The Austin Ukulele Society was delighted to celebrate its 13th anniversary and kick off its 14th year of monthly meetings with an amazing gathering of musicians. We’re so grateful to the wonderful members who join us month in and month out, year in and year out, for the fiftieth or the first time, from near and from far – we could not do this without you!

We kicked off the meeting with introductions and information about local ukulele news, including live music events and meetups. Then we warmed up our voices and fingers by playing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

We typically pick an upbeat, well-known and infectious song to kick the year off right. This year we had a blast learning legendary rocker Elton John’s 1983 mega-hit “I’m Still Standing.” This song topped charts in the UK, Canada, the US, and more. It’s a timeless pop-rock tune and we had a fantastic time strumming, picking and singing it!

Bob shared some details about his arrangement of “I’m Still Standing” and performed it, with accompaniment from Sho Humphries on the solo and Aaron Lewis on U-bass. It was great to hear their performance before we learned to play it. Bob taught us each component of “I’m Still Standing,” breaking down the chord progressions, picking, strum styles and harmonizing options. As we practiced each component of the song, we got better and better and we sounded great when we put it all together!

We took a break to enjoy the open mic portion of our evening. Alan, Walter, Jack and Sho all did excellent performances and we’re so glad they shared their talent with us!

We then practiced “I’m Still Standing” and recorded our performance for you to enjoy and play along with at home. Look for the video coming soon to our YouTube channel. We hope you’ll have as much fun with it as we did! 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for Bob’s arrangement of “I’m Still Standing” 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).

We’re looking forward to our next in-person meeting on Thursday, February 8th as well as our next virtual meeting on Thursday, February 22nd! See you there! 🙂

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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We are proud to unveil our latest shirt, new for 2024: the “AUS Grackle Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully 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. The new “AUS Grackle Ukulele” design, “”Classic Ukulele” Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $25. We also have vinyl decals with the AUS logo for $1 each. We can accept cash or a check made out to Austin Ukulele Society; you can also make payment via Venmo or PayPal. 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.