Our next virtual meeting is fast approaching on Thursday, January 22, 7:00-8:30pm US Central Time! We’re looking forward to strumming and singing with our global Austin Ukulele Society community!

The live event is scheduled, and it is the very first item at the top of the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel page. Simply click the YouTube Live Event to join when we go live on the 22nd at 7:00pm (CST, GMT -06:00). The PowerPoint presentations (with our warm up and closing songs, as well as the featured songs we’ll learn) will be viewable alongside Bob, during the YouTube event.

We’ll go through the detailed presentations while Bob explains and teaches his arrangement of our featured songs. If you are logged into YouTube/Google, please say hello and share any questions/comments with Jen, moderating on behalf of the Austin Ukulele Society. She can get inquiries about the arrangement to Bob for live response. 🙂 If you have a chance to practice the songs in advance, and you have questions, feel free to email them to us.

Pro Tips:

• The event is accessible without logging in and you don’t need a YouTube/Google account to watch. But to comment, you’ll need to log into YouTube with a Gmail account ID.
• When you join the YouTube live stream, if the video or sound quality is not at its best, roll your mouse over the video to find the ‘gear’ icon. Click it and select the ‘Quality’ option; 480p or higher (we recommend 720p) should improve video and sound quality for you, if you have the internet bandwidth to make the change. 🙂

Our virtual meetings give us the opportunity to truly focus on learning and improving our playing, with a detailed tutorial presented by Bob (with live Q&A fielded by Jen and Lyda). Therefore, rather than focusing on the in-person meeting’s latest song, we enjoy revisiting a great song from a past AUS meeting.

With the recent passing of the legendary co-founder of the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir, we thought it would be great to pay homage to him by revisiting our take on “Ripple.” The Austin Ukulele Society covered this classic ~11 years ago.

Download the song sheet for “Ripple” to practice. The Grateful Dead’s 1970 original recording is in the uke-friendly key of G major, as is Bob’s arrangement, so you can play right along with the band as he’s kept his arrangement very close to the original. You can also play along with on our fantastic performance from August 2015. This was the first time we had bass accompaniment (thanks, Gary Feist!) and our first big “hit” performance video!

In the song sheet you’ll find:

• Pages 1 – 3 have the chords and lyrics
• Page 3 also has a description of the main strum pattern, with a simplified alternative
• Pages 4 and 5 have a vocal harmony option for each Verses 2, 4, and 6

During the livestream, Bob will perform “Ripple” to demonstrate the arrangement, and then take us through helpful exercises to get us comfortable with the chords and chord progressions. We’ll explore the song, strum styles, harmony options, and more. The lesson will be beginner-friendly, but there will be something to gain for uke players of all levels. As part of the tutorial, Bob will use the song as a base to explore several different strumming techniques.

As always, we recommend practicing by using the song sheet Bob created, the Grateful Dead’s 1970 original recording, and the Austin Ukulele Society’s performance video, before the 22nd, if possible. 🙂

Bob anticipates having time to do a mini lesson on “Wagon Wheel.” His excellent arrangement of it is similar to Darius Rucker’s 2013 mega-hit recording. Download the song sheet for “Wagon Wheel” to practice, and you can play along with the Austin Ukulele Society’s delightful performance from 2017!

We always play Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” and Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” as our opening and closing songs, so if you’re new to the group and want to get familiar with them, you can play along using the presentations and our videos, available on our “Music Library” page. We’ll also display the presentations for these two songs during the live broadcast, for your convenience. 🙂

Newcomers and beginners are ALWAYS welcome, and we certainly look forward to having friends from far and wide join in with our livestream! Even if you’re a complete novice, we encourage you to join in. There are always easier ways to play the songs, even if you can play only a few of the chords. Or just sing along!

Stay tuned and keep strumming!! We look forward to having you join us at our virtual meeting on Thursday, January 22, at 7:00pm US Central Standard Time!

Contact Us if you have any questions, need more information, or would like to be added to our mailing list.