Greetings, friends! Our next monthly meeting is fast approaching, on Thursday, February 9, 7:00–9:00pm. Last month we had a blast kicking off our 13th year of monthly meetings. We’re nearly as excited to have our first in-person February meeting since 2020, so get ready for great energy and fun! We’ll meet, as usual, at the Memorial United Methodist Church, located at 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin, TX, 78723.

Since our February meeting occurs near (and occasionally on!) Valentine’s Day, we always choose a love song for our featured song. In past February meetings, we’ve covered many great love/romance tunes from a variety of genres and time periods including themes of heartbreak, romantic love, and love/compassion for all. This year is no different, and we know you’ll love learning to sing and strum a romantic song that’s remained very popular for 55+ years now: “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” This song was a huge hit for Frankie Valli in 1967 and has been recorded and/or sampled by many artists over the decades. Andy Williams and Lauryn Hill are among those with chart-topping versions. It’s also a very popular song in film, on tv shows and in commercials; if you don’t already know it well, we think you’ll be singing along in no time!

Frankie Valli’s 1967 original recording is in the key of E with a couple of key modulations, but Bob’s arrangement is in C throughout, as is Andy Williams’ recording. (You can use the song sheet to strum and sing along with Andy.) Bob includes Valli’s introduction in his arrangement, which is included in the song sheet; he’ll go over it at the in-person meeting.

To practice, you can preview or download the lyrics and chords for “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”  Play along with Andy Williams’ recording using our song chart! 🙂

Here are some details about the song sheet:

• Pages 1 – 3 have the chords and lyrics.
• Page 3 also has a description of the main strum pattern, along with a simplified alternative.
• Page 4 has tab for a picking part that can be played during the Intro.
• Page 5 has tab for a picking part that can be played with the last line of each verse.
• Page 6 has a note about the Dm7 chord and a description of the strum pattern we’ll play with the last line of the Chorus and at the end of the song.
• Pages 7 and 8 have vocal harmony options for the Verses.

As always, we recommend practicing the song using the chart and diagrams, Frankie Valli’s recording, and Andy Williams’ recording before the 9th, if possible. 🙂

At the meeting, Bob will perform “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” to demonstrate the arrangement, and then take us through some helpful exercises to get us comfortable with the chords and chord progressions, strum styles, vocal and harmonizing options, before we put it all together to play it through.

Our meeting format, as usual, will begin with introductions and some local ukulele news/events. We’ll also include some open mic time for those of you who’d like to showcase one tune you’ve been working on. A sign-up sheet will be available at 6:30. As open mic time is limited to four participants, please sign up when you arrive and understand that preference will be given to those who have not participated recently or ever before.

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We’ll have Austin Ukulele Society t-shirts available for purchase before and after our meeting, including our brand-new “Classic Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully 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 at our meeting. The new “Classic Ukulele” design, “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $20. 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.

Location
Memorial United Methodist Church, 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin, TX 78723. We meet in the school located behind the church, in the gym.

Map it

Where to park and find the gym

For those attending for the first time, the church is easy to find – but it is big. You’ll enter from Berkman Dr. using a ‘one way’ entrance and you can park anywhere alongside or behind the church. Past the canopied main entrance, on the same side of the building, there is another entrance on the right. Walk in there and you’ll be in the gym. From there simply follow the sounds of ukuleles tuning up. 🙂

Newcomers and beginners are ALWAYS welcome! Even if you’re a complete novice, we encourage you to come out. Many beginners come to the meetings, and it’s so great to see their skills grow over time! There are almost always easier ways to play the songs, even if you can play only a few of the chords. Or just sing along!

For the monthly meetings, our friend Lori brings loaner ukuleles, donated by the TUG (Tuesday Ukulele Group)! They are Makala concert and soprano ukes, and you can borrow one to play during the meeting. You’ll find them at the front of the room; so if you don’t have a uke yet, or you forget your uke at home, or your uke is in disrepair, please join us and borrow a TUG loaner uke. 🙂

Feel free to get familiar with the chord charts for any of the songs in our repertoire, all available on the “Music Library” page. We always play “Three Little Birds” and “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.

Stay tuned and keep strumming! We’re looking forward to seeing everyone on Thursday, February 9, at 7:00pm!

