On a beautiful spring evening, a great group of ukulele players from the Austin area and beyond gathered in central Austin for the enjoyable opportunity of playing music together. Many, many thanks to all who came out to join the fun!

The evening began with local ukulele news, including the happy occasions of the Tuesday Uke Group (TUG) beginning in-person meetings again soon. South Austin Ukulele Community & Events (SAUCE) will also resume in the near future, so keep an eye out for more info there, too! After introductions and news were shared, Bob led us through our ever-cheerful warm-up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

It has been a VERY long time since we’ve gotten to play a great rock ‘n’ roll anthem together as a large group. Some of our favorite group meeting tunes have been up-tempo, huge rock hits, from across the decades. For April’s meeting, we strummed, sang and rocked out to a 1995 hit by English rock band Oasis: “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”  🙂

Bob shared some info about his arrangement and gave us a great demo performance of it. He took us through helpful exercises to get comfortable with the tempo, chords, chord changes, strum styles and picking options. We put it all together and got better each time we played it through. We recorded this terrific performance and play-along video, so that you can rock out with the AUS, from wherever you are:

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Don’t Look Back In Anger” 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).

The talented Jay Clement treated us to his beautiful rendition of the classic song, “Paper Doll,” written in 1915 (but made famous in the 40’s by The Mill Brothers). Thanks Jay!

Be well and we’ll see you at the in-person Thursday, May 12th meeting! 🙂

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!

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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.

The Austin Ukulele Society was thrilled to have a live-streamed meeting on March 31, with 130+ ukulele players joining in from all over the U.S., Canada, Australia, Brazil, Singapore, England and Spain. We’re grateful, as always, for your participation and positive feedback! 💓

Our virtual meetings will give us the opportunity to take deep dives into learning songs from past AUS live meetings, with detailed tutorials presented by Bob (and live Q&A fielded by Jen and Lyda). This time we revisited a tune AUS first played in September 2014: the Hal David/Burt Bacharach classic made famous by BJ Thomas: “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” We love this upbeat, humorous and beautifully-composed song and hope you appreciated this delightful tune as much as we do.

Bob led the group through our warm-up song – Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” He then dove into a detailed tutorial of “Raindrops.” Bob led us through helpful exercises to get us comfortable playing the chords, chord progressions, strum styles and more. We put it all together and sounded terrific when we played it through twice, and we look forward to our collaborative video with friends from all over again, too.

A big thank you to Bob for being a thoughtful and thorough instructor, and much appreciation to Lyda for running the presentation and to Jen for moderating the chat.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the March 31 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 “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” tutorial
● “On the Road Again” closing song
● Our 2014 performance of “Raindrops”.

Before saying goodnight, we premiered the group video of our February song: Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” expertly edited by Marty Porter and mixed by Paul Butler. Thanks to Jen Richardson for skillfully coordinating communications with all the participants.

Huge thanks and congratulations to every one of our very talented participants: Heiko and Svenja Andresen, Vany Anyc, Chris Armstrong, Shelly Benjamin, Patrice Bovero, Susan Burke, Linda Christensen, Deana Dossey, Pam Ellis, Victor Erickson, Ina Ferrara, Shel Fung, Bob Guz, Jens Haag, David Haye, The Hayes, Gail Johnson, Sandy Johnson, Sue Kaneko, Mary Kealy, Arlene Krassner, Ann Kuehnel, Errol Lipschitz, Andrew Matlaga, Margaret McCrank, Irene Messina, Michael Paderes, Beth Pickens, Jean Pollack, Leslie Poppen, Kim Prezio, Sabine Pütz, Jerry Raihl, Jen Richardson, Darrell Rose, Laurel Rulison, Al Saloha, Martha Schreffler, Janet Shimzu, LeAynne Snell, Paula Taylor, Michelle Whitehead and Steve Workman. Absolutely beautiful work everyone! Check it out:

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

We look forward to anyone local or visiting joining us at our upcoming in-person meeting on April 14. Of course, we’ll all be looking forward to our next virtual meeting on Thursday, June 23, too. Stay in touch, keep strumming, and keep an eye on the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel. 🙂

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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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