Next meeting, May 22

We had a nice meeting last night with Mary, Helen, Cindo, Rex and his son.    We had a new player join us -- so welcome Barb Nole.  She has a baritone and a very nice Pono tenor that she brought with her.

We did go over some of the songs we are considering for a new group of core songs as well as look at some others.  As usual, we hope that anyone proposing a new number take ownership of it, that is select the key, set the tempo, bring song sheets to share and be the song leader.

It was mentioned that some of the songs suggested are not in our book and that not everyone has downloaded copies that may have come out via email.  To correct this, I will gather a set of song sheets, zip them into a file and send them out.  If you already have them, great, but if not, print out your personal copy.

I have been thinking that our mix of players will not ever do some of the songs that make up the DUH song book selections.  Ones like "The Buckin Song",  If My Nose Was Running Money" and "Do Your Ears Hang Low" just do not seem to be the kind of songs that this group is interested in singing.  These are just examples, and if you think that we might want to thin out our ring binders, give me a call and we can get together and do some thinning of the collection.

Our next meeting is in two weeks, on the 22nd.  See you there.

Ralph

May 8 Meeting

We will be having our usual club meeting on Tuesday evening.  Mary, Cheri, Kay, Blayne and Rex have made suggestions for a group of core songs to polish and we will surely go over them.  We are always ready to welcome new suggestions too.

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You might note that I have added a link to the San Jose uke club songbook web page.  There are a lot of good numbers there, in the format we like.  They have made it easy to select songs that might fit your skill level too by color coding the title, green being the easiest.

And if you are unsure of your best singing key, check out their version of "In an English country garden", which is provided in several keys.

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I have also added a link to Richard Gilmann's web page.   He has collected a huge number of links to other web sources that can be useful to us.  The links include such familiar ones as Cordie as well as links to education pages and clubs around the world, most of which have song books.   This is a great site consolidating our resources.

"Cheater" music theory

Rex sends along this link for a short overview of music theory, produced by a Seattle based uke performer. Howlin' Hobbit.

Good stuff, here

.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1125378/ukulele%20docs/cheater_theory_v2.pdf

Meeting Notes for April 10th

Well, we certainly had a nice evening last night. It was good to see Jeff and Blayne as well as some of our local regulars. And it was very pleasant to greet a newcomer, Cinde Berkowitz, who not only has a nice Fender uke, but is also an accomplished musician with other instruments. She regularly meets with Mary at their family jams too. Another club asset.

We played a couple songs pretty tightly, probably because they were familiar to us. “Shady Grove” was particularly tight as was a new number to us suggested by Jeff, the Beetles tune “Your Sixteen”. We played a couple other Beetles numbers, but only one Hawaiian number “One Paddle, Two Paddle”.

We continue to think about getting a core group of songs that we really play well. Mr. Sandman, Shady Grove and Your Sixteen certainly seem to have appeal, but if you want some other, let's work on them.

I hope to see everyone on the 24^th.

Circle of Fifths

Rex recommended this short instruction on the Circle of Fifths and song construction.

Here is the link.  It comes from a San Diego club.

http://files.meetup.com/1618566/HappyStrummers-Circle_of_Fifths_handout.pdf

Uncle Rod's Boot Camp

Here is a link to a somewhat different approach to learning to play the uke.  This Hawaiian wants you to learn to do all the open string positions first, in all the keys that fit the ukulele.  He recommends that you play each worksheet, slowly at first, building up speed as your muscle memory comes into play.  First with 4 beats per chord, then three, then two then one, as skills improve.

Mary has been using these sheets, along with a metronome, for some time and recommends them.

Now this won't give you anything on movable chords or using all the fretboard, but it is a great start.

http://files.meetup.com/2287271/ukulele%20boot%20camp%20rev%5B2%5D.pdf

Rex is featured on our YouTube link

You can catch the latest videos by Rex in the YouTube link  on the right hand side of the page.