The Austin Ukulele Society had a great turnout at the October meeting! Everyone was in good spirits, as we got started with some ukulele news, introductions, greetings and more.

Every October, the Austin Sp-ook-ulele Society enjoys learning a song you might put on your Halloween music playlist, and this year we were thrilled to do the same. We were also excited to learn our first Fleetwood Mac song: their 1976 hit “Rhiannon,” written by Stevie Nicks about a Welsh witch. We were quickly grooving to Stevie Nicks’ haunting lyrics and vocals and the infectious hook of this beautiful and eerie tune.

Bob put together a great arrangement for us, and after a terrific performance to demonstrate it, he began his tutorial. We learned the chord progressions, including a handy F chord variation in which you keep your ring finger in place for transition back to the C chord. Bob also taught us some great options for picking parts in “Rhiannon,” including a well-received baritone uke option. We had a great time practicing the various parts of the song, and we sounded great when we put it together to play through from start to finish. We finished up our meeting with our swan song, Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.” As we wrapped up the evening, we premiered our terrific collaborative video of “Here Comes the Sun” — special thanks to Marty Porter and Paul Butler for their work on this effort!

As always, we owe Lyda our appreciation for managing the presentation during the meeting and Jen for moderating the live chat/comments.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “Rhiannon,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the October 14 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
    ● Welcome and announcements
    ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
    ● Bob’s “Rhiannon” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of “Rhiannon”.

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

We look forward to seeing everyone again virtually on Thursday, on Thursday, November 11 on the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel . Be well and keep strumming until then! 🙂

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

Our September virtual meeting was enjoyed by about 170 friends from many places: the Austin area, all over the U.S., Brazil, coast to coast in Canada, in the wee small hours of the night in England and Germany, and on Friday morning in the Philippines and Australia. We love getting to spend that special time with you!

Over our 10+ years of monthly meetings, we’ve enjoyed learning several Beatles tunes, and you’ll probably agree that there’s never a bad time to learn a Beatles classic. It’s been about 18 months since our first virtual meeting, during which we learned the well-loved Beatles’ tune “Let It Be.”

It seems especially appropriate to learn a Beatles song penned by the Beatle known as one of the world’s biggest ukulele aficionados: George Harrison. We lost George nearly 20 years ago to cancer, but his musical legacy with the Beatles, the Traveling Wilburys, and as a solo artist, will live on forever, especially with his well-loved and timeless classic: “Here Comes the Sun.”

Our meeting kicked off with greetings, some news, and our traditional warm-up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Then Bob launched right into sharing details about The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,” as we were excited to learn this much-loved classic. After performing his arrangement for a demonstration, Bob broke down this beautiful and challenging song for us. We worked on chords and chord structures, understanding the chord melody style, finger-picking, strumming and more. It was rewarding to put it all together and play it through. As always, we played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” as our closing song.

Much appreciation to Lyda for managing the presentations during the meeting and to Jen for moderating the live chat/comments.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “Here Comes the Sun,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the September 9 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
    ● Welcome and announcements
    ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
    ● Bob’s “Here Comes the Sun” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of “Here Comes the Sun”.

Before saying goodnight, we premiered the group video of our August song “Hooked on a Feeling.” Marty Porter did a wonderful job producing the video and special thanks to Paul Butler for audio mixing. Much gratitude and congratulations to all the talented participants: Shelly Benjamin, Paul Butler, Patrice Bovero, Linda Christensen, Ina Ferrara, Tahlia Ferrara, Sally Fletcher, Pauline and Vince Forbes, Shel Fung, Bob Guz, Sherry Hall, Kay Harry, Arlene Krassner, Errol Lipschitz, Andrew Matlaga, Margaret McCrank, Irene Messina, Una and Joe Modoni, Isaac Noguerira, Ann Peters, Kimberlee Prezio, Sabine Pütz, Jerry Raihl, Al Saloha, and Cindy Walker. Outstanding! Check it out:

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

We look forward to seeing everyone again virtually on Thursday, October 14 on the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel . Be well and keep strumming until then! 🙂

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

We had a wonderful August virtual meeting with about 150 ukulele-playing friends from around the globe!

