in the Lamar Middle School lots across White Rock Dr. from the church. Street parking is available all along Wynona Ave.

For anyone who might be attending for the first time, the entrance to St. John’s is on the Wynona Ave. side of the church. From there simply follow the sounds of ukuleles tuning up. 🙂

Newcomers and beginners are ALWAYS welcome! Even if you’re a complete novice, we encourage you to come out. Many beginners come to the meetings, and it’s so great to see their skills grow over time! There are almost always easier ways to play the songs, even if you can play only a few of the chords. Or just sing along!

For the monthly meetings, our friend Lori brings loaner ukuleles, donated by the TUG (Tuesday Ukulele Group)! They are Makala concert and soprano ukes, and you can borrow one to play during the meeting. You’ll find them at the front of the room; so if you don’t have a uke yet, or you forget your uke at home, or your uke is in disrepair, please join us and borrow a TUG loaner uke. 🙂

Feel free to get familiar with the chord charts for any of the songs in our repertoire, all available on the “Music Library” page. We always play “Three Little Birds” and “On the Road Again” as our opening and closing songs, so if you’re new to the group and want to get familiar with them, you can play along using the presentations and our videos.

Stay tuned and keep strumming! We’re looking forward to seeing everyone on Thursday, February 12, at 7:00pm!

Contact Us if you have any questions, need more information, or would like to be added to our mailing list.

Hello, friends, thank you for joining us at our January virtual meeting! Whether it was 5pm in California, 9pm in Nova Scotia, 2am in Germany, or noon Friday in Sydney, Australia, more than 180 of you showed up, ready to strum and sing with Bob and the gang in Austin. We love you! 🙂

With the recent passing of the legendary co-founder of the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir, we thought it would be great to pay homage to him by revisiting our take on “Ripple.” The Austin Ukulele Society covered this classic ~11 years ago.

Bob kicked off the meeting by introducing special guest and friend Jay Clement, who joined him to harmonize on vocals and play u-bass. He then introduced Jen, his AUS partner, and Lyda, his life partner, and shared some local uke news, including our upcoming Ukulele Open Mic on February 21st.

Then Bob led us in playing our lovely opening song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” before launching into the meeting’s tutorial. Bob led us through some helpful exercises to learn each part of “Ripple,” including its strumming styles and harmony options. He also spent time reviewing and demonstrating some useful strumming techniques. We enjoyed breaking down “Ripple” and played it through twice – we sounded great!

Then Bob spent a little time sharing some background on “Wagon Wheel,” and we had fun playing this popular tune together, too.

To close out the evening, we played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” Bob shared a few of the AUS in-person meeting videos, and we chatted some more before ending the livestream.

You can download the song sheet for “Ripple” to play along, or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills.

Download the song sheet for “Wagon Wheel” to play along, or grab a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills.

You can also watch a replay of the January 22 livestream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

It was a wonderful time together, and we owe a many thanks to Lyda Guz for managing the presentation and Jen Richardson for moderating the chat. Special thanks to our guest Jay Clement for his bass and vocal accompaniment!

Thank you all for joining us, sending in your selfies, and staying connected!

We look forward to being back with our friends from near and far online on April 23, 2026! And we hope to seeing all our nearby friends at our next in-person meeting on Thursday, February 12, at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Be well and keep strumming!  🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

We kicked off our 16th year of monthly meetings on a beautiful January evening in Austin. We had at least 175 ukulele enthusiasts of all levels in attendance! As always, we want to thank you for showing up, smiling and participating. We could not do this without you!    

In January we always opt to learn a popular and upbeat song. This January was no different, and we learned Glen Campbell’s 1975 timeless, international hit, “Rhinestone Cowboy.” This tune is generally considered his signature song and tells a tale of making it, despite obstacles. We were all singing and strumming along in no time!

Bob kicked off the meeting with introductions and gratitude. He thanked Jen for being his partner in all things AUS, Lyda for all she does, not least of all designing our fantastic shirts, Lori and Jana for supporting us in business decisions and t-shirt sales and gave thanks to our tireless friends Barry and Gary, too. After sharing some local uke news, we warmed up with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”  

After hearing Bob and Aaron perform a great demo of our new-to-us song, we got to work on “Rhinestone Cowboy.” We had fun learning the chords, chord progressions, strum patterns and picking options from Bob. After we practiced each component of the song, we put it all together and played it through, sounding better each time. 

We took a break to hear Rich play a great song he’s been working on. Then we got back to practicing “Rhinestone Cowboy” and recorded a video of our performance!

