Formal music lessons

If you know of anyone who wants formal instruction in the ukulele, I see that the Firey Bros. shop in Sand Springs is now advertising uke lessons.  To the best of my knowledge, this is the first shop to offer uke lessons.   So for those who want more than the simple strums and open chord fingering, this could be what you are looking for to aid in playing enjoyment.

Ralph

Open Mike, June 27

Cap'n is arranging for an open mike night at the NYC Pizza shop on Thursday, June 27.  He will be setting up a mike for vocals, and maybe a mike for the uke too.  (A mike for the uke may be overkill, most of us cannot sing as loud as we play, and this is a small room.)

So, look over your songs and select some you like.  Even if you don't think you can do it as well as the professionals you see on YouTube, non't fear -- nobody will be throwing pizza slices at you!


Ralph

July schedule

At the club meeting last night, there was complete agreement that we should drop the first Thursday meeting of July.  So for July, we now have three planned club meetings.

Of course, maybe we can get some interest in meeting at a restaurant patio, a park setting or somewhere  else on a weekend, so if you are interested in this, let us know

Ralph

Vintage music source

Some of you may like what can be called vintage music -- material from the late 1800's to about 1940 or so.  Ian has made it a hobby of collecting and scanning old sheet music and old music book material and put them in a pair of DVDs.  These are not video DVDs, but data DVDs, full of pdfs of the sheet music.  Much is arranged and show ukulele chords (some with fingering in C, some in D tuning), some show guitar chords and fingering.

All told there are about 7600 songs in the two DVDs, some of which are probably duplicates, but even with that, this is a huge resource for those who like this material.

This web page has a link to the song index and a link to order the DVDs.  For $15, one gets two DVDs packed with vintage material.  A fantastic resource for those interested in this music.

http://vintageukemusic.com/


Ralph

Thursday was an unusual club day

The regularly scheduled meeting at the NYC pizza shop  became a show of our resilience.

For some reason, our communication with the shop had slipped up and they booked their rear room for a local business group.  So, as folks arrived, we had to decide what to do.  Well, Toby came to the rescue.  He offered his house for our evening jam session.

And it was a lifesaver in that we had a couple new folks show up as well as a large group of regulars.  A total of 14 folks were milling around wondering where we would go, where we would eat.  

Toby's offer solved the location problem and we decided to just eat at the pizza shop and then caravan to Toby's house.

It worked out well.  

While we normally end up or jams about 8:30 to 8:45 (both restaurants want to close at 9 PM), with our late start and no closing period, we stayed at the Bogle residence till almost 9:30, leaving just because a lot of folks had to go to work the following day.  I'm sure if this had been a Friday or Saturday evening, we would have gone on for much longer.

It was a record attendance last night and it was really good to see everyone enjoying themselves.

Hat's off to Bill and Janice Dunn for bringing enough copies of a new song to share.  How they knew how many to produce, given our record attendance, I don't know.  And we should give recognition to Bill for leading the song.  Given that he is a real beginner, he deserves credit for the effort.

And a Gold Star to Mary for suggesting some songs for us to play.  Rex and I don't really want to be dictators in song selection and we want others to show their preferences.  Thanks to Mary for selecting some songs we all like.

Just so we don't get too bored with our current material, I am suggesting that every now and then we have a Theme Night.  This could include songs with a railroad theme (i.e., I've Been Working On A Railroad, Freight Train), maybe ships (i.e., Titanic, Blow The Man Down), cities (Amarillo By Morning, San Francisco Bay Blues) or just Oklahoma (could be hundreds --see  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_about_Oklahoma  )

So give me some feedback -- good idea or not?  And if you like a song but don't have the resources to find the lyrics and chords and make up song sheets, just let me know and we will do our best to find it.

There was some interest shown for some instruction in the proper way to play Hawaiian music andI I'll get with Leilani and come up with a schedule.  Maybe we can come up with something a bit less expensive, but this is her reference book.  :  http://www.amazon.com/Hawaiian-Ukulele-1-Learn-beloved-Hawai%60i/dp/1427626936/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370617475&sr=1-1&keywords=island+joy+hawaiian+music

Feedback is always welcome.  This is your club.

Hawaiian style

I have been in contact with Leilani, the lady who runs the Tulsa hula school and performances.  She has made an offer to give us some instruction in how to play a Hawaiian song in the correct Hawaiian style (as opposed to a Hollywood or Broadway style).

I have a book of the songs in this style and it is arranged for the ukulele.  The arrangements are, for the most part, quite easy for just about any club member to play.  But playing in a true Hawaiian style could be different from what might seem natural to most of us

So if you are interested in getting to meet Leilani and get some pointers, let me know and I will see if we can set up an appropriate time and place.

When we decided that playing the uke would be fun, we really should be able to play several number in the correct style.  So if you agree, contact me.

Ralph

WiFi at the Western Country Diner

I found out that the Western Country Diner has free WiFi at last night's meeting. This means if you have a Lap Top, iPad, or PC Tablet that you could access the Tulsa Ukulele Club's Resource page on our web site during our meetings there. Which means you could have access to all our song sheets without printing them out. Which means you would have the latest revision to a song if it has been modified. Last night a few songs were played from the Resource page that weren't on the Core List. Well I have only printed out the songs on the Core List so if I had my Lap Top there it would have given me access to the songs I hadn't printed out. I do have a Lap Top and the down side to that is the screen is wide and not long like a sheet of paper. Anyway, I just thought I'd pass on that there is another avenue for song sheets when we meet at the Western Country Diner.
Jazzbanjorex.