Ukulele Tonya

Note: I didn’t have a camera this year at the festival, but I did have my little video camera. I’ve posted a video of a bit of the festival activities here; but do take some Dramamine before you view it. It’s a bit bouncy… (The video is also embedded at the bottom of this post in case you don’t want to head over to YouTube right away.)

Ouch—I’m sporting an ukulele sunburn today. You know—it’s when your inner forearms are toasty pink all the way from where the sleeve on your Hawaiian shirt ends down to where your thumb starts. Oh, and peeking from today’s “work attire,” there’s a matching burnished red “V”, too, corresponding to the collar line of that same Hawaiian blouse.

While that sunburn is feeling pretty warm, what’s warmer still are the memories of a great ukulele weekend spent enjoying the Northern California Ukulele Festival (Hayward, CA).

You see, the unique pattern of that sunburn springs from spending several (happy!) hours in the sunshine, playing ukulele with friends old and new at the festival. We played, as one friend said, “every chord ever known,” as the sun shined down on us—hence a sunburn tattoo that is only on the skin surfaces exposed while strumming and chording. Can I say, “Ouch” one more time?

But it was more than worth it!

(Read on …)

[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 …)

Back in 2003, the good folks at Ukulele Hall of Fame decided to create the Fleabag Music songbook, described as “Songs for Uke Gatherings.” It was a labor of love, featuring 10 classic tunes often played on an ukulele—ranging from Hawaiian to Tin Pan Alley and folk.

The idea was to have one simple book (with standard music notation as well as chord charts) so ukulele strummers could be “on the same page” in playing some well-known (and all public domain) tunes.

While most of us know many of the songs, there are some of these old tunes that, ahem, some of us (did you see me raising my hand?) may have heard of but don’t really “know.” That’s where Bruce Evans and his wife, Karol, come in to the picture. The two of them paired up for some delightful strumming and singing to create a collection of MP3s of the 10 songs. That way, those of us who don’t know the songs well don’t have to fudge the melody anymore—we have something to listen to that will set us straight!

In the photos, that’s Karol sharing a hula at the 2005 Midwest Uke Fest (and yours truly is just behind her) and Bruce teaching a strumming class at the same ukulele festival in Indianapolis (boy, that was a great event!).

The MP3s were posted on the Internet for a while, but have been “down” and unavailable evidently for a bit of time. I’m happy to give them a home here, with the permission of Bruce, who points out, “Like everything else from that project, they belong to the ukulele community, not to me. Please share them with everybody.”

Enjoy some old-time fun—the MP3s (and the songbook) are below:

• Fleabag Song Collection (a zipped file containing MP3 files)
• Fleabag Songbook (a PDF)