The Austin Ukulele Society’s July virtual meeting was rocking! 160 enthusiasts from Finland to Brazil, New Zealand to Canada, Germany to Colombia, and numerous locations around North America, got together to play some timeless hits by the King of Rock n Roll himself – Elvis Presley. 💓

Bob kicked off the evening with Austin-area ukulele news and our warm-up song (Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”)

He then shared his plan for the evening, as he patiently guided us through great tutorials of the three songs we’d be learning – “Don’t Be Cruel,” “All Shook Up,” and “Return to Sender“. We had a terrific time learning the strum patterns, chord progressions, and song styles along with a little music theory. Naturally, we sounded terrific when we put each song together to play through. As an added treat, we also played another Elvis classic: “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You.”

We then played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and spent a little more time in the meeting chat while we watched a few AUS videos together.

You can view and download the song sheets Bob created for each song, as well as a PDF copy of each presentation Bob displayed for the tutorials and play-alongs:

You can also watch a replay of the July 24 livestream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

Thank you, as always, for your enthusiasm, participation, questions, comments, and more. Jen Richardson (moderating the chat) and Lyda Guz (passing questions to Bob) enjoyed your company throughout the evening. 💓

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

We look forward to being back with our friends from near and far online on Thursday, October 23. And we look forward to seeing our nearby friends at the next in-person meeting on Thursday, August 14, at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Be well and keep strumming!  🙂

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.

We were thrilled to welcome ~140 newcomers and regulars alike to our July 10th in-person meeting! ❤

We had so much fun “dancing” with Martha and the Vandellas at our June meeting that we decided to keep on “dancing” in July! This time, we learned to strum, sing, and harmonize on Whitney Houston’s mega-hit “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” This popular 1987 song is one of the best-selling singles of all time, and it was so much fun to play together!

After everyone settled in at about 7pm, Bob shared our agenda for the evening as well as important ukulele news, such as the Kick Butt ukulele open mic we’d host just a couple of days later. We warmed up our hearts, hands and voices with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” 

Bob then gave us a great preview performance of his arrangement of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” This helped us know what we’d be working towards, and we got right down to business, practicing chords, chord progressions and the strum pattern. As we put the pieces together, we also learned some tab and vocal harmonizing options. We then played the song through a couple of times, sounding better and better each time.

We took a break from working on our song to enjoy the talents of our open mic participants. Walter M. performed a fantastic uke and kazoo song, Cool Hand Ukes did a fun cover, and Kelly (accompanied by Kermit the Frog) did a classic as well. Thanks to all for sharing your talent with us!

Next we got back to practicing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and recorded our lovely rendition for you, coming soon to our YouTube Channel! Please play along with us from home when you can. 

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” 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’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Jen, Lyda, Jana, Lori, Barry, Katie and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

We look forward to “seeing” you at our July 24 virtual meeting at 7:00pm Central on our YouTube Channel!

And our next in-person meeting will be on August 14, at St. John’s United Methodist Church! Keep on strumming 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’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “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.

On a beautiful summer evening in Austin, nearly 150 ukulele players of all ages and stages enjoyed gathering for the June monthly meeting. We had a great time connecting over our beloved 4-string instrument! ❤

We enjoy letting the season inspire us in our song choices, and this first month of summer definitely influenced us. “Summer’s here and the time is right” for Martha and the Vandellas’ Motown classic “Dancing in the Street.” This song may be over 60 years old, but it is just as infectious and fun as it was back then. David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s cover in 1985 was also a smash hit. We were singing (and dancing!) along in no time! 

Bob kicked off the meeting with lots of exciting local ukulele news and a brief description of the evening’s flow. We then warmed up our fingers and voices with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

Bob demonstrated his terrific arrangement of “Dancing in the Streets” to help us get familiar with what we’d be learning. We launched into the great exercises Bob had prepared for us, and he guided us through each part of the song. We got more and more energized as we practiced, and we sounded great when we put the song together.

We took a break from our practice for a fun math/music quiz with Walter, during the open mic part of the evening.

When we practiced the song a little more, we sounded even better and made a recording for you, coming soon to our YouTube Channel. We hope you’ll have fun playing along with us!