We hope you’ll play along with us on “Rhinestone Cowboy” from your home. It will be coming soon to our YouTube Channel! 

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Rhinestone Cowboy” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide (what we project on the screen for all to follow along, including exercises and drills).

As always, we’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and all the fabulous AUS volunteers for all their hard work.  

Take care and be well. We look forward to “seeing” everyone at our upcoming virtual meeting on Thursday, January 22, at 7:00 CDT on our YouTube Channel. We also hope to see you at the February 12 in-person meeting at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Keep on strumming until then!  🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

Ukulele Society T-shirts and Merch!

We’re very excited about our 2026 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Ukin’ Armadillo,” designed by Lyda Guz. This cool design features a rockin’ and rollin’ armadillo happily strumming his favorite ukulele decorated with 16 stars to celebrates the Austin Ukulele Society’s 16th year of making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Ukin’ Armadillo” design, “Circle of Stars,” “AUS Grackle,” “Classic Ukulele,” “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $25. We also have vinyl decals with the AUS logo for $1 each. We can accept cash or a check made out to Austin Ukulele Society; you can also make payment via Venmo or PayPal. Please drop us a line if you’d like to purchase a shirt (or two or three). 🙂 At this time, we can only ship orders within the U.S.

On a balmy December evening in Austin, around 150 ukulele players brought lots of cheer and merriment with them to our 15th Annual Holiday Potluck and Strum-along! 🎁 🎄

We take a different approach to this last-meeting-of-the-year compared with our other workshop-style meetings. Instead of learning a new-to-us song arranged by Bob, we socialize! We truly enjoyed visiting and noshing to start off the eve! Bob shared some info about the evening’s agenda and we warmed up our hands and voices with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Then we played through some of our favorite holiday songs and medleys!

We had an extended open mic portion of the evening, with a terrific array of big groups and solo musicians, all playing an excellent variety of holiday tunes for our listening pleasure. We owe a huge thanks to Walter, the Tuesday Ukulele Group (TUG), the Georgetown Ukulele Club, the Sweetwater Ukuleles, Jack Pott, Rodger, Helen, and the Austin Ukulele Society Ensemble for sharing their terrific performances!

After the open mic performances, the whole group got back together to play a few more group holiday songs!

Thank you for bringing food and treats to share, wearing holiday attire, and always bringing happiness with you. We truly appreciate you all for making 2025 a wonderful year for the Austin Ukulele Society – we couldn’t do it without you!

As always, we owe Jen, Lyda, Lori, and Jana a big thanks for supporting all of the backend business of the AUS. Thanks also to Barry and Gary for their tireless set up efforts at each meeting. We’re all grateful to Bob for his patient and thoughtful teaching and leading. Last, but not least, we owe a big thanks to Aaron for keeping us on the beat with his U-bass! 

We can’t wait to ring in 2026 with you! We’re looking forward to seeing you on Thursday, January 8, at the first meeting of our 16th year! Until then, keep strumming and have a peaceful holiday season! 🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

It’s time to start polishing your holiday repertoire! The Austin Ukulele Society had a delightfully merry November gathering. As is our tradition in November, we kicked off the holiday season with plenty of colorful attire and smiles as we learned a new-to-us medley of holiday standards! “Silver Bells” may be 75 years old, but it is as timeless and popular as ever. Since “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” is also in 3/4 waltz time, they make for a great medley.    

After sharing some local ukulele news and the evening’s agenda, Bob demonstrated his lovely arrangement of “Silver Bells” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” 

He then took us through helpful exercises to learn the chords, three-quarter time strum styles, picking, and vocal harmonies. 

We enjoyed practicing each section of the medley. When we put it all together to play through, we sounded terrific!

We hope you’ll play along with us on the “Silver Bells Medley” from your home. It will be coming soon to our YouTube Channel! 

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of the “Silver Bells Medley” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide (what we project on the screen for all to follow along, including exercises and drills).

As always, we’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Bob, Jen, Lyda, Jana, Lori, Barry, Gary, and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

We look forward to seeing you at our holiday strum-along and potluck on December 11 at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Be well and have a lovely Thanksgiving!  🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “Classic Ukulele,” “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $25. We also have vinyl decals with the AUS logo for $1 each. We can accept cash or a check made out to Austin Ukulele Society; you can also make payment via Venmo or PayPal. Please drop us a line if you’d like to purchase a shirt (or two or three). 🙂 At this time, we can only ship orders within the U.S.

