Ukulele Tonya

Note: This is a lengthy account to give you an idea what it’s like to have attended this festival. If you want to skip the words and head directly to the 37 photos in the photo gallery album, click here.  If you want to see the captions for each pix, click “detail” in the bottom right corner of the album’s page; also, enlarge the thumbnails by double clicking on them.

Sweet sounds of the ukulele, wonderful workshop opportunities, island food and drinks (the kinds with the little umbrellas and wedges of pineapple perched on the edge) served in a tropical setting—and the friendliest group of ukulele people you could imagine. All of that defined my time at last week’s Windy City Uke Fest (WCUF), held in DesPlains, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

While organizers Terry Pensel (Nui Ukkulele Club) and George Klinglehofer  (Windy City Islanders) hadn’t staged a festival prior to this inaugural year for WCUF, you wouldn’t have guessed it from the final results of this ukulele festival in the heart of the Midwest. Top-name musicians and enthusiastic ukulele players showed up in force from all over the Midwest, Canada, Washington D.C, Hawaii and even Australia

My mom and dad are from a little, tiny (415 residents) dairy community in Wisconsin and, while they “escaped” before their 20^th birthdays, most of my relatives are still scattered from Wisconsin to Illinois and Iowa; this means that the distinctive Midwest accent (yes, you folks do have an accent!) comforts me; in short, it feels like I’m with family—my Midwestern ohana, if you have it. And that friendly feel—and improving ukulele skills, listening to ukulele masters and plenty of opportunities for playing—was what the WCUF was all about.

I’ve been to a passel of ukulele festivals but never have encountered the friendliness right off the bat that there was at this one. Typically it takes folks a while to get comfortable with one another and be willing to let down their defenses to learn new techniques, try different strumming or attempt jamming with songs out of their usual repertoire. That definitely wasn’t the case at Windy City; jam sessions in the hotel (despite the surly late night clerk and the meeting room with an aroma, as Gerald Ross suggested, of a recent taxidermists’ gathering) and the workshop site featured the widest range of songs I’ve played lately.

And talk about hospitality: Anita, a student in my beginning class, invited a group of us to her home for a delicious lunch on Sunday (and an impromptu hula performance by her little-bit of a daughter); and Lopaka and Julie Young surreptitiously picked up the tab one morning for breakfast at the Silver Stallion (thank you, again!). Is this kind of warmth typical of Chicago-area folks??? Or is it that genuinely nice people are drawn to the ukulele? Hmmm…perhaps there’s a master’s thesis study in there somewhere for a sociology student…

The venue:

Who’d have guessed that, in the middle of the typical suburban Midwest strip mall, you’d find a tropical paradise, replete with hand-carved tiki, friendly servers attired in Polynesian pareo and Hawaiian foods that you’d think were right off a menu on the Big Island of Hawaii? But, I’m here to tell you, it’s there—and it’s called Tiki Terrace, miraculously located in the midst of Des Plaines.

The friendly folks at Tiki Terrace hosted the evening events throughout the Windy City Uke Fest. That means I got to enjoy everything from dinners of coconut crusted chicken, to kalbi ribs, kalua pork, special order loco moco and even taro chips with pineapple salsa. This also means I have a renewed commitment to visiting the gym more regularly now that I’m back home—but every delicious calorie will be worth the few minutes on the elliptical. Dozens of pineapples and lots of rum evidently gave their lives for the various drinks at the Tiki Terrace (I wasn’t driving so I sampled a variety); there was even a drink called the “Kamaka,” which, being a devoted ukulele player I had to try a sip of, too.

In addition to the great food, the Tiki Terrace’s sophisticated sound system and large stage provided an up-close experience from almost every seat in the restaurant. Imagine enjoying the awesome precision of Abe Lagrimas Jr.’s ukulele fingerpicking while sitting at a cozy table with friends, both new and old—and being so close that you can see each of Abe’s left fingers traverse the fretboard. ‘Talk about an intimate and sound-filled venue, the Tiki Terrace definitely fit the bill.

If you had a yearning to be videotaped playing ukulele and post it on YouTube, WCUF’s UkeTube  Stage (at the Tiki Terrace) offered you that chance—with a professional sound system at your disposal and the tropical setting as a backdrop. I took a pass on the experience—but some day I do think I’ll work up something for YouTube…watch out world!