We began the meeting, as usual, with local ukulele news, including info about our good friend Sho Humphries’ last Austin-area concert before he heads off to college. The event was live-streamed on August 14, but you can still check it out on Sho’s YouTube channel.

Bob also announced that our September 9 meeting will be virtual and NOT in person, due the surge in COVID-19 cases in the Austin area. We appreciate y’all for sticking with us, and we’ll be delighted to have you join us on virtually on Thursday, September 9, on the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel . Hope to see you there!

We love covering classic pop hits that have stood the test of time, and we admit that we’re also a bit partial to musicians with ties to Texas. We lost the talented singer B.J. Thomas earlier this year; he is especially known for big hits from the 60’s and 70’s, including our August featured song, “Hooked on a Feeling.” The Swedish rock band Blue Swede also had an internationally popular rendition in 1974, featured on the soundtrack of 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

After playing our warm-up song (Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds”) together, Bob dove into sharing info about B.J. Thomas’ “Hooked On a Feeling” and played his arrangement for us. He then took us through a thorough and enjoyable tutorial of the song, helping us learn how to play chords, transitions, chord variations/substitutions and some finger-picking. We learned a lot, and felt confident when we played the song through twice. We then joined together on our traditional closing song, Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

As always, we appreciate Bob’s wonderful teaching style, and we’re very thankful to Lyda for navigating the slides and to Jen for moderating the live chat.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “Hooked on a Feeling,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the August 12 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
    ● Welcome and announcements
    ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
    ● Bob’s “Hooked on a Feeling” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of “Hooked on a Feeling”.

We also debuted the collaborative video of our July song: John Legend’s “All of Me.” Everyone loved seeing Marty Porter’s beautifully-produced video. And a special shout-out to Paul Butler for sound mixing. Many, many thanks to both of them! Check it out:

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

We look forward, as always, to “seeing” you at our virtual meeting with you next month on Thursday, September 9! Be well and keep strumming until then! 🙂

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

Ukulele players from Australia, Ireland, Germany, Brazil, and coast-to-coast in Canada and the U.S. (plus Hawaii!) joined our July meeting live, to enjoy making music together. Bob and Jen were thrilled to sit side by side for a few minutes at both the beginning and end of the meeting, as we move towards getting ready to return to in-person AUS meetings on September 9, our first since February 2020!

As Bob shared, we look forward to our August 12 virtual meeting and then continuing to have quarterly virtual meetings beginning Thursday, September 23. We love having these virtual meeting experiences with our ukulele friends around the world, and we are so glad to hear you’re enthusiastic about continuing them. To our local friends, remember our upcoming ukulele open mic event, July 31 at Kick Butt Coffee, 4:00-7:00pm. Hope to see you there!

We love music from many genres and generations and work hard to find songs everyone will enjoy learning. We often add a contemporary hit to our repertoire, and we enjoyed learning a beautiful John Legend ballad, “All of Me,” his first number one hit, from 2014.

We kicked off our music-making by warming up with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Bob G. demonstrated his beautiful arrangement of John Legend’s “All of Me” and then began his tutorial, by reviewing the chords. We practiced the strum styles, the chord progressions and the finger-picking options, until we were feeling comfortable with each component of the song. It was a lot of fun learning this gorgeous ballad, and we sounded great when we put the whole song together. As usual, we closed out our evening by playing Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

As always, we owe a special thanks to Jen Richardson for moderating the chat throughout the livestream and to Lyda Guz for expertly running the presentation throughout, too.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “All of Me,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the July 8 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
    ● Welcome
    ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
    ● Bob’s “All of Me” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of “All of Me”.