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Dancing in the Street” 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’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Jen, Lyda, Jana, Lori, Barry, Gary and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

We look forward to seeing you all again soon, at our July 12 in-person meeting, at St. John’s United Methodist Church! We’ll see you 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’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “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.

We were delighted to host a friendly online group of 170+ ukulele players from near and far: Canada, Germany, Brazil, the Philippines, New Zealand, and many states across the U.S.! This event gave us the opportunity to take a deep dive into learning a song, with a detailed tutorial presented by Bob, live Q&A fielded by Lyda, and the presentation managed by our friend Fran. 🙂

During this livestream event, we learned to strum, pick and sing the John Denver folk classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” This timeless song has been popular all around the world for over fifty years, and we enjoy playing it together! 💓

To kick things off, Bob shared some local ukulele news, including the upcoming workshop and concert with Sho Humphries on June 25, and our next Kick Butt Open Mic Happy Hour on July 12. He then led us through our warm up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

Bob then played through his arrangement of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and took us through helpful exercises for learning how to play the chords and chord progressions, the strum pattern, the transitions, and more. He also gave a great presentation on the Circle of Fifths and and how it can be used to get a deeper understanding of this song (and many others). Thanks to you all for the feedback and valuable dialogue throughout!

We played the song through a couple of times and sounded great! We then played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and spent a little more time in the meeting chat while we watched a few AUS videos together.

You can download the song sheet for “Take Me Home, Country Roads” to play along, or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills.

You can also watch a replay of the May 22 livestream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

A big shout out to Lyda Guz, who moderated the chat with finesse through the evening and to Fran Stelly, who skillfully managed the presentation slides and joined in on playing the tunes. Thanks Fran!!

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

We look forward to being back with our friends from near and far online on Thursday, July 24. And we look forward to seeing our nearby friends at Uke Stars and the next in-person meeting on Thursday, June 12, at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Be well and keep strumming!  🙂

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.

We had a terrific turnout and lots of fun at our in-person May meeting! We welcomed new friends from southern California and Florida as well as dedicated regulars who we are lucky to have with us nearly every month! ❤

Released just a month after his untimely passing in 1988, Roy Orbison’s “You Got It” was an instant hit. This song still gets plenty of airplay and has been featured in films and covered widely, too. It’s definitely the best kind of ear worm, and we were singing and strumming along in no time! 

Bob started the meeting with local ukulele news, including a reminder for our upcoming quarterly virtual meeting hosted on our YouTube Channel on May 22. He then played through his excellent arrangement of Roy Orbison’s “You Got It,” which provided good guidance for where we’d be heading as we learned. Bob led us through great exercises he’d prepared, to help us get comfortable with the chords, chord progressions, strum styles, picking, and harmonizing options. We enjoyed the practice and got better and better, and we sounded fantastic when we put the song together.  

Our very talented open mic participants – Jay, Richard, and Jack – delighted us with their songs and gave us a nice little break from our work on “You’ve Got It.”  

When we got back to our practice, we sounded better and better and we hope you’ll enjoy playing along with us from home, with our upcoming video, coming soon to our YouTube Channel. 

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “You Got It” 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’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Jen, Lyda, Jana, Lori, Barry, Gary and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

Thank you so much for being part of our community! We look forward to “seeing” you at the May 22 virtual meeting and in person at our June meeting on Thursday, June 12, at St. John’s United Methodist Church! We’ll see you 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’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “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.

On a warm and bright April evening, Austin Ukulele Society participants happily gathered for their monthly meeting. It was an especially fun time, with the spring holidays bringing first-time visitors from near and far, as well as the yearly seasonal visit from our good friends in the Galveston Ukulele Society. Thank you to our regulars and first-timers – you always bring joy! ❤

We enjoy learning to play and sing songs from a variety of decades; we sometimes even cover a tune written a century ago! However, it’s been while since we played a recent hit and we were very excited to learn to strum and sing Miley Cyrus’ 2023 mega-hit “Flowers.” 

After playing our warm-up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” we launched into learning “Flowers.” This song seemed fairly straightforward at first but had some fun little challenges, and we were glad to have Bob to guide us through them. Bob led us through exercises to make us comfortable with the chords, chord progressions, strums, and vocal harmonies. We sounded great when we put the song together and played it through a couple of times. 

