April | 2026 | Austin Ukulele Society (AUS)

The April 2026 virtual meeting was tons of fun. Thank you for joining in from all over the world, for the first time or the 50th time, solo or with your local group, and bringing your great questions and friendly conversation, too! 🙂

Beatlemania will never end, and the Austin Ukulele Society has had a Beatles month! We first covered “She Loves You” just over 10 years ago, in February 2016, as a Valentine’s-inspired tune. Like most Beatles hits, it is timeless and just as fun and fresh as ever. We had a blast learning it together!

Bob kicked off the meeting by sharing some local information, including the July 9th – 12th Uke Stars event. You can sign up to get details from our friends at Groundwork Music Project. He also introduced our good friend Jay Clement, who joined him at his home, to play U-bass and sing harmonies.

Then we warmed up with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” before getting started on our featured song. Bob shared some info about “She Loves You” and played it through (with Jay’s accompaniment) to give us a feel for the arrangement we’d be learning. Bob took us step by step through his great arrangement.

We had a great time learning the chords, alternative chords, progressions, and more. Many of you were very impressed with how multi-layered this seemingly simple song is, and we are glad you enjoyed the lesson. After we practiced each component, we played it through twice – and we sounded terrific!

To close out the evening, Bob and Jay performed another Beatles tune, “Two of Us.” We played our traditional closing song, Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” and Bob shared a few of the AUS in-person meeting videos.

You can download the song sheet for “She Loves You” 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 April 23 livestream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

● Welcome and announcements
● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
● “She Loves You” tutorial and play-along
● “Two of Us” performed by Bob and Jay
● “On the Road Again” closing song

Thanks again to Jen for all of her back-end work with the AUS, including moderating the live events, to Lyda for all she does to keep our presentation slides in perfect time, and to Jay for helping out on bass and vocals.

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

We look forward to being back with our friends from near and far online on July 23, 2026! And we hope to seeing all our nearby friends at our next in-person meeting on Thursday, May 14, at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Be well and keep strumming! 🙂

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.

We had a wonderful time at our April in-person meeting! Despite the rainy weather, the turnout was fabulous, with over 170 enthusiasts in attendance. We welcomed first timers and regulars alike; it was especially fun welcoming an old friend who moved to the Philippines, new friends from the Cayman Islands, and a recent transplant who has been taking his uke around the world with his work, hoping to find a group like ours!

Hard to believe, but nearly three years has passed since we covered a Beatles tune. We often get requests to do so, and we get it – the Beatles’ repertoire is delightfully timeless, ever popular, and has many songs that lend themselves well to group sing and strum-a-longs. They also often offer some great learning opportunities for cool strum patterns and vocal harmonies. At this meeting we learned to strum, pick, and harmonize the iconic “Hey Jude.”

After sharing some local ukulele news, we played our warm-up song – Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Then Bob (with Jay on U-bass) gave us a great demo performance of “Hey Jude.”

Bob took us through some very helpful exercises to learn each component of this timeless 1968 Beatles favorite, and we had a great time learning the strum styles, the harmonizing options, the picking part, and even some a cappella refrains of the coda. We put the song together a couple of times and sounded better with each practice.

We took a break to enjoy a special open mic treat, as Kevin Carroll and his Austin Ukestra performed an original piece.

After we got back to practicing on “Hey Jude,” we made a recording for your listening (and play along!) pleasure. We hope you’ll have as much fun as we did. It will be coming soon to our YouTube Channel!

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Hey Jude” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide (what we project on the screens for all to follow along, including exercises and drills).

We’re immensely grateful to Jay Clement for his bass accompaniment. Many, many thanks to all the fabulous AUS volunteers for their hard work.

Take care and be well. We hope you’ll all join us at the AUS virtual meeting on April 23rd on our YouTube Channel! And we look forward to seeing everyone at our next in-person meeting on May 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.

Ukulele Society T-shirts and Merch!

We’re very excited about our 2026 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Ukin’ Armadillo,” designed by Lyda Guz. This cool design features a rockin’ and rollin’ armadillo happily strumming his favorite ukulele decorated with 16 stars to celebrates the Austin Ukulele Society’s 16th year of making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Ukin’ Armadillo” design, “Circle of Stars,” “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.