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

With regard to COVID-19, we need your help in mitigating the risk of spreading the virus in the following ways:

• Attend only if you’re feeling well.
• If you have recently had close contact with someone who has recently tested positive for COVID-19 and you yourself have tested negative, please wear a mask.
• While Travis County remains in the low risk of transmission category, wearing a mask at MUMC is optional.
• You are always encouraged to wear a mask if you feel more comfortable doing so.
• If you would like additional information about COVID-19, please visit the CDC’s website.

The Austin Ukulele Society team will do our part to mitigate risk by:

• Making disposable masks and hand sanitizer available
• Spreading seating out as needed
• Opening a couple of doors to improve air flow, if the temperatures allow

The Austin Ukulele Society was thrilled to kick off its 13th year of monthly meetings with a crowd of 120+ members from the Austin area and beyond! We’re very grateful for all of the enthusiasm and support we’ve had, and we loved seeing familiar faces and meeting new friends. We got the evening started with introductions and local ukulele news, before launching into our warm-up song: Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

Bob then introduced us to his arrangement of Dire Straits’ terrific and timeless tune, “Walk of Life,” by performing it for us. He guided us through the helpful exercises he’d prepared to help us learn the picking and strumming options, the chord progressions and the vocal harmony options. We sounded better and better, as we pieced the tune together, and we enjoyed playing it through before taking a break for the open mic portion of the evening.

Thank you to our open mic performers! It was a treat to hear Rich perform a beautiful cover of “The Wichita Lineman” and Jack Pott and Deb play a rockin’ and humorous original.

We got back to practicing “Walk of Life,” and we got so good at it that we made a recording to share with you. Be on the lookout for the video of our performance, coming soon to our YouTube channel. We hope you will enjoy listening and playing along with us! Many thanks to Aaron Lewis on bass for rounding out our rhythm.  🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Walk of Life” 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 appreciate all of the volunteer support we get to help us set up and break down and have a wonderful time.

We’re looking forward to getting the Valentine’s Day spirit going as we learn a love-themed song at the February 9 meeting. See you there! 🙂

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!
We are proud to unveil our latest shirt, new for 2022: the “AUS Classic Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully 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. The new “AUS Classic Ukulele” design, “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $20. 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.

The Austin Ukulele Society held TWO fantastic holiday events this year, one in-person and another online!

December 8: Holiday Strum-a-long and Potluck Party!

On a pleasant December evening, nearly 100 festive members got together to enjoy an evening of music and company. It was the first time in three years since we’d been able to meet in person for our (typically) annual Holiday Potluck and Strum-along, and the energy reflected appreciation for the opportunity. We really made the most of it, with plenty of cheer, holiday attire, laughter, good food and desserts – and, of course, music.

After mingling and munching for a while, Bob led us in our always-optimistic warm up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” We then played songs in our holiday music repertoire. We enjoyed a terrific variety of tunes played by talented groups, duos and individuals during the open mic portion of the eve. The Tuesday Ukulele Group (TUG), Paul, Jay, Helen, Rodger, and Christen all had us smiling and singing along.

Then we resumed playing and singing some more lovely songs of the season!

Many thanks to those who brought tasty dishes to share, who performed in the open mic, and everyone who came out to play and sing so heartily! Happy holidays to all!

December 15: Online Holiday Strum-a-long!

We had a lovely evening of ukulele music, filled with many holiday favorites, at our quarterly livestreamed meeting, our 3rd annual Online Holiday Strum-a-long. It was wonderful to check in with our global uke community, as nearly 150 friends from England, Australia, Brazil and coast-to-coast in Canada and the U.S. (and Hawaii) joined in.

After Bob shared some information about the format of our strum-along, we warmed up our fingers and voices with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Bob then provided a mini-tutorial for each Christmas tune before we played it; the hints and tips were well received. As always, it felt like the time flew by, and before we knew it, it was time to wrap up for the evening. We played our favorite closing song, Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” and then we bid one other good tidings for the holidays ahead.

You can watch a replay of the December 15 live stream. Watch the entire show or use the Table of Contents in the video’s description to jump to the song you most want to watch!

This songbook includes charts for all our joyous Christmas and wintry-themed songs in a condensed format designed to minimize page turns when printed two-sided. You can also play along with videos of these songs on our YouTube channel. On our website’s “Music Library” page, our holiday music repertoire – Holiday Season Favorites! – is grouped together near the top, for ease of video play-along. 

Bob asked folks to stick around to chat and enjoy a few of the fabulous collaborative videos produced by our good friends Marty Porter and Paul Butler. As always, we appreciate Jen Richardson’s tireless assistance with monitoring the chat and Lyda Guz’s fantastic projectionist skills throughout the song chart presentations. 