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

Many, many thanks to Marty Porter for putting together excellent collaborative videos after each monthly virtual meeting! Check out the fantastic group performance of our featured Hall & Oates song from June, “You Make My Dreams“:

We look forward, as always, to our virtual meeting with you next month on Thursday, August 12! Be well and keep strumming until then! 🙂

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

The June virtual meeting of the Austin Ukulele Society was enjoyed by 150 ukuleleists from all over the globe. Whether it was a hot and sunny evening or a chilly and dark morning in your part of the world, we deeply appreciate your making time to play some music and learn together.

We love 1980s music and enjoy selecting an 80s tune to learn at least a couple of times a year – but, oh is it ever hard to choose! We’ve long wanted to do a Hall & Oates tune; they are the top-selling duo of all time with MANY huge hits that you still frequently hear in pop culture and media. We had a blast learning their infectious hit “You Make My Dreams.”

We kicked off the meeting with Bob sharing some local ukulele news, including the return of live music to the Austin area, and with that, our first scheduled Ukulele Open Mic Night in 1.5 years, at Kick Butt Coffee on Saturday, July 31. We then moved into playing our cheerful and well-loved warm up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Bob Guz then shared some information about Daryl Hall & John Oates’ song “You Make My Dreams” and played it through to demonstrate his great arrangement. Then Bob lead us through several helpful exercises, to get us comfortable with the chords, chord progressions, strum styles/variations, and tab. We worked hard and learned a lot; it felt great to play this super fun song through a couple of times. We wrapped up our meeting by playing our closing song, Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

As always, we owe a special thanks to Jen Richardson for moderating the chat throughout the livestream and to Lyda Guz for expertly running the presentation throughout, too.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “You Make My Dreams,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the June 10 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
    ● Welcome
    ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
    ● Bob’s “You Make My Dreams” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of “You Make My Dreams”.

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

Many, many thanks to Marty Porter for putting together excellent collaborative videos after each monthly virtual meeting! Check out the fabulous group performance of our featured song from May, “I’m a Believer“:

We look forward, as always, to our virtual meeting with you next month on Thursday, July 8! 🙂

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

The May meeting of the Austin Ukulele Society was full of good-spirited uke-playing friends from all over the world, including Australia, Singapore, Colombia, Brazil, Ireland, England, Germany, Canada, and coast-to-coast in the U.S. It’s such a pleasure to hear from you, in the chat, via email, with your selfies, and more – thank you for continuing to join us!

It had been a while since we learned a 1960s rock ‘n’ roll tune and while there are TONS of hits that stand the test of time from that decade, we had a blast learning a Neil Diamond tune from 1966, made famous by The Monkees’: “I’m a Believer“.

We kicked off the meeting with some ukulele news and reminders, including the upcoming Lil Rev workshop and concert on Wednesday, May 19. Bob also introduced Joey from Austin-based Journey Instruments and shared some info about their 20% discount (available until May 31, 2021) on ukes and uke gig bags, for Austin Ukulele Society members and friends. Use coupon code AUS20.

After warming up our voices and fingers with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” Bob shared information about “I’m a Believer,” our featured song for May, and performed a lovely demo of his arrangement. He guided us expertly through his tutorial on each section of the song, so we could practice the strums, chords and their variations and progressions, as well as some fingerpicking. We all learned a lot and sounded great when we put the song together and played it through a couple of times.

Everyone enjoyed the world premiere of the April collaborative video of “Daniel” before we said good night. A huge thanks to Jen Richardson for moderating the comments/chat, Lyda Guz for managing the presentation slides and to Marty Porter for his creativity and skill with editing our group videos.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “I’m a Believer,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the May 13 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
    ● Welcome
    ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
    ● Bob’s “I’m a Believer” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of “I’m a Believer”.

