Ukulele Tonya

Santa’s budget might have been a bit tight around your house this year. So, of course, that certainly explains why you didn’t find the William King tenor or a 3K Martin under your tree come Christmas morning.

But if you’ve been good (and if you’re an ukulele player, I’m just gonna guess that you’re “good” in some form or another), you might have some Christmas cash that someone slipped your way and told you to buy yourself “something you’d like.”

Now’s the time to do the buying. Thanks to Jim and Liz Beloff, I have just the suggestion for you to start the new year with ukulele joy: run to your nearest computer, log on to Flea Market Music and buy yourself a copy of The Daily Ukulele: 365 Songs for Better Living.

Yes, it’s $34.99. And, yes, all of you penny-pinchers, you can find a lot of ukulele songs on the Internet for FREE. And, yes, some clubs (notably the folks in Santa Cruz) have some wonderful “collections” of fun-to-play ukulele songs for a small fraction of the $34.99.

But there’s simply no comparison with Daily Ukulele. Not only is it the creative offspring of Beloff, who reigns as ukedom’s own pater-familias, but if you had to limit your music shelf to just one item, you can consider it “the only songbook” an ukulele player really needs.

Believe me, I don’t say that easily. As someone with a passion for Hawaiian-style playing, I typically don’t like “all in one” songbooks because they rarely have any island songs, or they have just a few. This collection though has a great selection of Hawaiian—as well as songs from every other genre (a complete listing of songs is on the website above).

(Read on …)

Ukulele instructor extraordinaire Jim D’Ville is touring through Northern California in June and has put little old Butte County on his schedule for a pair of info-packed workshops—and, if you’re willing, you might even be part of his newest instructional DVD.

“Play Ukulele by Ear” will be at 11 am on Saturday, June 12. “Chord Progressions and the Circle of Fifths, by Ear” will be at 11 am on Sunday, June 13. The two workshops are for players of all ability levels. Cost is $20 for each and both will be held in Chico, at the studio where he will be recording his next DVD (only the Sunday workshop will be taped).

I’ve taken workshops from Jim, I keep an eye on his blog and I bought his DVD (go here for a detailed review) so I can guarantee from experience that you’ll enjoy—and benefit from—either or both of these learning opportunities.

Here’s a link to a flyer about the workshops—and I’ll include some more information here:

Play Ukulele By Ear: Get off that piece of paper and learn to play the ukulele by ear! Workshop topics will include tuning by ear and tuning your ear, recognizing musical intervals and chord progressions and learning thousands of songs in advance! This workshop will give you the tools you need to tap into all the musical knowledge you already have stored in your head. Playing by ear is easy, it’s fun and it will propel your understanding of how music works to a new level. This workshop will make you a better listener! All skill levels welcome, however, knowledge of basic chord shapes (C F G7) is helpful.

Chord Progressions & The Circle of 5ths By Ear: Take your hearing to the next level by learning to recognize progressions with more that three chords.  You’ll discover how all songs use the same basic structure and how to predict where the music if going to take you.  Why learn one song at a time when you can learn how all songs work at once?  Knowledge of C-Dm-Em-F-G7-Am-Bdim chords required.  This is also a DVD shoot so you must sign a model release to attend.

To register, write to Jim at: dville {at} teleport(.)com. And, do register ahead of time as space is limited. This is a workshop you don’t want to miss—Jim travels all around (including Australia for goodness’ sake) teaching these topics; we’re fortunate that his DVD recording is happening in our own backyard so we get the benefit of his teaching talent.

[Note: I wrote this the Monday after returning from the Tahoe Area Ukulele Fest, but it’s taken me until now to get the photos sorted and this posted. If you want to skip the description and go straight to the photo gallery (with more than two dozen photos), go here.

The past few days drained my sleep budget, but I’m not lamenting my recent loss of shut-eye at all.

That’s because I’ve had a good reason for not putting in more pillow time: I’ve been at the Second Annual Tahoe Area Ukulele Festival. For a confirmed uke fest-aholic like me, a festival means squeezing in as much ukulele talk, playing, learning and listening as possible—and this festival experience was no different!

While I only spent one night at the hotel (ninth floor, East Tower—overlooking I-80. Note to self: request the other side of the building next year), I think I was only in the room for 10 minutes to drop off my bag on Friday afternoon, and then hit the pillows from 2:15 to 8:45 am in the wee hours of Saturday. Golly, I snagged a great room rate, but on a per-minute-spent basis, I’ve certainly had better deals.

But I’m not complaining! Where else could you listen to ukulele greats like James Hill, Aldrine Guerrero, Brittni Paiva, Michael Powers, Dominator and Matt Dahlberg all in one 24-hour period? And that doesn’t include workshops, the chance to play ukuleles of every type and price range and oodles of uke-centric conversations with four-stringer friends new and old.

I’m lucky enough to be able to attend a good number of ukulele festivals (chalk it up to a very understanding husband and being self-employed—at least when I’m working those 14-hour days I can look forward to something fun like a festival) but I know lots of folks who read this aren’t as fortunate as I. Consider this, then your very own whirlwind tour of the Tahoe Area Ukulele Festival. Buckle up and let’s go! (Read on …)