Author Archives: Austin Ukulele Society

February 8, 2024: You’re Still the One!

Shania_TwainOn a springlike February evening, around 100 members of the Austin Ukulele Society met up to sing and strum. We enjoyed some social time, introductions and sharing local ukulele news, before we jumped into doing what we do best: making music together, with our terrific maestro, Bob! First, we warmed up by playing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

PhotoGrid_Plus_1707789163193

Since our February meeting occurs near (even occasionally on!) Valentine’s Day, we always choose a love song for the month. In keeping with our Valentine’s-themed tradition, we learned a great crossover pop/country hit about enduring love: Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One.” This 1997 release was hugely successful, topping charts around the globe and winning Ms. Twain much acclaim. We loved learning to croon and strum this catchy love song!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1707789484487

By way of performance, Bob demonstrated his terrific arrangement of “You’re Still the One.” He taught us each component of the song, including some picking and harmonizing options, and we had fun enjoying and practicing each part before putting it all together!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1707788728858

We took a break and were delighted by the talents of Kaia, Jay, Mia, and Helen. They all did creative covers of great tunes, and we truly appreciate them for being there!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1707789600489

After the open mic interlude, we got back to working on “You’re Still the One.” We recorded our performance for you to enjoy and play along with at home. Look for the video coming soon to our YouTube channel. We hope you’ll have as much fun with it as we did! 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for Bob’s arrangement of “You’re Still the One” 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).

PhotoGrid_Plus_1707789363095

We look forward to ‘seeing’ you at our virtual meeting on February 22 and seeing our local friends and visitors at the March 14 in-person meeting. Be well and keep strumming till then! 🙂

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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We are proud to unveil our latest shirt, new for 2024: the “AUS Grackle Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully designed by the talented Lyda Guz!

2024 Grackle AUS Tee

The shirts are silk screened here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop and are available for purchase. The new “AUS Grackle Ukulele” design, “”Classic Ukulele” 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.

January 11, 2024: I’m Still Standing!

Beach BoysThe Austin Ukulele Society was delighted to celebrate its 13th anniversary and kick off its 14th year of monthly meetings with an amazing gathering of musicians. We’re so grateful to the wonderful members who join us month in and month out, year in and year out, for the fiftieth or the first time, from near and from far – we could not do this without you!

We kicked off the meeting with introductions and information about local ukulele news, including live music events and meetups. Then we warmed up our voices and fingers by playing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

PhotoGrid_Plus_1705358929639

We typically pick an upbeat, well-known and infectious song to kick the year off right. This year we had a blast learning legendary rocker Elton John’s 1983 mega-hit “I’m Still Standing.” This song topped charts in the UK, Canada, the US, and more. It’s a timeless pop-rock tune and we had a fantastic time strumming, picking and singing it!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1705359060878

Bob shared some details about his arrangement of “I’m Still Standing” and performed it, with accompaniment from Sho Humphries on the solo and Aaron Lewis on U-bass. It was great to hear their performance before we learned to play it. Bob taught us each component of “I’m Still Standing,” breaking down the chord progressions, picking, strum styles and harmonizing options. As we practiced each component of the song, we got better and better and we sounded great when we put it all together!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1705358787884

We took a break to enjoy the open mic portion of our evening. Alan, Walter, Jack and Sho all did excellent performances and we’re so glad they shared their talent with us!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1705359298927

We then practiced “I’m Still Standing” and recorded our performance for you to enjoy and play along with at home. Look for the video coming soon to our YouTube channel. We hope you’ll have as much fun with it as we did! 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for Bob’s arrangement of “I’m Still Standing” 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).

PhotoGrid_Plus_1705359190000

We’re looking forward to our next in-person meeting on Thursday, February 8th as well as our next virtual meeting on Thursday, February 22nd! See you there! 🙂

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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We are proud to unveil our latest shirt, new for 2024: the “AUS Grackle Ukulele,” design, hot off the presses! All of our shirts are thoughtfully designed by the talented Lyda Guz!

2024 Grackle AUS Tee

The shirts are silk screened here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop and are available for purchase. The new “AUS Grackle Ukulele” design, “”Classic Ukulele” 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.

December 14, 2023: Holiday Potluck & Strum-a-Long!

The Austin Ukulele Society enjoyed a lovely evening of holiday spirit, by socializing, making music, and sharing the joy of holiday potluck deliciousness! 🎁 🎄

GROUP_1CHARLIE

We kicked off the evening by mingling and munching. Bob then introduced the evening’s format, and we warmed up our hands and voices with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Then Bob lead us through holiday music favorites from the Austin Ukulele Society’s thirteen-year repertoire of holiday songs and medleys.

