Logan Ukulele Club

Hi Everyone,

The Logan Ukulele Club need a Uke-mad new host for it’s monthly meetings in Logan Village!

I can no longer commit to our 1st Saturday of the month, 2pm meets and need someone to ‘step up to the plate’ and keep this awesome little club going.

Who can do this? Any of our members who are crazy/mad for Ukulele can do it! If you sit around at home playing with your ukulele, singing songs (well or poorly – doesn’t matter) instead of doing your house/yard chores, you can do it! All it takes is a love of the Ukulele and 3 hours happily jamming along with like-minded people. Our members come from all walks of life and all different skill levels. Our club is ‘all-inclusive’ from absolute beginners to those who like to pick and strum like the ‘pros’.

What is in place? The Logan Ukulele Club currently hire the ‘Old Schoolhouse’ building in Wharf St, Logan Village for a bargain community group price. It has its own website and gmail account.

I can – help anyone who is interested with the take-over. This is a purely social club for ukulele players of all levels to come along and play tunes from any genre and any era.

If you would like more information – please email Marg: loganukulele@gmail.com

Regards to all, Marg

Hi Uke-Stars,

We will hold our next jam session on Saturday April 5th @
The Old Schoolhouse, Wharf St, Logan Village from 2-5pm.
All players, all levels are invited for an afternoon of
Uking and song.

Bring your grey ‘Ukulele Song Book’. I will have print copies
of some new songs and if you have any songs you would like us
to play then please bring them along, with 5 print copies if
possible, so we can all play along!

See you all then,
Regards, Marg

Hi Uke-Stars,

I’m sorry to say there will be NO UKE CLUB on Saturday 1st March due to most of our members attending the “Ukes at the Winery” event. https://ukesatthewinery.wordpress.com/

We will however be back on Saturday April 5th @ 2pm – 5pm. The Old Schoolhouse, Wharf St, Logan Village.

I hope to see everyone there!
Keep Playing the Uke!

Regards, Marg.

Happy New Year Ukulists!

I hope you had a happy and blessed holiday season. I can’t wait to catch up for some more Uking good times this year.
I am aiming to grow our group a little larger this year so I encourage you all to come along and support our Jam Sessions and bring along any of your friends that were lucky enough to receive a new Uke for Christmas!

We meet on the first Saturday of every month including:
THIS Saturday 4th January 2014
@ The Old Schoolhouse on Wharf St, Logan Village
@ 2pm – 5pm
Cost: $3 per visit to cover our hall

We are a diverse group of people with a great love of music, ukuleles and singing for the joy it brings. Some of us are also choristers so we can belt out a few harmonies too.

We welcome all levels of Ukulele players and some bring their partners along just to sing with us 🙂 We will begin this year once again using the grey book ‘The Ukulele Club Songbook’ which is available in most good music stores for less than $40. It’s a great book for all playing levels and with more than 250 songs we are yet to get bored with it! I also encourage you to bring along printed copies (10) of your favourite Ukulele songs to share with the group. No music genre is excluded.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as can make it on Saturday!
Logan Ukulele Club – ‘A Uking Good Time’
Regards, Marg

Logan Ukulele Club
30/8/13
September News
NEXT MEETING IS SATURDAY 7TH SEPTEMBER.

Hi to my fellow Ukers!

Good news is we will meet and jam again in “The Old Schoolhouse” Wharf St, Logan Village, on Saturday 7th September from 2pm-5pm. Our very social ukulele club meets on the first Saturday of each month but requires NO membership fees, NO commitment to sessions and caters for absolute beginners thru’ to maestros. A $3/person cover charge pays for our venue which is lovely.

Our usual format for meetings is to play some 3-5 chord songs for beginners, progress to more challenging songs, have a break to chat etc… then come back and play ‘people’s choice’. However, this month we have a very talented member, MICHAEL, hosting a workshop on ‘Chord Soloing Tips’. Michael is quite well known around the ukulele circuit and is offering his knowledge for free!

Come along and play, sing and learn! Everyone is welcome.

Yours in Uke,
Marg.

Hi Uke Friends!

Just a reminder about our next meeting on Saturday 6 July at 2pm, on the second floor of the Old Schoolhouse, Wharf St, Logan Village.