Workshops, vendor displays and other daytime activities were held across the parking lot from the Tiki Terrace, in a vacant commercial space. While the space did tend to get a bit noisy during workshops, it worked fine for its purpose, especially when Terry found a second location for workshops on Saturday…

The physical ambiance of the setting wasn’t really wowser but add in the ukulele “candy” from MusicGuyMic and Karl Markl as well as oodles of teaching materials from Curt Sheller and others and you have a toy store of delights for the ukulele afflicted. And no, despite the great instruments available (and Mike’s sincere help in finding me one), I still haven’t bought my “dream” tenor. Everyone needs a holy grail to pursue and I guess that’ll be mine…

The workshops:

The Windy City Uke Fest followed a format similar to that of the Portland Ukulele Festival: participants could sign up for all three days and  most workshops would continue each of the three days. This is in contrast to the more typical “one session only” classes at most ukulele festivals. Workshops were timed so that beginning and advanced classes were held concurrently; intermediate classes were in the afternoon.

Instructors submitted  workshop handouts prior to the festival and the organizers created a “workshop practice book” for every participant which had all the instruction materials. This allowed each participant to take home materials not only from the classes they actually attended, but also the handouts from the classes they didn’t go to—adding greatly to the learning possibilities in future months, when memories of the class are dimming.

Workshops included: “Introduction to Swing Ukulele”  and a demo of swing lap steel guitar (Gerald Ross); “Introduction to Fingerpicking (Mark “Spanky” Gutierrez); “Intros, Solos and Endings” (Curt Sheller); “Moving from Beginner to Accomplished Ukulele Musician” (Seeso); “Hula: ‘Ulupalakua” (Joyce Flaugher); “Blues Ukulele Class” and “Intermediate Strumming” (Li’l Rev); “Advanced Ukulele” (Ali Lexa); “How to Effectively Learn the Ukulele,” “Recognizing Common Progressions” and “Best Methods for Teaching Ukulele (Kimo Hussey) and “You Can Play the Ukulele, Too” (taught by me!).

Additionally Terry offered mini-workshops on what to look for when buying an ukulele, ukulele resources on the web and the Kodaly Method of learning music. With such an intimate setting, instructors could often be seen between classes, working with individuals or small groups of students, offering even more information (thanks, Mark, for the tips on playing lead using the song’s pentatonic scale—I’m working on that scale “shape” and am almost ready for the next).

While I really enjoy teaching local folks how to play the ukulele (people in these parts know to duck out when they see me coming!), the Windy City Uke Fest was my first opportunity to teach “formally” outside of our area. What a joy it was to help new players gain the skills—and confidence—to play the ukulele! We had a few total “newbies” who’d not picked up an ukulele before and a host of others who had basic skills but wanted to stretch those a bit. It was easy teaching  (and learning from) such an enthusiastic group—my goal was to give each class participant the joy, fun, camaraderie and a real sense of accomplishment that comes from learning to play the ukulele. In case you hadn’t guessed it, “fun” was the operative word…

The kani ka pila (aka “jamming”):

In his class, Kimo asked participants why they’d come to the festival. Answer choices included A) concerts, B) learning, and C) playing with others. The largest number of hands raised was for “learning” but then everyone laughed that they wanted to learn so they could play with others!

Playing with others/kani ka pila/jamming is a highlight for me of attending festivals—and I wasn’t disappointed at WCUF. On Thursday, a group played until midnight at the Tiki Terrace. For most of us ukulele players scattered around the country, a festival is the only time we’ll get to strum side by side with the likes of Kimo Hussey, Mark Gutierrez, Gerald Ross, Lopaka Young and and other “name” players. For some of us in ukulele-isolated regions, they’re the only chance to strum alongside others period! Keenan Kamae (yes, from that Kamae family) graced us during Thursday night’s jamming with a lively hula rendition of Ulupulakua as we all strummed and sang.

The playing continued throughout the weekend as spontaneous jam sessions popped up in the workshop area as well as the lobby and the meeting hall of the hotel. In the words of Lori, from Wisconsin, who’d never attended an ukulele festival before, “Playing and singing with so many ukulele friends was something that I never, ever dreamed of doing and, wow—there I was, right in the middle of it.”

 And, yes, at least one group played “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”—but we played the “old” version of it with the lead-in verses, not just the Tiny-Tim-Made-It-(in)Famous chorus.

The concerts:

Ukulele performers played for three full nights of concerts (six half-hour sets a night). Take a look at the line-up and go ahead and be jealous: Kimo Hussey, Ali Lexa, Windy City Islanders, Seeso, Abe Lagrimas Jr., Gerald Ross, Tim Sweeney, Victoria Vox, Mark Gutierrez, Li’l Rev, Jonathan Carreira, Keenan Kamae, Lopaka Young, Curt Sheller, Dale Anderson, Barefoot Hawaiian and comedian Mark Griffo.