The Austin Ukulele Society had Halloween season chills and thrills covered, across the globe, at our virtual meeting last week! From Australia to Canada, the UK and Germany, and all points of North America, we united for a fun and spooky evening of music. 🙂

Since this event fell just eight days before All Hallows Eve, we couldn’t resist revisiting an eerie tune from the AUS past. We were thrilled to learn a spooky, bluesy, howling hit from 1966: Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs’ “Li’l Red Riding Hood.” 💓

Bob started the night by sharing some personal and AUS updates and asking all to say hello and where they were signing on from. We then played Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” to warm up our voices and fingers.

Next, Bob shared some info about “Li’l Red Riding Hood” and gave us a great demonstrative performance. He then took us through helpful exercises to help us get comfortable with the chords, chord progressions, harmony options and more. Bob extended his tutorial to include some chord and strumming variations to use in our featured song as well as many other songs we might play. We had fun practicing the various components of Bob’s lesson, and by the time we played “L’il Red Riding Hood” through, we sounded great and confident – and even played it through twice!

To close out the evening, we played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and visited a bit more in the chat while watching a few AUS in-person meeting videos.

You can download the song sheet for “Li’l Red Riding Hood” to play along, or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills.

You can also watch a replay of the October 23 livestream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

It was a wonderful time together, and we owe a special thanks to Lyda Guz for managing the presentation and Jen Richardson for moderating the chat.

Thank you all for joining us, sending in your selfies, and staying connected!

We look forward to being back with our friends from near and far online on January 22nd, 2026! Until then, we wish everyone a great Halloween and a wonderful holiday season!

And we hope to seeing all our nearby friends at our next in-person meeting on Thursday, November 13, at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Be well and keep strumming!  🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

A thrilling kickoff to the Halloween season was had by all 165+ in attendance at the Austin Ukulele Society’s October meeting! At this meeting we were thrilled to cover Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” This epic, eerie and haunting tune is on EVERY Halloween playlist, and the music video is considered the best of all time. We loved strumming and singing it together!

The evening began with introductions and Bob giving a run-through of the evening’s agenda. We then warmed up by playing our traditional opener: Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”   

Bob gave us a great performance of his arrangement of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” before we launched into helpful exercises. We practiced chord progressions, strumming options, and even an appropriately-timed stomp as we learned to strum and sing.

When we put the song together, we were sounding terrifyingly good!

We took a break and enjoyed the fabulous open mic talent of Alan (all the way from the UK!), Walter M., and Rich C. We are fortunate to have had such a delightful interlude!

Then we got back to our enjoyable work, and after we practiced some more, we were ready to make a recording for you. We hope you’ll play along with us on “Thriller” from your home. It will be coming soon to our YouTube Channel! 

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Thriller” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide (what we project on the screen for all to follow along, including exercises and drills).

As always, we’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Bob, Jen, Lyda, Jana, Lori, Barry, Gary, and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

Take care and be well, enjoy the spooky month, and please join us at our livestream on Thursday, October 23, at 7:00 CDT on our YouTube Channel. We also hope to see you at the November 13 in-person meeting at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Keep on strumming until then!  🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “Classic Ukulele,” “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $25. We also have vinyl decals with the AUS logo for $1 each. We can accept cash or a check made out to Austin Ukulele Society; you can also make payment via Venmo or PayPal. Please drop us a line if you’d like to purchase a shirt (or two or three). 🙂 At this time, we can only ship orders within the U.S.

The September meeting of the Austin Ukulele Society was extra special, as we saw our biggest in-person gathering since before the pandemic! We were thrilled to welcome 175 ukulele players of all ages, backgrounds and skill levels, as it is always a joy to make music with such wonderful folks! ❤

This month, we turned our attention to a soulful song made most popular by Dobie Gray in 1973: “Drift Away.” This international, timeless hit pays homage to the gifts that music gives us, and while it’s been covered by many, our rendition will stick more closely to Dobie Gray’s version. We loved playing this beautiful song together!

We kicked off the evening with brief introductions and local ukulele news (including info about Lil Rev and Rockin’ Ray’s September 25 workshop – email us for details!). Then we enjoyed warming up our voices and fingers with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”  

Then Bob performed “Drift Away” to help us get a feel for the arrangement we’d soon be playing. He then took us through some very helpful exercises to get us comfortable with all of the components of the song, including the chord progressions, strum patterns, picking options, and vocal harmonies.

We enjoyed working on each part of the song and then putting it together to play through. 