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

We look forward to seeing everyone again on Thursday, June 10! 🙂

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

Over 160 ukulele players joined to make music together at the April Austin Ukulele Society online meeting. With participants from Australia, India, Brazil, England, Canada, Germany, the UAE, and many points throughout the U.S. — including Hawaii — we had a diverse gathering of friends who share an affection for our favorite little four-stringed instrument! A big thank you to Jen for moderating the live chat and to Lyda for her amazing projectionist work.

One of the most influential and legendary singer/songwriter/composers of our time, Sir Elton John, celebrated his 74th birthday last month. So it was the perfect time to pay tribute to him. It’s truly not easy to choose a song to learn from a catalog as vast and varied as Elton John’s, but we enjoyed learning one of his huge hits from 1973, “Daniel“.

We kicked off our meeting with some ukulele news and updates from Bob, including a “Save the Date” for an upcoming workshop and concert we’re hosting with Lil Rev on Wednesday, May 19. We warmed up our fingers, voices and hearts with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Next, Bob performed a lovely demo of his arrangement of Elton John’s “Daniel.” He then took us through helpful exercises on the chords and chord progressions, the strum style and the fingerpicking options. Everyone enjoyed learning this pretty song and seeing what a nice fit it was for the ukulele, especially with Bob’s terrific arranging and teaching. When we played the song through, we all felt good about how much we’d learned and how good we sounded. We closed our meeting with Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and debuted the excellent video collaboration of The Cranberries’ “Dreams,” produced by our friend Marty Porter.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “Daniel,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the April 8 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
      ● Welcome
      ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
      ● Bob’s “Daniel” tutorial
      ● “On the Road Again” closing song
      ● Bob’s demo video of “Daniel”

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

Many, many thanks to Marty Porter for putting together excellent collaborative videos after each monthly virtual meeting! Check out the fabulous group performance of our featured song from March, “Dreams” by The Cranberries:

We look forward to seeing everyone again on Thursday, May 13! 🙂

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

One hundred and fifty Austin Ukulele Society members from around the globe tuned in to enjoy music together at our March 11 meeting.

We ukulele players have definitely made the most of a year being socially distanced and in lockdown by finding ways to connect with each other, and we’re so grateful to those of you who have joined us every month of the past year’s virtual meetings and to those of you whose first time was last week. For Bob and Jen, you are truly a beacon of joy and positivity. Thank you for being a pandemic silver lining!!

We kicked off our March meeting by sharing some local ukulele news and warming up with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” which always gets us in a great mood for learning our featured song. This March, we took some inspiration from St. Patrick’s Day and Women’s History Month and learned a super fun, early 1990’s hit by the Cranberries: “Dreams“. Bob took us through the strum styles including how to strum in the fan style, the chord progressions, fingerpicking positioning and options for this infectious tune.

 

We had a great time practicing and asking questions that Bob answered well to help us all learn new tricks. When we put “Dreams” all together and played it through twice, we felt quite accomplished and sounded terrific. We wrapped up our meeting by playing Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and debuting Marty Porter’s excellently produced collaborative video for “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

You can download the lyrics and chords for “Dreams,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the March 11 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
      ● Welcome
      ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
      ● Bob’s “Dreams” tutorial
      ● “On the Road Again” closing song
      ● Bob’s demo video of “Dreams”

Thank you for joining us, sending in your selfies, and being so positive!

Many, many thanks to Marty Porter for putting together excellent collaborative videos after each monthly virtual meeting! Check out the joyous group performance of our featured song from February, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”:

We’ll be sticking with our virtual monthly meetings for at least several more months, so please keep joining us! We’ll see you on YouTube on Thursday, April 8th! 🙂

 

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

We hope the month of March has started off well for you! Bob and Jen are looking forward to the March Austin Ukulele Society virtual meeting on Thursday, March 11, 7:00-8:30pm US Central time. We enjoyed our February meeting with friends from five(!) continents and hope you will all be back to strum and sing with us virtually next week. 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 11th at 7:00pm (CST, GMT -06:00). The PowerPoint presentation (with our warm up and closing songs, as well as the new-to-us song we’ll learn) will be viewable alongside Bob, during the YouTube event.

