OKC meeting

Here is a last minute notice that the OKC group of acoustical instruments in meeting tomorrow night in OKC. Jeff Howard has information.

This is a regular meeting for the first Saturday of the month so I will have to remember to put it on our calendar.

The OKC group is finalizing plans for a local uke club and when that gels we can put that on our calendar too.

Ralph

World Ukulele Day

Ukulele Mike has just reminded us that February 2 is World Ukulele Day.

So got some suggestions as to what our group can do?

Ralph

January meetings are coming up

We have two meetings scheduled for this month -- next week on Tuesday the 10th and the second one on Tuesday the 24th.

Bill Jensen is making some selections of songs that he thinks we will enjoy playing, both at our normal jam sessions as well as at a potential gig at the Spotlight Theater, joining Bill in his regular spot on the Olio Spotlilght calendar in February or March. I'm looking forward to seeing which songs he likes for the theater.

Hope everyone can make it on the 10th.

Ralph

Let's do it!

There will be some folks who will be getting ukes this holiday season, so let's contact them and bring them to our January meetings to get them started.

White Christmas, with enhancements

Some of you may know of Jim D'Ville, the uke instructor who teaches "playing the uke by ear", versus using song sheets.  He gives workshops around the country and always has a crowd in his classes.  He also has a (free) blog that you might find useful.

http://playukulelebyear.blogspot.com/

One of the recent entries in his blog is on White Christmas.  Find it by scrolling down a few entries.  His version of the song starts with a simple, but acceptable, three chord arrangement in the key of C, i.e.,  C, F, and G7 then adds Dm to spice it up a bit, then in version #3 adds two more, C7 and Fm for a very nice arrangement and finally for #4, adds B, F#7 and Gdim.

 F#7 is the only one that you might have trouble fingering -- I expect you will find the others are easy and familiar.  And if that is a bit too much, you can simply delete that chord (in two places) and use the G7 as shown in version #3.

The notations are using the Circle of Fifths system, so if you want to do it in, say the key of F, you can substitute F for I, Bb for IV and so forth.  But in this blog, he shows the chord fingerings in the familiar key of C

Check it out and let's see if we can see how this goes on Dec. 13.


Ralph

Beginner videos

We all learn in different ways, and for many, it is instructional videos.  The musician in the video will have his or her individual style and assumption on how fast you can pick up his/her tips.  Personally I find that many generally go a bit too fast for me, but this is a personal opinion.

Jeff Burton has started to make several beginner videos for the real beginner and if you are in that group, you might find his style is slow and easy to comprehend.

Here is his link.  He has 5 beginner videos out at this time.  If you are starting out, you might like his style.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC8A8A4D91F4D40A4

Check out this short animation

http://goanimate.com/movie/0T7cQeztugz8/1