The Austin Ukulele Society was thrilled to kick off its 12TH YEAR with ukulele friends from Australia, Brazil, England, Canada, Germany, and nearly half the states in the U.S.! While we look forward to getting back to meeting in person soon, Bob and Jen truly enjoy the virtual AUS meeting experience with all of you. Thank you for being there and making music with us!

Our first meeting of each year is often full of ‘new year’ energy, for many reasons, including resolutions to play more or learn to play ukulele (of course!), Santa Claus putting new ukuleles under the tree, etc. Therefore, we typically pick an upbeat, well-known and infectious song to kick the year off right. This year was no different, and we had a blast learning the Turtles’ timeless and well-loved classic hit rock tune, “Happy Together.”

Our meeting kicked off with local ukulele news and with our favorite warm-up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Then Bob G. beautifully performed his terrific arrangement of The Turtles’ “Happy Together” for us. He broke down the song into helpful exercises, to help us gain confidence with all parts – even the daunting Bb chord. 🙂

We had fun harmonizing, strumming, picking and, of course, learning lots from Bob. We put the song all together and enjoyed playing it through a couple of times. To finish up the eve, we played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and enjoyed some of our amazing collaborative videos (produced by Marty Porter) from the past 20+ virtual meetings!

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 “Happy Together,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the January 13 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 “Happy Together” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of “Happy Together”.

We will keep you posted about our February 10 meeting’s ‘in-person‘ or ‘virtual‘ status, and we’ll be sure to have one of each should we get to meet in person – so stay tuned and subscribed 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. 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.

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 Austin Ukulele Society held its 11th annual Holiday Strum-a-long and we had a wonderful time with a group of 150 ukulele players joining in live from around the globe. We appreciate all the gratitude and fantastic feedback sent as follow up with the selfies. There’s no bigger silver lining of the pandemic for Bob and Jen than to have shared nearly two years of virtual monthly AUS meetings with all of you. Thank you for finding us and making every effort to participate live or review the recorded meeting afterward!

We kicked off with some local ukulele news, including an exclusive discount for AUS members and viewers to get 40% of Austin-based Journey Instruments ukes and uke gig bags. The new coupon code is HappyHolidaysAUS and it’s valid through 1/1/22.

We warmed up with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” before diving into the holiday play-along tunes. Bob gave mini lessons for each song, and we ran through the delightful and varied repertoire of holiday standards and contemporary hits that the AUS has built up over our 11 years. It was so much fun singing and strumming those festive tunes! We wrapped up our meeting with our always-swan song, Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

Afterward, Bob graciously thanked Jen Richardson for all the behind-the-scenes work she does to manage the Austin Ukulele Society. Then Bob even got an on-screen kiss (!) from his talented wife, Lyda Guz, who does an amazing job designing our shirts and running the presentations.

You can watch a replay of the December 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
● Blue Christmas
● Holly Jolly Christmas / Marshmallow World
● Let It Snow / Winter Wonderland
● Mele Kalikimaka / Jingle Bells
● Rockin’ Christmas Medley
● Santa Claus is Coming to Town
● Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
● All I Want For Christmas Is You
● Last Christmas
● I’ll Be Home For Christmas / Home for the Holidays
● “On the Road Again” closing song

You can play along by downloading the
🎄 🎁 Austin Ukulele Society’s Holiday Songbook 🎁 🎄

This songbook includes charts for all the 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 our videos of these songs on our YouTube channel. On our website’s “Music Library” page, our holiday music repertoire – All of Our Holiday Season Favorites – is grouped together near the top, for ease of video play-along. You can find a video to play along with for nearly all of the repertoire.