We are so glad to have had this holiday event with our great uke friends both near and far.  Thank you for joining us, sending in your selfies, and staying connected! We look forward to “seeing” you all on March 23, at our next virtual meeting.

And we look forward to seeing our local friends – near, far, visiting and otherwise – back in person on January 12 with a new featured song. 

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!
Austin Ukulele Society t-shirts are available for purchase at our in-person meetings, porch pick up locally, or via mail order. Each one is designed by the talented Lyda Guz! We are excited to now have our latest “AUS Classic Ukulele” design available as well.

The shirts are silk screened here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop. The new “AUS Classic Ukulele” design, “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $20. We also have vinyl decals with the AUS logo for $1 each. Please drop us a line if you’d like to purchase a shirt (or two or three). 🙂 Have a look at the shirts in our online “Shop“.

Season’s greetings! We’re looking forward to our upcoming in-person annual Holiday Strum-a-long and Potluck on Thursday, December 8, 6:30–9:00pm. In lieu of a regular monthly meeting, this is a social event with food, drink and, of course, ukulele strumming and singing. The event is family friendly, so you are welcome to bring family (and friends!) of all ages.

We’ll meet in the gym, at the Memorial United Methodist Church, located at 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin, TX, 78723. Feel free to bring a meal, snacks, treats and/or non-alcoholic beverages – we will set up the room to accommodate noshing. 🙂

Here are the details:

Where: The Memorial United Methodist Church, located at 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin, TX, 78723.
When: Thursday, December 8th, 2022; 6:30pm – 9:00pm
What: Strum-a-long and Potluck! Feel free to bring a dish or non-alcoholic beverage to share. We’ll mingle, eat, drink and play the holiday songs we’ve learned over the years. You can download our 12th Anniversary Holiday Songbook, which Bob thoughtfully updated to include our recent medley of “Blue Christmas” and “White Christmas”. We’ll project the songs on the screen, when we strum/sing them, too. If you’d like to print the songbook, it is designed to minimize page turns when printed two-sided.

Open Mic: There will be more time than usual for an open mic, so feel free to plan to share a holiday (or non-holiday) song you’ve been working on. A sign-up sheet will be available at 6:30pm.

Loaner Ukuleles: Our friend Lori will bring the TUG (Tuesday Ukulele Group) loaner ukuleles, so if you find yourself uke-less that day, fret not. 🙂

Approximate schedule:

• 6:30pm – 7:30pm – mingle, nosh, sip
• 7:30pm – 8:00pm – group strum-a-long of songs from the AUS Holiday Songbook
• 8:00pm – 8:30pm – open mic performances (+ more noshing)
• 8:30pm – 8:40pm – group closing song or two (from our holiday songbook)
• 8:40pm – 9:00pm – pack up our instruments and shared dishes, throw out trash, put up chairs and head out

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We’ll have Austin Ukulele Society t-shirts available for purchase before and after our meeting, including our brand-new “AUS Classic Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully 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 at our meeting. The new “AUS Classic Ukulele” design, “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $20. 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, Zelle, or PayPal.

Location
Memorial United Methodist Church, 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin, TX 78723. We meet in the school located behind the church, in the gym.

Map it

Where to park and find the gym

For those attending for the first time, the church is easy to find – but it is big. You’ll enter from Berkman Dr. using a ‘one way’ entrance and you can park anywhere alongside or behind the church. Past the canopied main entrance, on the same side of the building, there is another entrance on the right. Walk in there and you’ll be in the gym. From there simply follow the sounds of ukuleles tuning up. 🙂

Newcomers and beginners are ALWAYS welcome! Even if you’re a complete novice, we encourage you to come out. Many beginners come to the meetings, and it’s so great to see their skills grow over time! There are almost 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 seeing everyone on Thursday, December 8, at 6:30pm!

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

Members of the Austin Ukulele Society kicked off the holiday season with cheerful spirits, stylish accessories, and plenty of smiles, at our November 3rd meeting! We kicked off the meeting with introductions and local ukulele news. Then we warmed up our fingers and voices with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

Bob shared information about the holiday medley of two terrific Christmas standards, “Blue Christmas” and “White Christmas,” and gave us a lovely performance to demonstrate it. He then led us through very helpful exercises to get comfortable with the chords, chord progressions, strumming and picking options, and harmonizing opportunities. We enjoyed learning the song, piece by piece, and then putting it all together to play through a couple of times.

