We hope the month of March has started off well for you! Bob and Jen are looking forward to the March Austin Ukulele Society virtual meeting on Thursday, March 11, 7:00-8:30pm US Central time. We enjoyed our February meeting with friends from five(!) continents and hope you will all be back to strum and sing with us virtually next week. The live event is scheduled, and it is the very first item at the top of the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel page. Simply click the YouTube Live Event to join when we go live on the 11th at 7:00pm (CST, GMT -06:00). The PowerPoint presentation (with our warm up and closing songs, as well as the new-to-us song we’ll learn) will be viewable alongside Bob, during the YouTube event.

Lyda will take us through the slides while Bob explains and teaches his arrangement of our featured song. If you are logged into YouTube/Google, please say hello and share any questions/comments with Jen, moderating on behalf of the Austin Ukulele Society – Jen can get inquiries about the arrangement to Bob for live response. 🙂 If you have a chance to practice the song in advance, and you have questions, feel free to email them to us.

Pro Tips:

• The event is accessible without logging in and you don’t need a YouTube/Google account to watch. But to comment, you’ll need to log into YouTube with a Gmail account ID.
• When you join the YouTube live stream, if the video or sound quality is not at its best, roll your mouse over the video to find the ‘gear’ icon. Click it and select the ‘Quality’ option; 480p or higher (we recommend 720p) should improve video and sound quality for you, if you have the internet bandwidth to make the change. 🙂

The month of March brings so many things to celebrate: longer days with Daylight Savings Time, seasonal changes, Women’s History Month, St. Patrick’s Day and more. With a nod towards the last two mentions, we’re excited to learn a great pop song by a well-known, woman-led Irish rock band: The Cranberries’ 1993 mega-hit “Dreams.” We’re sure you’ll enjoy getting familiar with it if you aren’t already. 🙂

The Cranberries’ original recording is in the key of E, which has pretty challenging chords on the ukulele, so Bob dropped the key a full step to the uku-lovely key of D.

Download the song sheet for “Dreams” and practice along with Bob’s lush demo performance:

Here are some details about the song sheet:

• Pages 1-3 have the lyrics and chords
• Page 3 also includes notes and diagrams of the strumming patterns we’ll use
• Pages 4-5 have notes, tips and diagrams of the finger-picking pattern that can be played alternatively to strumming, during several parts of the song

At the virtual meeting, Bob will perform “Dreams” to demonstrate the arrangement. He’ll then take us through some helpful exercises that break down the song into its components, getting us comfortable with the chords and chord progressions, strum styles, and picking options before we put it all together to play it through. As always, Bob will be sure to share both the simple and more advanced options for playing this song, so players of all levels can learn and enjoy our meeting and his tutorial.

We recommend getting familiar with the song by listening to The Cranberries’ original recording of “Dreams” and by practicing using the song sheet and Bob’s demo video.

We always play Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” and Willie Nelson’s “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, available on the “Music Library” page. We’ll also display the presentations for these two songs during the live broadcast, for your convenience. 🙂

Newcomers and beginners are ALWAYS welcome, and we certainly look forward to having friends from far and wide join in with our live stream! Even if you’re a complete novice, we encourage you to join in. There are always easier ways to play the songs, even if you can play only a few of the chords. Or just sing along!

Stay tuned and keep strumming!! We’re looking forward to having everyone tune in on Thursday, March 11, at 7:00pm US Central Standard Time!

Contact Us if you have any questions, need more information, 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 year. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary this year, 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this:  .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

After an extraordinary week of damaging snow, ice and freezing temperatures in much of Texas, the Austin Ukulele Society’s Bob and Jen were very grateful to have the pleasure of hosting a wonderful February meeting. Over 150 friends from all over the U.S. and Canada, and from points in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia, got together to sing and strum (virtually) together.

Bob kicked off our February meeting by promoting some great Austin-area ukulele bands and reminding us to support ukulele music whenever possible. We then launched into our warm-up song: Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” which put everyone in good spirits. Bob began our lesson for the evening by sharing some information about Queen and Brian May’s connection to the ukulele, and then he gave a demonstration of his arrangement of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

 

Bob expertly led us through learning the chord progressions, helping us with any that we struggled with along the way. We looked at some tab options and had fun working on each piece of the song. Once we practiced each part, we put the song together and played it through twice. Everyone appreciated Bob’s tutelage and expressed their gratitude for a wonderful evening. We owe many thanks to Lyda, for being a terrific projectionist and to Jen, for moderating the meeting chat/comments/questions.

You can download the lyrics and chords for “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the February 18 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
      ● Welcome
      ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
      ● Bob’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” 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!

Many, many thanks to Marty Porter for putting together excellent collaborative videos after each monthly virtual meeting! Check out the group performance of our January medley of “I Can See Clearly” and “Blue Skies”:

We look forward to seeing everyone back on Thursday, March 11, at 7pm CT, on YouTube! 🙂

 

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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!