Download the Austin Ukulele Society’s 2023 Holiday Songbook!
TABLE

We took a break to enjoy an extended holiday edition of our open mic portion of the evening. We owe a huge thanks to Kevin, Kaia, the Southside Ukes, Rodger, Paul, Kathy Murray and Bill Jones, TUG, Mary Jane, Jay, and Walter for sharing their talent with beautiful, holiday/winter-themed songs.

OPEN_MIC_2OPEN_MIC_1OPEN_MIC_TUG

After the open mic performances, the whole group got back together to play a few more AUS repertoire songs!

SCREEN

As always, we owe Jen, Lyda, Lori, Jana and Jodi a big thanks for supporting all of the backend business of the AUS. Thanks also to Barry for his tireless set up and break down efforts at each meeting. We’re all grateful to Bob for his patient and thoughtful teaching and leading. Last, but not least, we owe a big thanks to Aaron for keeping us on the beat with his U-bass!

AARON_5-UP

We’re incredibly grateful to you all — thank you so much for 13 years of music, fun, and friendship! We can’t wait to make more music with you in 2024! Please come kick off our 14th year with us, on Thursday, January 11! 🙂


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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


December 7, 2023: Online Holiday Strum-a-Long!

On a festive December evening, nearly 200 ukulele players gathered from all over the globe to strum and sing holiday tunes together. We enjoyed visiting with friends from at least four continents (North America, Europe, Asia and Australia) and numerous time zones. Thank you all for arranging your schedules to join us live on YouTube!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1702331703255

Bob kicked off the evening with some local ukulele news, making sure everyone from near and far knows they are welcome to join us at monthly in-person meetings in the new year, if at all possible.

We warmed up our fingers and voices with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” before launching into some of our holiday repertoire. Each November, we learn a new holiday song (or medley,) so we have a lot of terrific tunes to choose from. Bob took us through mini-tutorials that included helpful hints on some trickier chords or progressions, before each song. The holiday spirit was strong throughout the evening. Before we ended, we played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”  💓

Download the Austin Ukulele Society’s 2023 Holiday Songbook!

You can download the Austin Ukulele Society’s 2023 Holiday Songbook. You can also watch a replay of the December 7 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see — a table of contents with timestamps can be found in the video’s description.

As we wrapped up the meeting, we watched some of the terrific collaborative videos that Marty Porter and Paul Butler produced as well as some great videos that Bob Guz made of our live meeting performances. Check out our most recent group video, “Up On the Roof“:

As always, we owe many thanks to Bob, Jen Richardson, Lyda Guz, and the rest of our amazing volunteers who help run the Austin Ukulele Society!

Thank you for joining us, sending in your selfies, and staying connected! We look forward to seeing you in person, if you can join us in Austin.

We’ll be back on YouTube on February 22, 2024, for our next livestream. Until then, we wish you peace and joy throughout the holiday season and into the new year!  🙂



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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


November 9, 2023: Little Saint Nick! 🎁 🎄

Beach BoysOn a rainy November evening, Austin Ukulele Society meeting attendees brought out their Christmas sweaters and accessories – and their ukes! – to kick off the holiday season’s merriment in style. After getting settled in with introductions and local ukulele news, Bob led us through our warm-up song: Bob Marley’s ever-optimistic “Three Little Birds.”

PhotoGrid_Plus_1699908841993

We hadn’t yet done a Beach Boys tune at an in-person meeting together, and with our generally mild holiday season in Austin, the Beach Boys + Christmas seemed like a perfect mix! Bob taught us to strum and sing their 1963 classic ‘hot rod rock’ Christmas hit “Little Saint Nick.” This catchy tune gets regular airplay throughout the holiday season, and we had a blast strumming, picking and singing it!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1699908964262

Bob performed his arrangement to get us familiar with the style and tempo. We then dove into the arrangement, with Bob taking us through helpful exercises to learn the chords, chord progressions, strum style, picking options and harmonizing opportunities. Once we got comfortable with the song’s components, we played it through a couple of times and sounded good!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1699907501229

We took a break and enjoyed two terrific open mic performances from Barry and Mia. We’re always so grateful for our participants who share their talents with us!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1699909140978

We then returned to “Little Saint Nick” and after practicing it a bit more, we recorded ourselves playing it. Look for the video coming soon to our YouTube channel. We hope you have as much fun with it as we did! 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for Bob’s arrangement of “Little Saint Nick” 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).

Many thanks to the great team that makes our meetings possible: Bob, Jen, Lyda, Lori, Jodi, and Jana – and helpers like Barry and Jay! As always, we owe a shout out to Aaron Lewis for keeping us on the beat with his u-bass!

PhotoGrid_Plus_1699909225093

We look forward to “seeing” our global uke community at the virtual holiday strum-along on Thursday, December 7th and the annual in-person holiday potluck and strum-along on Thursday, December 14th! 🙂

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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


Ukulele Society T-shirts!
We are proud to unveil our latest shirt, new for 2023: 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.