Then we took a short break to enjoy fantastic open mic performances by Kelly, the Galveston Ukulele Society, and Kevin. 

We then played “Flowers” some more and recorded ourselves, coming soon to our YouTube Channel. We hope you enjoy the video and playing along with us from home!

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Flowers” 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’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Jen, Lyda and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

Please join us in person again on Thursday, May 8, at St. John’s United Methodist Church! We’ll see you 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’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “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.

On a balmy March evening, which happened to be the 5th year anniversary of the pandemic shut down, the Austin Ukulele Society was thrilled to host its best attended in-person meeting since just before that fateful day. With 165 ukulele enthusiasts from all over the Austin area, including some visitors from NC, NY, MN, and Ontario, we really felt the wonderful community spirit and strength of the ukulele world. Thank you for being there! ❤

After a few quick announcements and a warm welcome to all, we got started with our warm-up song: Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

This month, we paid tribute to the late, great Roberta Flack. Her career spanned over 50 years and she had several hits over the decades, including our featured song, 1973’s “Killing Me Softly.” This song was also a huge hit for The Fugees, in the 90’s. We loved learning to strum and harmonize on this beautiful, timeless song!

With vocal support from Kelly and Kimberly, Bob performed his arrangement of “Killing Me Softly.” Next, he launched into teaching us very helpful exercises to get us comfortable with the strum pattern, chords, chord progressions, tab, and vocals for this classic hit. When we put it together, we sounded great.

We took a break to enjoy the wonderful talents of our open mic participants. Larry, Dan, and Rich gave us terrific performances of great cover tunes they’d been working on!

Afterward, we got back to practicing “Killing Me Softly” and hope you’ll enjoy playing along with Bob’s great video recording of the AUS’s performance (coming soon to our YouTube Channel). Please enjoy playing along with us from home!

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Killing Me Softly” 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’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Jen, Lyda and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

We look forward to seeing everyone at our next in-person meeting on Thursday, April 10, at St. John’s United Methodist Church! Be well and see you soon!  🙂

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’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “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.

We had a wonderful, well attended February meeting; we’re grateful to our ukulele friends for always helping us feel the love during Valentine’s week. ❤

The evening kicked off with introductions and local ukulele news, including the upcoming Kevin Carroll “Intro to Blues” ukulele workshop we’re hosting on February 27. See more information below and please email us at austinukes@gmail.com for more info and to reserve your spot.

Since our meeting always occurs near (and occasionally on!) Valentine’s Day, we always choose a love song for our new-to-us song. Over the years, we’ve covered many great love/romance songs from a variety of genres and time periods including themes of heartbreak, romantic love, and love/compassion for all. This year, we picked a hugely popular 1983 duet by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers: “Islands in the Stream.”

Bob took us through helpful exercises to learn the chords, chord progressions and picking options. We enjoyed getting comfortable with each section of the song and sounded great when we put it all together.

After playing it through a couple of times, we took a break and enjoyed the talents of Walter M., Walter L., and one of our favorite couples, Aaron and Sana. We always appreciate hearing the great arrangements you’ve been working on!

We then got back to work on “Islands in the Stream” and we were sounding so good, we wanted to share our performance with you in a recording (coming soon to our YouTube Channel). Please enjoy playing along with us from home, and we hope you had a lovely Valentine’s Day.

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Islands in the Stream” 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’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Jen, Lyda and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

“Intro to Blues Ukulele” with Kevin Carroll

The Austin Ukulele Society is pleased to present Kevin Carroll on Thursday, February 27, for a workshop and more. The workshop – “Intro to Blues Ukulele” – will run for about 75 minutes. Afterward, Kevin will have a short Q & A session, followed by a brief intermission and a mini-concert.

Here’s a brief video in which Kevin shares a little about what you can expect:

Where: St. John’s UMC, in the Great Hall (2140 Allandale Rd, Austin, TX 78756)

When: Thursday, February 27th; 7:00pm – 9:00pm (Workshop 7:00 – 8:15pm, Concert 8:35 – 8:55pm). Doors at 6:30pm.

Cost: $20.00 (includes workshop and concert).

Space is limited, so please email us at austinukes@gmail.com for more info and to reserve your spot.

