Our next virtual meeting is fast approaching on Thursday, March 23, 7:00-8:30pm US Central Daylight Time! It’s always a blast getting to visit with our dear ukulele-playing friends from afar, during our quarterly livestream meetings.

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 23rd at 7:00pm (CDT, GMT -05:00). The PowerPoint presentation (with our warm up and closing songs, as well as the featured 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. 🙂

Our virtual meetings give us the opportunity to take a deep dive into learning a song, with a detailed tutorial presented by Bob (with live Q&A fielded by Jen and Lyda). At our quarterly virtual meetings, we learn a song that is different from the current month’s in-person meeting; instead, we revisit a favorite from a past AUS live meeting. For the March 23rd meeting, we’ll go back to a very popular AUS repertoire song from four years ago: “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” as made famous by Elvis Presley. We hope you’ll enjoy getting familiar with this ever-popular and romantic ballad and learning it with us!

The best way to practice in advance of the meeting is by using our arrangement and playing along with the our 2019 video. There’s even a handy play-along video!

Download the song sheet for “Can’t Help Falling In Love” to practice. Bob’s arrangement has plenty of opportunities to learn to play this song in fun and challenging ways. In the song sheet, you’ll find:

• Pages 1 – 2 have the chords and lyrics
• Page 3 has a description of the main strum pattern, along with details of a finger picking option for part of the Intro
• Pages 4 – 5 have vocal melody and harmony options for the Verses

This song will have something for players of all skill levels to learn, so please join us regardless of where you’re at as a ukulele player. At the virtual meeting, Bob will perform “Can’t Help Falling In Love” 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, and strum styles 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 practicing using the song sheet along with the AUS performance video or play-along 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 look forward to having you join us at our virtual meeting on Thursday, March 23, at 7:00pm US Central Daylight 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!
Austin Ukulele Society t-shirts are available for purchase via mail order (U.S. orders only) and Austin-area porch pick up, including our latest “Classic Ukulele” design.

The shirts are silk-screened here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.  T-shirts are $25 each (plus tax, where applicable). All of our shirts are thoughtfully designed by the talented Lyda Guz! You can have a look at all of our shirt styles on the “Shop” page. Drop us a line if you’d like to purchase a shirt (or two or three). 🙂

On a mild March evening, a wonderful group of 110+ ukulele players gathered to make music together. We enjoyed having many of our regular Austin-area folks in attendance, as well as plenty of first-timers, including a group of friends from the Galveston Ukulele Society, Guillermo and Kathryn from Chicago, Kelly from Prince Edward Island, Canada, and Alan from the UK.

With this year’s meeting date falling between International Women’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day, it was the perfect time to learn the beautiful acoustic rock song “Linger” by Irish band The Cranberries. The late great Dolores O’Riordan wrote the lyrics and gorgeously sings the vocals on this tune.

We kicked off the meeting, as usual, with introductions and our warm-up song: Bob Marlely’s “Three Little Birds.”

Bob G. then introduced his terrific arrangement of our song of the month: The Cranberries’ “Linger,” with a lovely performance. He shared some more about the song and its popularity, and then began teaching us the song. Bob took us through chord progressions, strum styles, picking and harmonizing options. We sounded great when we played it through!

We took a break to enjoy terrific open mic performances. The Galveston Ukulele Society, our own Jay, Alan from the UK, Kelly from PEI and Angela (first time at an open mic!) all did fabulous performances. We truly appreciate their willingness to share their music with us.

After the enjoyable open mic performances ended, we worked a bit more on “Linger” and recorded a video for you to play along with and enjoy. We hope you’ll check out the video, coming soon to our YouTube channel.

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Linger” 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 are thankful to Aaron Lewis for joining us on bass and to our amazing volunteers who do so much to make the evening successful. Special thanks to the women who came up to join Bob in leading the vocals on “Linger.” Your support is greatly appreciated!

We’re looking forward to our virtual meeting on Thursday, March 23, and having you back in person with us on Thursday, April 13, at 7pm! 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 $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.

The Austin Ukulele Society had a love-ly time getting into the mood for Valentine’s Day, as we took on the fantastic and timeless tune of romance, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” at our February meeting. Over 120 members gathered with smiles on their faces and ukes in their hands, as we got in our introductions and warmed up with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

Bob G. then shared some information about his arrangement of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and gave us a great demonstration performance of it. He then taught us how to play, pick and sing this infectious song, with helpful exercises on the strum patterns, chords and chord progressions, and picking options. Thanks to Bob’s step-by-step approach, we sounded good from the first time we played it through – and we only got better each time we practiced the song.

We took a break to enjoy the talented performers who participated in the open mic portion of the evening. Kelly & Tilly, Mike, Kaia, Cynthia, and Ronald played a terrific selection of cover tunes, that spanned several musical genres.

After the enjoyable open mic performances ended, we practiced our song again and recorded it for your listening and play-along pleasure. We hope you’ll check out the video, coming soon to our YouTube channel. We hope you will enjoy listening and playing with us!

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” 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 are thankful to Aaron Lewis for joining us on bass and to our amazing volunteers who do so much to make the evening successful.

We’ll see you back in the same place on Thursday, March 9, at 7pm! 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 $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.

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! 💓