We then took a break to enjoy the terrific talents of our open mic participants – (left to right) Jay Clement, Teagan Whitehead and Bob Guz – who, by chance, all played terrific covers of quirky, entertaining tunes we all wanted to sing along with.

When we got back to playing our holiday medley, we got better and better at it! We look forward to sharing the recording with you, later this month, so check back around Thanksgiving time on our YouTube channel.

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Blue Christmas / White Christmas Medley” 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 appreciate all of the volunteer support we get to help us set up and break down and have a wonderful time.

We’ll see you at our annual in-person Holiday Strum-a-long and Potluck, on Thursday, December 8, and we’ll look forward to a virtual Holiday Play-along on our YouTube channel on Thursday, December 15! See you 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!
We are proud to unveil our latest shirt, new for 2022: the “AUS Classic Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully 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. The new “AUS Classic Ukulele” design, “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $20. 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.

Greetings, friends! Our next monthly meeting is fast approaching, on Thursday, November 3, 7:00–9:00pm. Yep, it’s on the first (not the second) Thursday of November – so be sure to adjust your calendar. We’ll meet, as usual, at the Memorial United Methodist Church, located at 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin, TX, 78723.

It’s not too early to start building your holiday repertoire! We typically learn a winter holiday/Christmas song in November, so that we have our meeting’s recording to share with our global uke community by late November. Even though we are meeting in very early November this year, we’re ready to get the holiday spirit going and hope you will do so with us, too! Break out your reindeer antlers or elf ears, Christmas sweaters and Santa hats to have an even more festive time!

Bob will teach us a medley of two holiday standards, which you likely are very familiar with: “Blue Christmas” and “White Christmas.” There are even a couple of snippets borrowed from two other classics, as you’ll see in the song sheet. The two most famous versions of these songs — Elvis Presley’s 1957 recording of “Blue Christmas”  and Bing Crosby’s 1942 recording of “Blue Christmas” — are in the keys of E and A respectively. Neither song is very uke-friendly in these keys, so using Bob’s terrific arrangement, we’ll start with “Blue Christmas” in F, then smoothly modulate to C for “White Christmas.”

To practice, you can preview or download the lyrics, chords, and tab for the “Blue Christmas / White Christmas Medley.” Here are some details about the song sheet:

• Pages 1 and 2 have the chords and lyrics, as well as tab for the short “Jingle Bells” picking part at the end.
• Page 3 has a description of the main strum pattern, along with a simplified alternatives.
• Page 4 has details on the “Deck the Halls” picking part in the Intro.
• Page 5 has vocal harmony options for the last line of “Blue Christmas”.
• Page 5 also additional details on the tab for the “Jingle Bells” picking part in the Ending.
• Page 6 has vocal harmony options for the last two lines of “White Christmas”.

As always, we recommend practicing the song using the chart and diagrams and listening to Elvis’ recording of “Blue Christmas”  and Bing Crosby’s recording of “Blue Christmas” before we meet on the 3rd, if possible. 🙂

At the meeting, Bob will perform the “Blue Christmas / White Christmas Medley” to demonstrate the arrangement, and then take us through some helpful exercises to get us comfortable with the chords and chord progressions, strum styles, vocal and harmonizing options, before we put it all together to play it through.

Our meeting format, as usual, will begin with introductions and some local ukulele news/events.

We’ll also include some open mic time for those of you who’d like to showcase one tune you’ve been working on. A sign-up sheet will be available at 6:30. As open mic time is limited to four participants, please sign up when you arrive and understand that preference will be given to those who have not participated recently or ever before.

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We’ll have Austin Ukulele Society t-shirts available for purchase before and after our meeting, including our brand-new “AUS Classic Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully 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 at our meeting. The new “AUS Classic Ukulele” design, “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $20. 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.

Location
Memorial United Methodist Church, 6100 Berkman Drive, Austin, TX 78723. We meet in the school located behind the church, in the gym.

Map it

Where to park and find the gym

For those attending for the first time, the church is easy to find – but it is big. You’ll enter from Berkman Dr. using a ‘one way’ entrance and you can park anywhere alongside or behind the church. Past the canopied main entrance, on the same side of the building, there is another entrance on the right. Walk in there and you’ll be in the gym. From there simply follow the sounds of ukuleles tuning up. 🙂

Newcomers and beginners are ALWAYS welcome! Even if you’re a complete novice, we encourage you to come out. Many beginners come to the meetings, and it’s so great to see their skills grow over time! There are almost always easier ways to play the songs, even if you can play only a few of the chords. Or just sing along!