Whew! We even saw MusicGuyMic take to the stage (with Debi Velasco’s bass ukulele) to accompany one of Abe’s numbers; he was joined by Debi’s hubby, Gordon, on ukulele.

In summary:

The TSA guy at the airport on the West Coast snickered when he heard that I was heading to an ukulele festival in Chicago. Ha! What could he have known??? The Windy City Uke Fest was a joy to attend and a solid success as a first-time festival—if Terry and George are brave enough to take it on again in 2009, I’d call it a definite “you gotta do this” event.

Note: This is a lengthy account to give you an idea what it’s like to attend a three-day festival. If you want to skip the words and head directly to the photo gallery, click here.  If you want to see the captions for each pix, click “detail” in the bottom right corner of the album’s page; also, enlarge the thumbnails by double clicking on them.

Portland Uke Fest 2008

My “barre chording” thumb is sore, I’m still catching up on sleep and I have so many new ukulele concepts to practice that my fingers won’t get any rest for at least eight months. But would I have missed the Portland Uke Fest held last week at Reed College? Nope, not for all the Aquila Nylguts in the world.

While I’ve been to more than a dozen ukulele festivals in the past four years, I’d never taken the plane north to Oregon to attend what’s known as the “favorite” festival by many ukulele workshop teachers, performers and students. This year I made reservations in early spring (they have limited space—sign up by late April if you want to be assured of a slot), snagged a couple Southwest flights and got myself prepped for three-plus solid days of ukulele learning, listening, playing and schmoozing. Sigh…I should have gotten more sleep ahead of time.

While many of the event’s “students” live near the Portland area and are “day trippers” for the event, most of the participants took lodging in spiffy dorm rooms on the Reed College campus where the festival was held. I was assigned a “single” room (perhaps, once again, my reputation has preceded me) on the all-woman second floor in Foster. A brilliant tangerine orange wall complemented the turquoise door to the hall. Alert: The door locks behind you so you’d better have your key with you all the time—I discovered my after-shower pareo doesn’t come equipped with a pocket. (You can imagine my joy waiting for a security guy whilst dressed in nothing more than a rectangle of Hawaiian-print fabric, sporting damp hair and freshly-brushed teeth when I locked myself out one morning.) A small desk, tall dresser and closet finished off the dorm room’s decor. I finished unpacking, spread out my pareo on the bed for a bit of wild color, put my iPod on the charger and headed across the campus to the Student Union.

People milled around inside the building, renewing friendships, checking out the dozens of CDs, books and DVDs and comparing notes on what had happened to them during the past year. This festival is set up as a “camp” experience and, being a first-year attendee, I have to admit I felt a bit left out of the camp “family” that first evening, despite knowing more than a handful of people. Many came from Canada—even heading in from Nova Scotia. Lots of Washington and California folks—and even Shigato was there from Japan (what an awesome player—and now he dances hula, too!).

Instructors at this festival are alloted a few minutes on the night before the first workshops to explain what they’ll be teaching—and in many cases, their approach to teaching. This helps you choose the right workshop for your needs and abilities. The festival is structured so students take three classes which are held at the same time slot for all three days of the event; this allows teachers to really develop their concepts, students to develop their skills and all of us to develop friendships. (The upcoming Windy City Uke Fest will be using the same format—check it out for a similar type of learning experience).

With so many stellar instructors it was more than difficult to choose my classes but I finally settled on Gerald Ross’ “Introduction to Swing” class, James Hill’s “How to Teach Ukulele” workshop and Mark Gutierrez (aka Marko or Spanky) for a fingerpicking class. My afternoon “extra” workshop was “Beginning Hula” all three days with Francis Doo. Sure, I could have napped during the afternoon slot instead of trying hula, but how much fun would that have been?

Every class was excellent. Handouts were plentiful and informative. Each teacher I had was well-prepared, enthusiastic and bursting with solid ukulele skills he was eager to share. Talk about motivational and inspiring! If I’m not a better player thanks to their teaching, I’ll be embarrassed to return next year.

Each evening featured entertainment. Thursday’s was an open mic that wasn’t like any open mic I’ve ever experienced; these people were really, really good. Funny, skilled, commanding stage presence and unique (although it was the *second* ukulele/tap dancing set I’ve seen—just imagine!). Friday and Saturday were more formal concerts in the 409-seat auditorium (which was filled to capacity).