This month’s meeting didn’t have any open mic participants, so we took advantage of a little extra practice time and fine tuned our performance. Please enjoy playing along with us from home! It will be coming soon to our YouTube Channel! 

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Drift Away” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide (what we project on the screen for all to follow along, including exercises and drills).

As always, we’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Bob, Jen, Lyda, Jana, Lori, Barry, Gary, and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

Take care and be well, and we hope to see you all at the October 9th AUS in-person meeting at St. John’s United Methodist Church, as well as the October 23rd online meeting on our YouTube channel. Keep on strumming until then!  🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “Classic Ukulele,” “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $25. We also have vinyl decals with the AUS logo for $1 each. We can accept cash or a check made out to Austin Ukulele Society; you can also make payment via Venmo or PayPal. Please drop us a line if you’d like to purchase a shirt (or two or three). 🙂 At this time, we can only ship orders within the U.S.

The Austin Ukulele Society’s August meeting was filled with the wonderful energy that can only be found when 160+ ukulele enthusiasts get together for an evening of community music! ❤

We’ve been rockin’ and groovin’ to upbeat tunes over the past few months, so it was time to turn our attention to another song style we love: ballads. We learned to strum, sing, and harmonize Christina Perri”s “A Thousand Years.” This 2011 hit was written for the very popular romantasy film “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1,” and continues to be loved across the world. We had a blast playing this lovely song together!

We started the evening with local ukulele news, including a ‘save the date’ for Lil Rev and Rocking Ray’s September 25th workshop and concert. Then we enjoyed warming up our voices and fingers with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”  

Bob shared an overview of his arrangement of “A Thousand Years” and gave a great performance of it to help us get ready to learn it. We practiced all of the components of the song, including the strum style, tab options, vocal harmonizing options, and getting comfortable with the tempo, with Bob’s excellent teaching and useful exercises. After playing it through a couple of times, we were ready for a little break from our efforts.

Thankfully, we had three terrific performances during the open mic portion of the evening: Jess Holloway played a great rock song, The John Davenport and Leta performed a lovely duet of a Jacob Borshard song, and Sho Humphries blew the roof off (and got a standing ovation for it) with one of his original compositions. Thanks for sharing your talent with us!

Next, we got back to work on “A Thousand Years” and we sounded better and better with each run through, so we recorded ourselves and hope you’ll play along with us from home.  It will be coming soon to our YouTube Channel! 

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “A Thousand Years” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide (what we project on the screen for all to follow along, including exercises and drills).

As always, we’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Bob, Jen, Lyda, Jana, Lori, Barry, and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

We look forward to seeing you at our September 11th monthly meeting at St. John’s United Methodist Church! Keep on strumming until then!  🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “Classic Ukulele,” “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $25. We also have vinyl decals with the AUS logo for $1 each. We can accept cash or a check made out to Austin Ukulele Society; you can also make payment via Venmo or PayPal. Please drop us a line if you’d like to purchase a shirt (or two or three). 🙂 At this time, we can only ship orders within the U.S.

The Austin Ukulele Society’s July virtual meeting was rocking! 160 enthusiasts from Finland to Brazil, New Zealand to Canada, Germany to Colombia, and numerous locations around North America, got together to play some timeless hits by the King of Rock n Roll himself – Elvis Presley. 💓

Bob kicked off the evening with Austin-area ukulele news and our warm-up song (Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”)

He then shared his plan for the evening, as he patiently guided us through great tutorials of the three songs we’d be learning – “Don’t Be Cruel,” “All Shook Up,” and “Return to Sender“. We had a terrific time learning the strum patterns, chord progressions, and song styles along with a little music theory. Naturally, we sounded terrific when we put each song together to play through. As an added treat, we also played another Elvis classic: “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You.”

We then played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and spent a little more time in the meeting chat while we watched a few AUS videos together.

You can view and download the song sheets Bob created for each song, as well as a PDF copy of each presentation Bob displayed for the tutorials and play-alongs:

You can also watch a replay of the July 24 livestream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

Thank you, as always, for your enthusiasm, participation, questions, comments, and more. Jen Richardson (moderating the chat) and Lyda Guz (passing questions to Bob) enjoyed your company throughout the evening. 💓

Thank you for joining us, sending in your selfies, and staying connected!

We look forward to being back with our friends from near and far online on Thursday, October 23. And we look forward to seeing our nearby friends at the next in-person meeting on Thursday, August 14, at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Be well and keep strumming!  🙂

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.