The Austin Ukulele Society (AUS) and its extended ukulele family around the world enjoyed an evening together at our May 23rd virtual meeting. We loved hearing from the about 150 of you signing in from various places like Singapore, Spain, Canada, Grand Bahama Island, Germany, Australia, and all over the U.S. We appreciate all of the kind sentiments from those who joined the livestream or watched the recording afterward.

During this event, we revisited a song we learned at an in-person meeting way back in 2012: the English version of Pablo Beltrán Ruiz’s timeless classic “Sway.” This song was written in 1953 and is a pop standard famously covered by many artists over the years, including Dean Martin in 1954 and Michael Bublé in 2003. We loved taking a deep dive into this tune. 💓

We kicked off the evening by warming up with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” and sharing some Austin-local uke news, including our upcoming workshop with Sho H. on June 20 and our Kick Butt Ukulele Open Mic on June 22. We hope you’ll join us for those great events as well as our in-person meeting on Thursday June 13, if you’re here in town!

Bob performed “Sway” to demonstrate his arrangement and then took us through some helpful exercises to get comfortable with the chords, chord progressions, strum styles, picking options, and more. Bob patiently worked with us, in particular, on the chuck and fan strum. We had a great time learning and challenging ourselves. By the time we played “Sway” through a couple of times, we all had a new trick or two we could add to our playing styles.

We then played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and spent a little more time in the meeting chat with Bob, Lyda and Jen, while we watched a few AUS videos together.

You can download the song sheet for “Sway” to play along, or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills.

You can also watch a replay of the May 23 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

As always, we love to give to a shout out to AUS co-founder Jen Richardson, who moderated the chat with finesse through the evening and to Lyda Guz, who skillfully managed the presentation slides.

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

It was a great evening, and we look forward to our next virtual meeting on Thursday, August 22, at 7:00pm US Central Daylight Time. Be well and we’ll see you 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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