Before we said good night, we debuted the amazing collaborative video for our “Home for the Holidays” medley, brilliantly produced by Marty Porter and excellently audio engineered by Paul Butler. Huge thanks and congratulations to our very talented participants: Chris Armstrong, Rodger Baker, Paulette Barwinkel, Shelly Benjamin, Patrice Bovero, Arnie Butay, Paul Butler, Linda Christensen, Victor Erickson, Ina and Tahlia Ferrara, Pauline and Vince Forbes, Shel Fung, Bob Guz, David Haye, Annie Kim Hedrick, Jill Hetherton, Sandy Johnson, Gail Johnson, Sue Kaneko, Nancy Kaumeyer, Mary Kealy, Arlene Krassner, Brian Macguire, Irene Messina, Ann Peters, Gary Phelps, Jean Pollack, Leslie Poppen, Steve Powell, Kimmer Prezio, Sabine Pütz, Jerry Raihl, Dan Roeder, Maria Roeder, Laurel Rulison, Al Saloha, Martha Schreffler, Fran Stelly, Vince and Julie Villescaz, Tanya Visser, Cindy Walker and Steve Workman. Incredible work everyone! Check it out:

Remember that while second-Thursdays will return to in-person meetings on January 13, we’ll meet again virtually on January 27, 2022. We can’t wait to ‘see’ you again!

Thank you for joining us, sending in your selfies, and staying connected! We wish you a joyous holiday season and a great start to the new year!!

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.

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 Austin Ukulele Society and its members from the Austin area, coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada, and places as far as Brazil, Singapore, New Zealand, and Ireland, were all in festive spirits at our November meeting. Our global community inspired our 2021 t-shirt, beautifully designed by Lyda Guz – and we were excited to debut it at the meeting. We kicked the holiday season off a tad early by learning to sing and strum a beautiful medley of two holiday music classics. With our meeting falling on Veteran’s Day, we were inspired by “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” which was dedicated to troops who served in WWII. And “Home for the Holidays” is a lovely song to add to the themed medley.

Before we got into learning Bob’s great arrangement, we chatted about local ukulele news, including our plans to resume in person meetings in January. We shared a great discount code (BFUKULELE for 40% off!) for Austin-based Journey Instruments ukuleles and ukulele accessories, valid through November 30th.

After we played our always heart-warming opening tune, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” Bob performed his lovely arrangement of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Home for the Holidays.” Bob then broke down the medley into very helpful exercises, to get us comfortable with ALL of the chords, chord transitions, chord positioning options, and various strums. We had a great time, learning the components, and we sounded delightful when we put the song medley all together, playing it through two times. As we wrapped up, we played our closing song – Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

A huge thank you to Jen Richardson for bringing some extra joy (read: Chico) to the meeting, while also moderating the chat and handling many points of communication throughout. We’re grateful, as always, for Lyda Guz’s excellent PowerPoint presentation skills.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for the “I’ll Be Home For Christmas Medley,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the November 11 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 “I’ll Be Home For Christmas Medley” tutorial
    ● “On the Road Again” closing song
    ● Bob’s demo video of the “I’ll Be Home For Christmas Medley”.

Before saying goodnight, we premiered the group video of our October song “Rhiannon.” Many thanks to Paul Butler for his audio mixing skills, to Marty Porter for editing the video clips and producing the lovely final video, and to Jen Richardson for skillfully coordinating communications with all the participants. This was our largest number of participants ever! Huge thanks and congratulations to our very talented participants: Chris Armstrong, Shelly Benjamin, Patrice Bovero, Todd Bushlow, Arnie Butay, Paul Butler, Linda Christensen, Jay Clement, Deana Dossey, Victor Erickson, Ina Ferrera, Pauline and Vince Forbes, Shel Fung, Tracy Geraldez, Katie Gohmann, Bob Guz, Sherry Hall, Kay Harry, Gail Johnson, Mike Jones, Sue Kaneko, Nancy Kaumeyer, Arlene Krassner, Errol Lipschitz, Andrew Matlaga, Irene Messina, Una and Joe Modoni, Leigh Moss, Isaac Nogueira, Ann Peters, Leslie Poppen, Sabine Pütz, Jerry Raihl, Laurel Rulison, Al Saloha, Martha Schreffler, Vince Villescaz, and Cindy Walker. Incredible work everyone! Check it out:

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

We look forward to our holiday music sing-a-long virtual meeting on Thursday, December 9 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. 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.

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 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!