A little bit of nonsence

I have a friend who lives in Austin, a hot bed of musicians.  Pop's Bayless has had several groups, including the Asylum Street Band and others.  Pop's wrote some uke songs including Let's All Go To Hawaii and the uke standard Flaming Ukulele In The Sky (both of which are in our club song book).

His group, plus several others, met in Austin for a huge jam session one evening.

They are enjoying themselves, and I hope you enjoy it too.

Ralph

Tuesday the 11th

We will have our regular gathering of uke folks at the WCD on Tuesday evening. Let's gather at 6:30 for some refreshments and then we can do some songs that we enjoy. Please bring along some suggestions from the club book or from your personal files. If you want to have me make up an MP3 recording of a song so we can learn it better, let me know and I will do my best.  


Thanks to Carol and her printer, I will have the Dallas club 2 and 3 chord song book packets available for you. Thanks, Carol.


Ralph

Two upscale ukes for sale locally

There are two upscale soprano size ukes for sale locally.  One is a Tamaka in koa and the other is a Martin in mahogany.  Both are from the late '50s', early 60's era.  Both should be excellent choices, but the Martin has the cache that goes with those early ukes.

So if you are interested, check out the FleaMarket marketplace ad for the Martin as well as the CraigsList Tulsa ad for the Kamaka.

They need a local home.

Ralph

Tuesday evening at WCD

Join us next Tuesday about 6:30 for food, socializing and just a bit of instruction for those who have some questions. We will also have some group songs, circle jam, and if anyone feels the urge, give us a new piece,


Carol has printed out the latest jam book I got from the Dallas club -- this one being a two and three chord song book. This book contains songs from a wide variety of genre's and eras. While only having three chords in a song, it does not mean that they are ultra simple numbers using, as an example F and C7, but does include some numbers with the less familiar Em and more difficult chord changes. I think you will like this new addition to our collection.


Thanks to Carol for printing these out for us. WCD is at 18th and Sheridan adjacent to the large DirectTV office.

Special Saturday meeting

A couple of us are going to meet at the Troubador's Emporium, a small shop in the pioneer village of Persimmon Hollow, NE of 71st and Garnett.  Access is off 115th Ave and the shop is in the back of the property.  Bryan has set up his place for some instrument sales, but principally for allowing local songwriters a venue to show off their latest efforts.   Join us if you can, bringing instruments, of course.  2 PM, this Saturday.

Another good web site

There is a uke site based in the Netherlands that you might want to visit.

click on the link and the home page will come up.  There are two areas of interest.

You will see a fretboard and a list of available chords that will show the fingering in the open position, for three tunings - D, which they call Soprano, (popular in Canada, C Concert, with a high G, C - Tenor with a low G and G, for the Baritone.  Click on the tuning you like and then use the "pick" to strum the chord to see how it sounds.

The other main item is the play-along section.  There are a large number of songs in the list and after you select the tuning you want, find a song and you will see a video, the lyrics and chords, plus the actual fingering.  Because it shows a song in the proper tempo and timing, you can get a good feel how it should be played.  One caveat -- some of the songs seem to have been retracted for copyright reasons.

Have some fun with the songs.  It is a good format.

http://www.ukulele.nl/

Need a shaker?

Every now and then one needs a shaker to get some rhythm going and while one can purchase a variety of designs, here is a simple one to make.

WalGreen has knee high stockings for ladies that come in a small egg shaped container. After the stockings are removed, put the lead pellets from a #8 shotgun shell in the container, and there you have one that fits into the hand very nicely.

One can use a small plastic pill bottle too, but the egg shape is nicer

Ralph

Ralph