We had a great lot of fun at our June meeting with about a dozen members present to sing and Uke an afternoon away 🙂 Personally, I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday and I thank you for joining me!

We welcomed Norm, from Tamborine, new to our group this month. Norm plays Baritone Ukuleles (most of the time) so I will be sure to include baritone chords at our July meeting. Norm was warmly met by our members and said he enjoyed your company very much! I’m sure we would all agree…..it was OUR pleasure to welcome him and very glad he felt he could sing and play with us.

In our June meet we played some of our favourites:
• Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
• Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash
• Happy Together – The Turtles
• Ain’t She Sweet – Milton Ager & Jack Yellen.

We also tried some new songs:
• Dear Prudence – The Beatles
• I’m Leaning on a Lamp Post – George Formby
• You Better Be Home Soon – Crowded House
• We’ll Sing In The Sunshine – Gale Garnett

Michael showcased a Hawaiian Song he has been learning and Rachel gave us a listen to her version of ‘Tears in Heaven’ by Eric Clapton. Both were greatly appreciated by the group, it takes guts to put your new songs on show but also shows that the group are very respectful and learn a lot from you both. Thank you to Michael & Rachel 🙂

Some of our group who are also members of the ‘Mixed Beans’ choir, were away recording their very first CD @ Alchemix Recording Studio and we look forward to hearing about their experience and listening to the 14 tracks recorded! Well done friends!

If you have some song choices to suggest for July or August, don’t be hesitant! We welcome all ideas and if you have a link to the music it’s even better! We endeavour to play the widest range of music possible so please send in your ideas 🙂

Thank You for joining us in June, and look forward to seeing you in July.

Yours in song & Ukulele,
Celia & Marg

P.S. We are excited to be hosting a workshop with LUC member Michael, in the near future. The workshop will be for players of an intermediate level and more information will be shared at our July meeting 🙂

Marg’s Newsletter

Hi Uke friends,

We hope to find you well – and happily strumming, chucking or picking your Uke because come 2pm, Saturday 1 June 2013 we are back jamming & chatting & having a “Good Ol’ Time” getting together for the sake of singing & uking! Look forward to seeing you at the Old Schoolhouse, Wharf St, Logan Village.

Our apologies for cancelling our May Meeting but other commitments got in the way of either of us hosting our usual gathering.

In April we played ‘Bye Bye Love’- Everly Brothers; ‘Happy Together’ – Turtles; ‘Margaritaville’ – Jimmy Buffett, ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’ – Carole King/Gerry Goffin and ‘Ain’t She Sweet?’ – Milton Ager & Jack Yellen.

We also had a “favourite song” choice from each of the group which included; ‘Why Worry’ – Dire Straits; ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain’ – CCR; ‘Love Me Tender’ – Elvis Presley; ‘Ring Of Fire’ – Johnny Cash and many more.

Michael also showed us (once again) how we can play out the music using ALL our fingers & thumb and I think it is about time we organized a 1-2 hour workshop with Michael if he is willing? Michael is an awesome Uke player who loves all the music from 1940’s backwards! He is currently putting together an E-Music Book with Uke Facts/Trivia concentrating on the earliest years of Ukulele.

The group decided they would like to try 4 new songs at June’s meet.

1. We’ll Sing In The Sunshine – Gale Garnett
2. Delilah – Tom Jones
3. I’m Leaning on a Lamp Post – George Formby
4. You Better Be Home Soon – Crowded House

Music for You Better Be Home Soon is attached, and we will have print copies of all the songs at the meeting as per usual.

Our other songs for June will be a REPEAT of April songs ‘as above’ because we did enjoy playing them and we had such lovely harmonies happening.

One last link – how to make a cake pan banjo ukulele!

With Ukeing Regards,

Celia & Marg

Hi Ukulelists!

We had a great turn-out at this months’ meeting with 15 happy Uker’s braving the washed-out roads after Mother Nature’s flooding rains. It was a relief to jam away for a few hours instead of being home and cleaning up the mess left behind from the storms.

We welcomed two new Uker’s to our club and thank Carmel for introducing Lou and Gary to the joys of playing our beloved ukulele’s and singing our little hearts out. Both Lou & Gary enjoyed singing along too which is a bonus! It was great to see our numbers up on January, ‘the more the merrier’ I say and it definitely helps with the awesome harmonies we were able to create with our songs this month.

