We were thrilled to welcome ~140 newcomers and regulars alike to our July 10th in-person meeting! ❤
We had so much fun “dancing” with Martha and the Vandellas at our June meeting that we decided to keep on “dancing” in July! This time, we learned to strum, sing, and harmonize on Whitney Houston’s mega-hit “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” This popular 1987 song is one of the best-selling singles of all time, and it was so much fun to play together!
After everyone settled in at about 7pm, Bob shared our agenda for the evening as well as important ukulele news, such as the Kick Butt ukulele open mic we’d host just a couple of days later. We warmed up our hearts, hands and voices with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”
Bob then gave us a great preview performance of his arrangement of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” This helped us know what we’d be working towards, and we got right down to business, practicing chords, chord progressions and the strum pattern. As we put the pieces together, we also learned some tab and vocal harmonizing options. We then played the song through a couple of times, sounding better and better each time.
We took a break from working on our song to enjoy the talents of our open mic participants. Walter M. performed a fantastic uke and kazoo song, Cool Hand Ukes did a fun cover, and Kelly (accompanied by Kermit the Frog) did a classic as well. Thanks to all for sharing your talent with us!
Next we got back to practicing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and recorded our lovely rendition for you, coming soon to our YouTube Channel! Please play along with us from home when you can.
To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” 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).
As always, we’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Jen, Lyda, Jana, Lori, Barry, Katie and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.
We look forward to “seeing” you at our July 24 virtual meeting at 7:00pm Central on our YouTube Channel!
And our next in-person meeting will be on August 14, at St. John’s United Methodist Church! Keep on strumming until then! 🙂
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’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.
Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “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.
Austin Ukulele Society (AUS) 