We’ll see you at our next in-person meeting on Thursday, March 13, at St. John’s United Methodist Church.

Be well and see you soon!  🙂

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’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “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.

The Austin Ukulele Society’s first virtual meeting of 2025 was a wonderful ‘bonus’ way to kick off our 15th(!) year! We love being part of the ukulele world! With over 165 attendees from nations including Germany, Brazil, Canada, Australia, the U.K., Jamaica, and Mexico – plus at least a dozen states of the U.S. – we truly felt the global ukulele spirit throughout the evening! 🙂

During this livestream event, we revisited the first Tin Pan Alley Medley we learned and recorded at an in-person meeting about 10 years ago. As many of you know, numerous tunes from the Tin Pan Alley era are ukulele classics, and our medley includes some of those: “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue,” “All of Me,” and “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby.” We enjoyed learning to sing and strum these classic Tin Pan Alley hits every ukulele player should know! 💓

To kick things off, Bob shared some local ukulele news, including the upcoming Uke Stars event. He then led us through our warm up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”

Bob then gave us some background on our “Tin Pan Alley Medley No. 1” and played it through for us. He then took us through helpful exercises for learning how to play the chords and chord progressions, the strum pattern, the transitions, and more. He also gave a great presentation on the Circle of Fifths and how they relate to the Tin Pan Alley Medley. Thanks to you all for the fabulous feedback and valuable dialogue throughout!

We played the medley through a couple of times and sounded great! We then played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and spent a little more time in the meeting chat while we watched a few AUS videos together.

You can download the song sheet for the “Tin Pan Alley Medley” to play along, or download a copy of the presentation and instruction guide, including exercises and drills.

You can also watch a replay of the January 23 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!

As always, we appreciate Lyda’s efforts to run the presentation and Jen’s to moderate the chat and convey questions over to Lyda and Bob!!

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

We look forward to being back with our friends from near and far online on Thursday, May 22. And we look forward to seeing our nearby friends at Uke Stars and the next in-person meeting on Thursday, February 13, at St. John’s United Methodist Church. Be well and keep strumming!  🙂

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.

We were thrilled to kick off our 15th year of monthly meetings on Thursday, January 9! Though it was a stormy and very chilly night, the weather did not deter the enthusiasm and terrific spirit of the participating ukulele players from all walks of life.

As you may know, our January meeting is often one of our most popular gatherings, for many reasons: resolutions to play more ukulele (of course!), Santa Claus putting new ukuleles under the tree, university students still home on winter break, and some uke-playing friends who winter in central Texas being able to join us. Therefore, we always opt to learn a very popular and upbeat song. This January was no different, and we loved learning Elton John’s 1972 mega-hit “Crocodile Rock.”

We started the evening with local ukulele news and introductions. Then we played our always uplifting warm-up song, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” Next, Bob G. gave us some info about “Crocodile Rock” and played it for us, to demonstrate his arrangement.

We worked hard on the fantastic exercises Bob prepared for us, playing through chord progressions and exercises to get comfortable with the song. By the time we played the song through, we sounded great.

We took a break to enjoy two wonderful open mic performances by Lora and Sho.

Afterward, we played through “Crocodile Rock” a couple of more times and made a recording to share with our uke friends and fans around the world — coming soon to our YouTube Channel. We hope you’ll play along with us from home!

To play along, you can download the lyrics, chords, and tab for Bob’s arrangement of “Crocodile Rock” 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’re immensely grateful to Aaron for his accompaniment on U-bass and to Jen, Lyda and all the fabulous AUS volunteers, for all their hard work.

Our next meeting is a virtual one on YouTube! We’re looking forward to “seeing” you all on Thursday, January 23. Please join us from wherever you are, as Bob gives us a helpful tutorial on how to play a terrific song.

We’ll see our local and visiting friends again for the next in-person meeting, on Thursday, February 13, at St. John’s United Methodist Church.

Be well and see you soon!  🙂

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’re very excited about our 2025 Austin Ukulele Society t-shirt, “Circle of Stars,” designed by Lyda Guz! Each of the 15 stars stands for an action-packed year we’ve been making music together. As always, the shirts are silk-screened right here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop.

Our new “Circle of Stars” design, “AUS Grackle,” “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.