October 12, 2023: Fastball’s The Way! 🎃

FastballOn a perfect and only slightly spooky October evening, members of the Austin Ukulele Society from near and far got together for our in-person monthly meeting. We so appreciate everyone making time for our evening of music and the extra effort to share the spirit of the season with so many great Halloween accessories and costumes. Our evening started out with shout-outs from visitors from afar, introductions by all, and some local ukulele news. Then we warmed up our voices and hands with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” before diving into our new song.

Bob shared some information about the inspiration behind Austin-based band Fastball’s terrific 1998 hit “The Way,” and how we landed on it as an eerie pick for our Halloween month tune. (This hugely popular song was inspired by the haunting, true story of a local couple’s disappearance in 1997.)

Bob performed the song for us, to demonstrate his great arrangement. Next, he took us through helpful exercises to learn each component of the song, before we put it all together. When we played and sang “The Way” through a couple of times, we sounded terrific!

We took a break to enjoy our talented open mic participants. Karen shared a lovely medley of classic hymnals, Bill and Kathy rocked out on a terrific take of Buck Owens’ “Monster’s Holiday,” and Rich serenaded our favorite newly married couple – Aaron and Sana – with the timeless love song “Always and Forever.”

2023_10_12_AARON

After this lovely interlude, we got back to practicing “The Way” and recorded ourselves for you to enjoy and play along with from home. Look for the video coming soon to our YouTube channel. We hope you have as much fun with it as we did! 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for Bob’s arrangement of “The Way” 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, a big thanks to Jen Richardson for all of the behind-the-scenes coordinating, to Lyda for her impeccable slide progression, to Aaron for keeping us on beat with his U-bass, and to our other amazing supporters who always help the in-person meetings go smoothly!

2023_10_12_GROUP_1

We look forward to seeing you all at our November 9, 2023 in-person meeting, as we dive into the holiday season with a holiday song to be announced! Keep strumming and be well until then! 🙂

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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


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.

September 14, 2023: Enjoy the Silence!

Depeche ModeOn a beautiful, delightfully rainy September evening in Austin, 100+ musicians got together to play ukuleles at the Austin Ukulele Society (AUS) monthly meeting. We started off by welcoming new members, introducing ourselves and sharing local ukulele news, including the upcoming Lorenzo “Ukulollo” Vignando workshop that the AUS is hosting on Saturday, October 7 (email Jen to register ASAP, as spots are limited). Afterward, we warmed up our voices and fingers with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

This month we learned to strum and sing “Enjoy the Silence,” by British electronic music band Depeche Mode. This terrific and catchy tune was a huge success in many countries and 33 (!) years later still gets a ton of airplay.

Bob shared a little background on Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” and played through his terrific arrangement. Next, he took us through the helpful exercises he had prepared, to help us learn the chord progressions, strumming technique, picking and harmonizing options, and more. After working hard and having fun, too, we put the song together and played it through a couple of times – and sounded great!

We paused to enjoy the fantastic open mic portion of the eve, where Jay paid tribute to Jimmy Buffet with an excellent cover and Kaia and Mia blew us away with a terrific duet.

Then we got back to practicing and perfecting “Enjoy the Silence” and recorded ourselves for you to enjoy and play along with from home. Look for the video coming soon to our YouTube channel. We hope you have as much fun with it as we did! 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Enjoy the Silence” 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, a big thanks to Jen Richardson for all of the behind-the-scenes coordinating, to Lyda for her impeccable slide progression, to Aaron for keeping us on beat with his u-bass, and to our other amazing supporters who always help the in-person meetings go smoothly!

We look forward to seeing you at Ukulollo’s workshop on October 7 – and, of course, at our Thursday, October 12 in-person meeting; get ready for a Halloween theme! 🎃 Until then, keep strummin’! 🙂

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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


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.

August 24, 2023: Up on the Roof!

The Austin Ukulele Society and 150+ ukulele friends from places near and far had a terrific time together on Thursday, August 24th, thanks to the internet and YouTube. Whether it was 2am in Germany or 5pm in Vancouver, BC or Friday at 10am in Australia, dedicated musicians made time to enjoy the ukulele and Bob’s teaching. We played our warm-up and wrap-up songs, and Bob taught a tutorial on our featured song, a wonderful hit from the early 1960’s made famous by The Drifters: “Up on the Roof.”  💓

We kicked off the evening with ukulele news and our warm up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Then Bob shared useful details about the song chart for “Up on the Roof” and gave us a lovely performance of his arrangement. He led us through great exercises, getting us comfortable with the chords, chord progressions, and picking options – and shared some great tips, including a transition from G to Em that was really appreciated.

After we practiced the components of the song, we had a great time playing through “Up on the Roof” a couple of times. Before we bid the evening adieu, we played our closing song – Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.” Then we spent some time together, watching collaborative videos of virtual meeting participants as well as some recordings from our in-person Austin meetings.