Our friends from the TUG (Tuesday Ukulele Group) now make available loaner ukuleles at the AUS monthly meetings! They are Makala concert and soprano ukes, and you can borrow one to play during the meeting. You’ll find them at the front of the room; so if you don’t have a uke yet, or you forget your uke at home, or your uke is in disrepair, please join us and borrow a TUG loaner uke. 🙂

Feel free to get familiar with the chord charts for any of the songs in our repertoire, all available on the “Music Library” page. We always play “Three Little Birds” and “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.

Stay tuned and keep strumming! We’re looking forward to seeing everyone on Thursday, November 3, at 7:00pm!

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

With regard to COVID-19, we need your help in mitigating the risk of spreading the virus in the following ways:

• Attend only if you’re feeling well.
• If you have recently had close contact with someone who has recently tested positive for COVID-19 and you yourself have tested negative, please wear a mask.
• While Travis County remains in the low risk of transmission category, wearing a mask at MUMC is optional.
• You are always encouraged to wear a mask if you feel more comfortable doing so.
• If you would like additional information about COVID-19, please visit the CDC’s website.

The Austin Ukulele Society team will do our part to mitigate risk by:

• Making disposable masks and hand sanitizer available
• Spreading seating out as needed
• Opening a couple of doors to improve air flow, if the temperatures allow

The Austin Ukulele Society was thrilled to welcome its biggest in-person group (100+ members!) since the pre-pandemic days to our October meeting. We kicked off the meeting with introductions, upcoming ukulele news including info on Peter Moss’ workshop and concert (which has spots left – so email us to join in!) and a spotlight on our beautiful new “Classic Uke” t-shirts. Next, we warmed up our hearts, voices and fingers by playing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

Bob then gave us a great performance of his arrangement of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black,” an appropriately dark and grim song for the Halloween month. He led us through helpful exercises and practices of the chord progressions, strum styles, picking options and vocal harmonies. We sounded better and better with each effort and enjoyed playing the song through before taking a break for the open mic portion of the eve.

The audience was treated to an array of very talented musicians during the open mic, performing originals and covers, including (clockwise from top left) Michelle, Teagan, Quyen & Kathlyne, Chris Cavello, Kaia, The John Davenport, and Paul Butler.

Afterwards, we played through “Paint It Black” some more and got to sounding better and better – so we made a terrific recording, for your listening and play-along pleasure. We owe a big thanks to Aaron Lewis on bass for rounding out our rhythm. Be on the lookout for the video of our performance, coming soon to our YouTube channel. 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Paint It Black” 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 appreciate all of the volunteer support we get to help us set up and break down and have a wonderful time.

Jen and Bob and the whole crew look forward to being back with you for our November meeting, on the FIRST THURSDAY of November: 11/3. See you 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!
We are proud to unveil our latest shirt, new for 2022: the “AUS Classic Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully 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. The new “AUS Classic Ukulele” design, “Ukulele Around the World,” “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” “Austin Lasso” and other shirts are $20. 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.

The Austin Ukulele Society is excited to welcome the UK’s Peter Moss back to Austin! Those who attended Peter’s last Austin appearance in 2018 know what a dynamic and entertaining performer and instructor he is. Peter and his ukuleles have toured the U.S. and Canada and been on BBC Radio and Television. He has also taught workshops and performed engaging concerts at ukulele festivals throughout several countries in Europe, parts of Australia, and all over New Zealand. We’re thrilled to be hosting him for a workshop and concert, on Friday, October 21!

Peter Moss has been playing the ukulele since his 8th birthday, when he received his first ukulele from his dad. After spending some years learning to excel on the uke, he spent 30 years exploring other instruments and contributing to various recording projects. He returned to his first love (the ukulele, of course) in 2012 and has dedicated himself since, to sharing his ukulele and banjo ukulele talent, stories, humor and teaching around the world. You can learn more about Peter by checking out his YouTube Channel. Here’s a fabulous sample:

Memorial United Methodist Church, in the Parlor (6100 Berkman Dr, Austin, TX, 78723)

Friday, October 21; 7:00pm – 9:00pm (Doors at 6:30, Workshop 7:00-8:00pm, Concert 8:15-9:00pm)

Join Peter for his “3 in 1” workshop. He’ll cover basic and substitute chords, what purpose they have and some helpful material on how chords belong to groups or families. The importance of timing by demonstrating swing tunes of the past with push/pull beats and stops will also be covered. Peter will also demonstrate the benefits of changing tempo part way through a tune. Next, Peter will place all of the above into a classic tune for us to play and add to our repertoire. Handouts will be provided. Open to all levels, though knowledge of basic chords is encouraged.

