The Austin Ukulele Society and its members from the Austin area, coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada, and places as far as Brazil, Singapore, New Zealand, and Ireland, were all in festive spirits at our November meeting. Our global community inspired our 2021 t-shirt, beautifully designed by Lyda Guz – and we were excited to debut it at the meeting. We kicked the holiday season off a tad early by learning to sing and strum a beautiful medley of two holiday music classics. With our meeting falling on Veteran’s Day, we were inspired by “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” which was dedicated to troops who served in WWII. And “Home for the Holidays” is a lovely song to add to the themed medley.

Before we got into learning Bob’s great arrangement, we chatted about local ukulele news, including our plans to resume in person meetings in January. We shared a great discount code (BFUKULELE for 40% off!) for Austin-based Journey Instruments ukuleles and ukulele accessories, valid through November 30th.

After we played our always heart-warming opening tune, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” Bob performed his lovely arrangement of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Home for the Holidays.” Bob then broke down the medley into very helpful exercises, to get us comfortable with ALL of the chords, chord transitions, chord positioning options, and various strums. We had a great time, learning the components, and we sounded delightful when we put the song medley all together, playing it through two times. As we wrapped up, we played our closing song – Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

A huge thank you to Jen Richardson for bringing some extra joy (read: Chico) to the meeting, while also moderating the chat and handling many points of communication throughout. We’re grateful, as always, for Lyda Guz’s excellent PowerPoint presentation skills.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for the “I’ll Be Home For Christmas Medley,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the November 11 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
    ● Welcome and announcements
    ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
    ● Bob’s “I’ll Be Home For Christmas Medley” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of the “I’ll Be Home For Christmas Medley”.

Before saying goodnight, we premiered the group video of our October song “Rhiannon.” Many thanks to Paul Butler for his audio mixing skills, to Marty Porter for editing the video clips and producing the lovely final video, and to Jen Richardson for skillfully coordinating communications with all the participants. This was our largest number of participants ever! Huge thanks and congratulations to our very talented participants: Chris Armstrong, Shelly Benjamin, Patrice Bovero, Todd Bushlow, Arnie Butay, Paul Butler, Linda Christensen, Jay Clement, Deana Dossey, Victor Erickson, Ina Ferrera, Pauline and Vince Forbes, Shel Fung, Tracy Geraldez, Katie Gohmann, Bob Guz, Sherry Hall, Kay Harry, Gail Johnson, Mike Jones, Sue Kaneko, Nancy Kaumeyer, Arlene Krassner, Errol Lipschitz, Andrew Matlaga, Irene Messina, Una and Joe Modoni, Leigh Moss, Isaac Nogueira, Ann Peters, Leslie Poppen, Sabine Pütz, Jerry Raihl, Laurel Rulison, Al Saloha, Martha Schreffler, Vince Villescaz, and Cindy Walker. Incredible work everyone! Check it out:

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

We look forward to our holiday music sing-a-long virtual meeting on Thursday, December 9 on the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel . Be well and keep strumming until then! 🙂

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

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Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. Celebrating our global AUS community, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, “Ukulele Around the World,” 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 “Ukulele Around the World” design, “10th Anniversary,” 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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