Songs For Valentine's Day ~ Let's Do A Skype Jam

Sandpiper Art

 Hey kids, Valentine's Day is coming up. These are the songs I'm learning next:

• Blue Skies
• By The Light Of The Silvery Moon
• Brahms' Lullaby
• Do-Re-Mi
• Can't Help Falling In Love
• Chapel Of Love
• The Glory Of Love
• A Groovy Kind Of Love
• Happy Together
• The Dreidel Song (modified to be a love song to Buddy)
• It's A Small World
• Let It Be Me
• Let Me Call You Sweetheart
• When I Fall In Love
• Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

Each of these songs are fairly easy to play either in melody or chords. Choose a few of your favorites and let's do a Skype jam on Valentine's Day!

Luna Guitars New Ukulele LIne

 http://www.lunaguitars.com/lunanews/ukefeature.php

If you aren't the least bit interested in Luna's line of ukuleles, you simply must, must go to their site to look at the gorgeous photos of exotic beaches! Read their back story as well. It's run by a woman who's got a really interesting history in the guitar world.

Paper Craft Ukulele

It's like origami. You can download this mini ukulele, fold and glue it, and have a perfectly adorable paper ukulele. Don't know what you'd do with it after that though.

A teeny, tiny paper ukulele!

Thanks for Paper Craft Ukulele. Find the original blog post and pdf download here:
http://pizzabytheslice.com/papercraft-ukulele.htm

Cigar Box Ukuleles ~ Build Your Own

A collection of antique cigar box guitars, banjos and ukuleles. From the National Cigar Box Guitar Museum. Photo by Shane Speal.

And when you're done building it visit other cigar box ukers at Cigar Box Nation The photo and instructions are courtesy of Cigar Box Nation.

Three Uke Clubs in Vermont, New Hampshire & Maine

Playing ukulele in Northern New England? Here are three clubs to visit.

Upper Valley Uke Club, Hanover, New Hampshire

http://www.uvukeclub.com/home 

The Vermont Ukulele Society, Bristol, Vermont

http://vtukes.webs.com/

Mainley Ukelele Club, Brooksville, Maine

http://tinderhearth.org/Tinder_Hearth/Mainely_Ukelele.html

Happy playing!

Oh Susanna ~ James Hill & Anne Davison

From Gordon Meyer's YouTube channel. Gordon & Char Meyer create MyaMoe ukues.
Here James Hill & Anne Davison play Oh Susanna on a Mya-Moe Tenor Lap Steel. Check out Gordon's other videos too. Lots of good stuff there.

Ukulele Fretboard Note Chart

Rather than play chords, which I find boring, I play by reading music. It's an interesting process to learn, made more difficult by aging eyesight, but it opens up a world of musical possibilities. This fretboard illustration comes from Ukulele Underground senior member, "Dane." You can find the original post on Ukulele Underground.

 This is what he said about his creative process:

"I used part of one of the images of the uke from this URL :
http://www.acousticvibesmusic.com/ca...?cPath=170_171

And the image which I stole the colors from is from this URL :
http://www.nutthouse.com.au/ukulele/chords.html  "

It looks really intimidating (and pretty - look at all those colors!) but it's easier than you may think. Try it and learn something new today.

Kids Don't Try This At Home ~ Man Plays A Ukulele While Riding A Bicycle...In Traffic

A Testament To The Durability Of A Fluke

I was tooling around Ukulele Underground, which is a really dangerous place to be if you've got things to do, when I came across this entry by UU's Senior Member Harpdog. 

Both of my girls will appreciate this story and to add the visual here's what the Fluke looks like:

Fluke ukulele.

"You won't be disappointed in a Flea or Fluke - tough little buggers!

I set a Fluke down on a polished table last week, but from the corner of my eye it looked like it might tip over, so I reached fast to grab it. I was off a little and ended up sort of punching it right where the fingerboard overlaps the body. The thing FLEW across the table. There was a guy sitting there bent over looking at a paper, and it bonked him on top of the head, with the back side of the Fluke. It BOUNCED off his head, back across the table, and hit the floor about 5 feet away.

Not a scratch.
Had to retune the A string.

The guy's head was OK too."

To read more posts on the Fluke, here's the link: UU's Harpdog talks about his Fluke
To shop for a Fluke visit Flea Market Music. 

The Daily Ukulele: 365 Songs For Better Living

 

 

From the folks at Flea Market Music

The Daily Ukulele: 365 Songs For Better Living (on Amazon)

I love songbooks. Always have. The actual language of music, those black dots on white paper, is just so beautiful and the more complex the language the more beautiful the music. Fortunately, these songs are fairly simple to play. 23 bucks at Amazon.

The Mighty Uke ~ A Documentary About A Little Instrument That Makes People Happy

http://www.mightyukemovie.com/

A documentary about the instrument that makes people happy.

http://www.mightyukemovie.com/

This Is Why I Bought A Risa Electric Stick Ukulele

I was perfectly happy playing my concert Flea. Then I saw this video and UAS* began.



* UAS: Want to know what it is? Read about here at a previous Beach Music entry: http://ukejamming.blogspot.com/2010/11/uas-what-is-it-and-why-its-important.html

UAS ~ What Is It And Why It's Important

http://www.nuvo.net/MusicBlog/archives/2010/08/17/ukulele-acquisition-syndrome

UAS ~ Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome. Once you get the ukulele bug it's really, really hard not to start collecting them.

I started with the Flea because, for my needs, it was the best choice: durable, easy to play, unusual in appearance, and I could take it to the beach. Then I saw the Risa electric concert stick in a Friends Of Old Puppy video and I fell in love.

My ukes: a Risa electric concert stick and a concert Flea.

 Then I bought the Dolphins as Christmas gifts and I just love to look at them! So, even though they're not mine they feel at home here.

Christmas Dolphins: Kate likes pink and Zoe likes blue.

To truly understand UAS read Miss Joni's article at Nuvo, Indy's Alternative Voice Music Blog here:

http://www.nuvo.net/MusicBlog/archives/2010/08/17/ukulele-acquisition-syndrome

Jeremy Fisher ~ Playing An Airline Electric Ukulele

Find more of him at his website:

JeremyFisherMusic.com

UAS ~ Mainland Chili Uke

 

Mainland Chili Uke ~ Soprano

See what I mean about UAS (Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome)? How could you NOT own this ukulele? This photo comes from Uke Republic on Facebook. And here's the link to buy this uke from Mainland Ukuleles.

Dolphins For Zoe And Kate

Dolphins

 

 

 

 

I'm still working on the tuning and getting things settled down, but aren't they just so pretty? Plastic body and a high gloss finish makes them durable and pleasant to touch.

Bobblehead & The Flakey Mojo ~ Mississippi Peguin

More videos at:
http://www.myspace.com/bobbleheadtheflakeymojo

Ukulele Zoe ~ The Apartment Song

James Hill ~ Playing Billie Jean

Jamming Via TokBox

TokBox - Free Video Chat and Video Messaging