Lyda will take us through the slides while Bob explains and teaches his arrangement of our featured song. 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 – Jen can get inquiries about the arrangement to Bob for live response. 🙂 If you have a chance to practice the song 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. 🙂

The month of March brings so many things to celebrate: longer days with Daylight Savings Time, seasonal changes, Women’s History Month, St. Patrick’s Day and more. With a nod towards the last two mentions, we’re excited to learn a great pop song by a well-known, woman-led Irish rock band: The Cranberries’ 1993 mega-hit “Dreams.” We’re sure you’ll enjoy getting familiar with it if you aren’t already. 🙂

The Cranberries’ original recording is in the key of E, which has pretty challenging chords on the ukulele, so Bob dropped the key a full step to the uku-lovely key of D.

Download the song sheet for “Dreams” and practice along with Bob’s lush demo performance:

Here are some details about the song sheet:

• Pages 1-3 have the lyrics and chords
• Page 3 also includes notes and diagrams of the strumming patterns we’ll use
• Pages 4-5 have notes, tips and diagrams of the finger-picking pattern that can be played alternatively to strumming, during several parts of the song

At the virtual meeting, Bob will perform “Dreams” to demonstrate the arrangement. He’ll then take us through some helpful exercises that break down the song into its components, getting us comfortable with the chords and chord progressions, strum styles, and picking options before we put it all together to play it through. As always, Bob will be sure to share both the simple and more advanced options for playing this song, so players of all levels can learn and enjoy our meeting and his tutorial.

We recommend getting familiar with the song by listening to The Cranberries’ original recording of “Dreams” and by practicing using the song sheet and Bob’s demo video.

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 the “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 live stream! 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’re looking forward to having everyone tune in on Thursday, March 11, 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.

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every year. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary this year, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this:  .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!

After an extraordinary week of damaging snow, ice and freezing temperatures in much of Texas, the Austin Ukulele Society’s Bob and Jen were very grateful to have the pleasure of hosting a wonderful February meeting. Over 150 friends from all over the U.S. and Canada, and from points in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia, got together to sing and strum (virtually) together.

Bob kicked off our February meeting by promoting some great Austin-area ukulele bands and reminding us to support ukulele music whenever possible. We then launched into our warm-up song: Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” which put everyone in good spirits. Bob began our lesson for the evening by sharing some information about Queen and Brian May’s connection to the ukulele, and then he gave a demonstration of his arrangement of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

 

Bob expertly led us through learning the chord progressions, helping us with any that we struggled with along the way. We looked at some tab options and had fun working on each piece of the song. Once we practiced each part, we put the song together and played it through twice. Everyone appreciated Bob’s tutelage and expressed their gratitude for a wonderful evening. We owe many thanks to Lyda, for being a terrific projectionist and to Jen, for moderating the meeting chat/comments/questions.

You can download the lyrics and chords for “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the February 18 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
      ● Welcome
      ● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
      ● Bob’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” tutorial
      ● “On the Road Again” closing song
      ● Bob’s demo video of the medley

Thank you for joining us, sending in your selfies, and being so positive!

Many, many thanks to Marty Porter for putting together excellent collaborative videos after each monthly virtual meeting! Check out the group performance of our January medley of “I Can See Clearly” and “Blue Skies”:

We look forward to seeing everyone back on Thursday, March 11, at 7pm CT, on YouTube! 🙂

 

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

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. In celebration of the Austin Ukulele Society’s 10th anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, 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 via mail order. The new 10th Anniversary design, Mermaid, Cowboy, and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. 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.

If you don’t already follow this website, why not take a moment to click on the “Follow Austin Ukulele Society” button? We’d really appreciate it! It’s in the right margin, just under the “Like us on Facebook” button and looks just like this: .

By following our website, you’ll always be kept up-to-date with the latest meeting announcements and other Austin Ukulele Society news. Thank you so much!