You can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for “Up on the Roof,” or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills. You can also watch a replay of the August 24 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

As always, we love to give to a shout out to AUS co-founder Jen Richardson, who moderated the chat with finesse through the evening; Lyda Guz, who skillfully managed the presentation slides, and Marty Porter and Paul Butler, for expertly producing the virtual meetings’ collaborative videos. Check out our most recent group video, Bruno Mars’ delightful 2010 hit, “Count On Me“:

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

We look forward to seeing many of you at our next in-person meeting, on Thursday, September 14. We’ll also look forward to our next virtual meeting, which will be a holiday song strum-a-long, on Thursday, December 7. In the meantime, 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.

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


August 10, 2023: Dancing in the Moonlight!

King Harvest The August in-person meeting of the Austin Ukulele Society was truly a supernatural delight, and a fine and natural sight! To get the evening started, over 130 ukulele players from all walks of life introduced themselves. Everybody there was outta sight! Then Bob led us through our warm up song – Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

If you saw the super moon on August 1st, you weren’t surprised by our featured song choice: “Dancing in the Moonlight.” This feel-good tune was a big hit for the French-American band King Harvest in 1972 and again for the English band Toploader in 2000. “Dancing in the Moonlight” is one of those songs you likely know from its regular airplay, numerous covers, and features in commercials and film, and we had a blast singing and strumming it!

Bob shared some details about his arrangement of “Dancing in the Moonlight” and then gave us a lovely demonstration of it. We learned some great tips from Bob, as he taught us parts of the song including the strum pattern, chords and chord progressions, picking options, and harmonizing opportunities. As we practiced the components of the song, we got better and better and sounded great when we put it together.

We set the song aside for a bit to enjoy a truly magnificent open mic portion of our evening. Jason Castille, Kathy Murray and Bill Jones, Kaia, Evan Kolvoord, and Sho and Shin Humphries all performed terrific covers of songs they really made their own. We hope you’ll get up and play a song for us sometime, too, if you haven’t yet or in a long time!

After the open mic set, we practiced “Dancing in the Moonlight” again and recorded it for you to enjoy and play along with from home. We hope you have as much fun with it as we did! Look for it coming soon to our YouTube channel. 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Dancing in the Moonlight” 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).

Many thanks, as always, to Jen and Lyda and the whole AUS team, for their tireless efforts to make the meeting successful. And as always, we owe a big thanks to Aaron Lewis for his support on U-bass!

We look forward to “seeing” you all at our August 24th YouTube livestream meeting! And we’ll see you back in person on Thursday, September 14. Until then, keep strummin’! 🙂

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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


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.

July 13, 2023: Try Everything!

ShakiraWow! We sure loved having a turnout of about 150 players for our 150th in-person Austin Ukulele Society meeting! Thank you so much for making this milestone extra special, as you brought so much more than ukuleles and voices to the evening. We got started with introductions of Bob and Jen, the co-founders of the Austin Ukulele Society, and then enjoyed hearing the names of everyone in the room. As always, we warmed up our voices, hands, and hearts with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

To celebrate our 150th in-person meeting, we learned to sing and strum a song that fits perfectly with how Bob and Jen got the Austin Ukulele Society started: “Try Everything,” by Shakira. With a career that began when she was just 13 years old, Colombia’s Shakira is one of the Queens of Latin Music! 2016’s “Try Everything” was featured in the popular Disney movie “Zootopia” and was a gigantic hit that continues to get tons of airplay, everywhere! We enjoyed learning to play and sing this infectiously optimistic song.

Bob performed his terrific arrangement of “Try Everything,” to get us ready to learn to play it. He took us through some very helpful exercises on the chord progressions, strum patterns, and harmonizing options, and helped us all get better and better at the syncopation of singing with the strumming.

We also enjoyed the open mic portion of the eve, during which Spence, Sho H, Rich, and Bob and Aaron gave us fantastic performances!

Afterward, we practiced “Try Everything” some more, then worked on recording our rendition to share with you. Look for it soon on our YouTube channel. We hope you’ll check it out and strum and sing along from home. 🙂

To play along with us, you can download the lyrics and chords for our arrangement of “Try Everything” 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).

Many thanks, as always, to Jen and Lyda and the whole AUS team, for their tireless efforts to make the meetings successful. And thank you to Aaron Lewis for keeping the beat on the U-bass!

We look forward to having you at the next in-person meeting on Thursday, August 10. Until then, keep strummin’! 🙂

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

We appreciate your support and interest. If you’d like to make a donation to the Austin Ukulele Society (a 501(c)(3) organization), visit our Square Donation site. If you would like to be added to our mailing list, please fill out our this short sign-up form. For any other inquiries, please contact us or shoot us an email if you have previous correspondence with us.


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.