For the concert, Peter will perform a wide variety of tunes in his unique style and share his humor and stories as well.

$20.00 includes workshop and concert!

Space is limited, so please plan to pay in advance at your earliest convenience. Payment can be made via PayPal (austinukes@gmail.com) or Venmo (@AustinUkulele-Society – if needed, last for digits of phone number are 0422).

If you prefer to pay via cash or check, send us an email (austinukes@gmail.com) to hold a spot and make the payment to Jen at the October 13 monthly AUS meeting. If you are interested in attending the workshop and concert but unable to pay in advance digitally or in person at the October 13 meeting, please email Jen at austinukes@gmail.com to reserve a spot and make another payment arrangement.

If you have any other questions about the exciting opportunity to attend Peter Moss’ workshop and concert on Friday, October 21, please let us know. We hope to see you there! 💓

The Austin Ukulele Society warmly welcomed over 100 players from around the globe to our quarterly virtual meeting on September 22. We truly enjoy these opportunities to spend time with our friends near and far, so thank you for making time to join in. For our featured song, we revisited a popular AUS song from three years ago: The Beatles’ Ringo Starr-penned delightful tune, “Octopus’s Garden.” We’ve all wanted to be somewhere we weren’t at some point, so we can relate to Ringo’s sentiments in this cheerful lament.  💓

Bob started the workshop with some local uke news and our warm up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” He then demonstrated his arrangement of “Octopus’s Garden.” Bob led us through many helpful exercises, to get comfortable with the chords (even the Bb!) and the strum patterns, as well as the picking options. He gave us some great tips on vocal harmony options, too. We put the song together and played it through a couple of times, and it sounded terrific! Before we finished up our practice for the evening, we played our closing song – Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “Octopus’s Garden,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the June 23 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

As always, we thank Jen Richardson for moderating the chat and helping get questions addressed in real time and to Lyda Guz for her fantastic projectionist skills.

We owe much gratitude to Marty Porter and Paul Butler for putting together our collaborative videos, and we enjoyed watching the most recent effort, Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville” together, before saying good night. Check it out:

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

We’ll see you on December 15 for our festive, holiday repertoire strum and sing-a-long! Stay in touch, keep strumming, and keep an eye on the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel. 🙂

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. Celebrating our global AUS community, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, “Ukulele Around the World,” 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 “Ukulele Around the World” design, “10th Anniversary,” 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.

The Austin Ukulele Society held its in-person meeting with about 90 enthusiastic friends, from near and far. We’re thrilled to have been back to meeting in person for six months now, and it’s notable that each month we have first-timers, including friends from afar (shout out to Becky S. for driving from Abilene to join us live, after spending many months with us at virtual meetings). After we took some time to introduce ourselves and share some local ukulele news, we dove right into our warm-up song: Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

Next, Bob shared some helpful info about the lovely Burt Bacharach/Hal David composition, “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again” before performing his arrangement, based on Dionne Warwick’s hit 1969 recording. Bacharach/David collaborations have yielded so many beautiful, cheery and timeless pop songs, and we’ve enjoyed learning a couple of their tunes in the past.

He then led us through exercises to get us comfortable with the chords and chord progressions and strum pattern/one-strum option. We practiced the picking and vocal harmonizing opportunities as well. After we played it through a couple of times, we took a break to enjoy some fabulous open mic talent.

We heard a diverse array of covers by Jay Clement, Rich Cogbill and Helen Haake as well as an original song paying homage to the ukulele, by THE John Davenport. We’re so fortunate to have this delightful portion of the evening!

We got back to practicing “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again” and making our video and audio recording for you to enjoy, where you are, and to of course play along with. Be on the lookout for the video of our performance, coming soon to our YouTube channel. 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again” 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).

We hope you have as much fun as we did, and we’ll look forward to ‘seeing’ everyone at the livestream meeting on Thursday, September 22!! 🙂

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. Celebrating our global AUS community, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, “Ukulele Around the World,” 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 “Ukulele Around the World” design, “10th Anniversary,” 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.