As we’ve mentioned, the cycle of our first year of AUS is now complete, now that we’ve held our January 2012 meeting at Central Market North this past Thursday, January 12. We sang our two new songs–“Viva la Vida” and “You Are my Sunshine.”

We had a great “open mic” (actually open non-mic, since we neither have a mic nor need one in that little room), in which we saw Tim Keough of UkuleleSecrets.org fame pull out a “harp uke” made by the Welshman Pete Howlett and aNueNue Ukes. (Apologies for the fuzzy photo–I (Walter) hope you get the general idea.) Tim played that harp uke, with its four extra low-pitched strings (for a total of eight strings), in a pair of great quasi-Japanese pieces of his own composition.

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, February 9, 7 – 8:30 p.m., once again at Central Market North, our usual strumming spot. Hope to see you there and see you then!

Here they are, folks–the songs we’ll be singing at the January meeting: You Are My Sunshine and Viva La Vida. Start strumming, and we’ll see you next week.

Happy New Year!  Hope your holidays have been wonderful.

We’re excited to be entering the Austin Ukulele Society’s second year of strum- and sing-alongs!

We’re meeting on Thursday, January 12th, at 7pm, in our regular spot: the Community Room at Central Market (4001 N. Lamar Blvd).  Central Market asked us to remind the group that alcoholic drinks are not permitted in the community room; feel free to bring some water and/or purchase a non-alcoholic beverage from the cafe or supermarket while we meet.

As usual, we’ll start out with some ukulele news and then warm up with “Three Little Birds” and maybe another familiar-to-us tune or two.  We will play two new songs to add to our repertoire and then we’ll spend time playing several of the other songs we’ve enjoyed together.  We’ll still break from our songbook towards the end of our meeting to give you a warm and friendly audience if you’d be kind enough to play/sing us a tune of your choice!

This month’s two ‘new’ AUS songs bring us both old and new with the popular standard “You Are My Sunshine” and Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”.  In case you’re not familiar with the Coldplay tune, you can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE&ob=av2n  (And if you’re not familiar with “You Are My Sunshine,” you can find many versions on YouTube).

I’ll follow up next weekend or early next week with song sheets for “Viva La Vida” and “You Are My Sunshine.”

***All songs already in the AUS repertoire can be found in our Ukulele Music Library.***

Looking forward to seeing you and hearing your beautiful ukulele strumming next week!

We had a great time at our South Austin holiday party this past Thursday, Dec 8. Around 35 people attended, and everyone ate, drank, strummed, sang, and had a wonderful evening. Among the greatest of the treats (and there were many, as you can see), was Harry’s terrific haupia–Hawaiian coconut pudding served on a piece of palm leaf and garnished with pomegranate seeds (no, one didn’t eat the palm leaf).

We sang lots of holiday songs — notably “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” — along with our previously featured “Blue Christmas” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”Several of us also shared non-holiday songs, too, such as the 20s Ukulele Ike hit “You’re My Weakness Now.”

Remember that in the future, we will be holding our meetings on the second Thursday of each month. That means that in January, our meeting will be held on Thursday, January 12, 7 – 8:30 p.m., at Central Market North (the place we’ve met for most of the past year).

Did you know that we have now been meeting for 12 months? Our January 2012 meeting will complete the cycle, and we look forward to strumming along with you into the new year.

Our Tuesday, 11/15/11 meeting in the elegant library of the University Methodist Church near the UT campus was great fun. Thanks to everyone who came out. Hats off to Mardi Wareham for making it possible to meet up in such a comfy spot.

A very warm welcome to the first-timers who joined us — we hope to see you again soon! And special kudos to everyone who played a solo number for the group! (See pictures of some of the soloists–Mardi was one of them–see her on the right.)

Mark your calendars because our December meeting will be special. To celebrate the holiday season ukulele style, we’re having a Holiday House Party on Thursday, December 8th. We’ll have snacks and drinks, get a chance to socialize, and then jam on some holiday tunes. We will be following up soon with more details.

(A reminder that you can find downloadable PDF versions of all our song sheets on our blog (gosh, that’s where you are now). Click on the “Ukulele Music Library” link.)

Mark your calendars because our December meeting will be special. To celebrate the holiday season ukulele style, we’re having a Holiday House Party on Thursday, December 8th. We’ll have snacks and drinks, get a chance to socialize, and then jam on some holiday tunes. We will be following up soon with more details.

As always, it’s such a pleasure to play with you all. –Bob