If you have a decent-sized collection of ukulele CDs, you can just glance over to it now and I’ll bet you’ll find most of those artists on the list of presenters of workshops and performances at this festival. Okay, I’ll drop a few names: James Hill, Ralph Shaw, Lyle Ritz, John King, Gerald Ross, Del Rey, Li’l Rev, Joel Eckhaus, Jim Beloff, Kimo Hussey, Brook Adams, Mark Gutierrez. Oh, and don’t forget Jere and Greg Canote, Piper Heisig and Casey McGill. Just wandering around for three days and listening to these folks play was a treat. And, they all willingly converse with us “nobodies,” too. Talk about ukulele democracy—wow!

Jamming until well after 1 a.m. finished off every evening (the open bar really helped loosen any inhibitions; a bump and a splash of red wine on a favorite ukulele sweatshirt left me sticking with white wines on the remaining nights). At one point I looked around and there was a banjo, a stand-up bass, Gerald’s slide guitar and a coronet making music with the slew of ukuleles the rest of us cradled in our arms.

A highlight for me was attempting “my first solo in front of other people” during an open mic in Mark’s class; I bombed it pretty badly, but I finished the song (finally—after three tries). Fortunately the day ended on a high note as the students in our temporary hula halau did a more-than-passable job at dancing at Saturday night’s concert. I found the dance a joy—mainly because we’d learned the meaning of all the Hawaiian words and it was like telling a story and sharing it with the audience. That doesn’t mean, of course, that my movements were in sync with everyone else’s, but no one seemed to notice as we all shared the tale of “E Ho’i I Ka Pili.”

At the Portland Uke Fest I made new friends (including a real dentist!), got to know old friends even better and learned so much about ukulele as well as about myself. I’m determined to do better next time in an open mic-type situation. And I will try hula again.

My advice? If you’re looking for the ultimate “ukulele intensive” experience, don’t miss the Portland Uke Fest. But be sure and get in enough naps ahead of time—you’ll need the extra sleep!

Mark was still in the shower, I was ready for work (right down to the lip gloss and earrings—I always seem to forget them) and I figured I could sneak a few minutes to play my ukulele before we left for the office this morning. I needed the time, too; I’d promised to play a couple of “Hawaiian” tunes for a Vacation Bible School later in the morning at a nearby church (the week’s theme was “Outrigger Island”) and I could certainly use the minutes to practice—especially the singing part!

My trusty LoPrinzi didn’t need tuning (it almost never does) so I started right off with a sweet D7-G7-C vamp and launched into “Pearly Shells.” I usually have a tough time getting “started” with the singing part of songs, even if I play the first few melody notes, and this morning was no different. But by the third line I was singing and strumming happily—when I looked out one of the windows in the bedroom and saw a tall and lithe observer just outside, a female turkey.

Mrs. Turkey (I know she’s been wed because I’ve seen her before with her doting guy and, later, a brood of baby turkeys) is a frequent sight, along with her sisters, in our neck of the woods. We live on the edge of a canyon and the combination of pine forest and the open tilled areas of the orchard attract a variety of wildlife. Wild turkeys are part of the scene so we’re familiar with their habits. If you’re not, let me offer you a quick turkey overview: Turkeys are always eating. Always. Their necks seem permanently bowed down as they graze along the pathways, forest floor and fields, looking for delectable ground-living goodies. If they’re not looking for edibles, they’re scraping them up from under the thatch and pine needles with their big, scaly, strong feet (sorry, Mrs. Turkey, but the truth may be a bit harsh). A turkey’s eyesight is keen and the ones around here shy away from any close human contact.

But back to my appreciative audience…Mrs. Turkey was not looking down. She was not scratching for food. She was not turkey-trotting away. She stood tall and straight, looking directly at me through the open window as I strummed my Hawaiian song. I played and sang through “Pearly Shells” three times and my audience of one absorbed it all—the C chord, the F chord and the transition between them, the C7. Even my parents (who think my ukulele playing is better than Jake’s) are never as attentive as Mrs. Turkey was this morning. If I can keep a turkey from its never-ending quest of finding food, it must be darn good ukulele playing. Or something.

After eight minutes of “Pearly Shells” I felt it was time to move on to my next practice piece, “The Hukilau Song,” and Mrs. Turkey demonstrated her disapproval. She shook her feathered shoulders as if coming out of a daydream and turned away, legs lifting stiffly as she stalked toward the stream and away from my stage. Sigh…I hope the kids at Vacation Bible School like that song better than she does.