The Austin Ukulele Society was thrilled to kick off its 12TH YEAR with ukulele friends from Australia, Brazil, England, Canada, Germany, and nearly half the states in the U.S.! While we look forward to getting back to meeting in person soon, Bob and Jen truly enjoy the virtual AUS meeting experience with all of you. Thank you for being there and making music with us!

Our first meeting of each year is often full of ‘new year’ energy, for many reasons, including resolutions to play more or learn to play ukulele (of course!), Santa Claus putting new ukuleles under the tree, etc. Therefore, we typically pick an upbeat, well-known and infectious song to kick the year off right. This year was no different, and we had a blast learning the Turtles’ timeless and well-loved classic hit rock tune, “Happy Together.”

Our meeting kicked off with local ukulele news and with our favorite warm-up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Then Bob G. beautifully performed his terrific arrangement of The Turtles’ “Happy Together” for us. He broke down the song into helpful exercises, to help us gain confidence with all parts – even the daunting Bb chord. 🙂

We had fun harmonizing, strumming, picking and, of course, learning lots from Bob. We put the song all together and enjoyed playing it through a couple of times. To finish up the eve, we played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and enjoyed some of our amazing collaborative videos (produced by Marty Porter) from the past 20+ virtual meetings!

As always, we owe Lyda our appreciation for managing the presentation during the meeting and Jen for moderating the live chat/comments.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “Happy Together,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the January 13 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 “Happy Together” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of “Happy Together”.

We will keep you posted about our February 10 meeting’s ‘in-person‘ or ‘virtual‘ status, and we’ll be sure to have one of each should we get to meet in person – so stay tuned and subscribed 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.

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. 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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