We warmed up our session with a few oldies, Doo Wah Diddy by Manfred Mann; Sloop John B by the Beach Boys and You Are My Sunshine. I loved Captain Celia’s new song choices for this month! The melancholy Dire Straits song Why Worry Now (watch the Emmylou Harris/Mark Knopfler duet here); If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot; Happy Together by The Turtles and Annie’s Song by John Denver (a personal favourite!). We wound down with our favourite Beatles tunes; No Reply; I Wanna Hold Your Hand and of course, what would have been our signature tune (IF you all could have sung it MY WAY) Fly Me To The Moon, which everyone thought sounded better and more together when I didn’t sing……This song is now retired until I get my way 🙂

HOMEWORK this month is on Annie’s Song…..we are trying for a 6 string plucking pattern from the instrumental to the end. Whaaaaat? OK…hold your Dsus4 chord and work your way down the strings from G to A (thumb plays G down ↓, index finger C string, middle finger E string & third finger A string all pluck up ↑) that’s 4 strings of the 6 right? To complete the 6 string pattern pluck up↑ middle finger on E string, index finger on C. Please note that the 6 string pattern is played on each chord before moving on to the next (in this case G chord) Got It? Easy As – we should all be accompanying Rachel by next month 🙂

If you are a beginner, please disregard the previous paragraph and focus on the often used chords of loads of songs; C…F…G7….Am and D. We will start next session with our easiest songs, especially for you! I would be happy to meet at 1.30pm on the verandah @ our Saturday Jam and go through the chords/easy songs before our meeting if you like, just let me know. I’m no Pro, but happy to share what I can with you.

With these 5 chords you will be able to play: Doo Wah Diddy; Stand By Me by Ben E King; Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash; Jamaica Farewell and Octopus’s Garden by The Beatles. All of these and more at our website: https://loganukulele.wordpress.com

Many thanks to Michael (our resident antique music maestro!) who always gives us a lesson on how the Uke can-be-played at Show and Share time. Also to Trevor who is sharing his Blues techniques with us. Trevor runs his own Uke group, check out Sunnybank Ukulele Players for more information [ed: also see below for links to Trevor’s YouTube channel]. Michael is busy making an e-book of pre-war songs (I jest here…..he will have to update me!) together with ukulele facts & trivia.

Enough for now my Ukulelist friends (hah! It is a real word…I checked! So is Ukulelian!)

See you next month, 2nd March 2013

Marg

Trevor has a great YouTube channel with videos of songs and techniques, and plans for many more! Check out his how-to for the two finger triplet stroke.

This month we met for the first time in our larger new premises in the Logan Village Community Centre, the upper floor of the Old Schoolhouse (Wharf St, Logan Village), which we were very happy with – it’s a nice breezy space with plenty of room for us to spread out.

I had a lazy month and appropriated music from Richard G’s Ukulele Songbook for our new songs of the month. We warmed up with the Beach Boys’ Sloop John B, then moved onto a couple of Johnny Cash songs – Ring of Fire (where we’re sort-of-almost managing to play our little introductory riff we’re doing in unison) and Folsom Prison Blues.

We moved onto something Australian with Hunters and Collecters’ Throw Your Arms Around Me, but have decided to transpose it into C for our next meeting to suit our voices a little better. We always try and go back to Fly Me to the Moon at each meeting, as some of those chords sound just so lovely on the uke, and I’d like to get it to a stage where we can play it at a reasonable pace.

As we had our bass player back, we tried I Shot the Sheriff again, but it’s just not working – we’re losing our rhythm after every little pause, and I need to correct some of the chords on our music. I think I’ll put that aside for a time, and perhaps try One Love in C as an easier reggae piece for next month.

We had a quick look at George Gershwin’s Summertime, which we’re going to look at as a more complex piece to practice in June. It’s not a song that really works with a group of people singing in unison, as everyone tends to use such individual phrasing, but we might pick a soloist for each verse and perhaps have other players humming along in the background if they like.

We also played Oh Susanna, which is a very cheerful song with oddly depressing lyrics – we speculated that Susanna is actually dead, and the song’s narrator is dreaming of her ghost. James Hill does a beautifully depressing version of this song in a minor key on his True Love Don’t Weep album (which you can listen to here), using a slide ukulele.