Last Thursday, the Austin Ukulele Society was thrilled to celebrate its official 10th anniversary (January 2011 – January 2021!) and kick off its 11th year of monthly meetings. We are so proud to be part of Austin’s music community and delighted to have extended our reach globally through our virtual meetings for the past 10 months. Thank you to all of the friends who joined us via YouTube on Thursday, including the first-timers and those that have been with us since the first meeting on January 11, 2011 in a small community room at a supermarket. We really enjoyed the shout-outs from New Zealand, Germany, Ireland, Brazil, Australia, the UK, and many points across the U.S. and Canada.

As has been our tradition since that very first meeting, we began by sharing local ukulele news and warming up our fingers and voices with Bob Marley’s ever-cheerful “Three Little Birds.” It was a perfect warm-up song, as we dove into learning a medley of two more uplifting tunes: the late, great Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” and “Blue Skies,” an Irving Berlin classic arranged by Bob for the uke, in the style of Willie Nelson’s 1978 cover.

Bob led us through his excellent tutorial, which included practicing strumming styles and switching from one strum to another and back. He also helped us get comfortable with the chords, their positioning and transitions. We were feeling confident by the time we put the complete song together and played it through twice. Before we ended the meeting with Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” Bob thanked Jen Richardson for her partnership in running the Austin Ukulele Society and his wife Lyda for designing our beautiful logo and shirt designs and being an excellent projectionist to boot.

 

You can download the lyrics and chords for our medley of of “I Can See Clearly Now” and “Blue Skies”, or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the webcast. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
      ● Welcome
      ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
      ● Bob’s “I Can See Clearly Now / Blue Skies” medley tutorial
      ● “On the Road Again” closing song
      ● Bob’s demo video of the medley

Thank you for joining us, sending in your selfies, and being so positive!

We look forward to strumming and chatting with everyone at next month’s meeting on Thursday, February 11! 🙂

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, designed by the talented Lyda Guz!

The shirts are silk screened here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop and are available for purchase via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

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