{"id":541,"date":"2013-08-04T20:03:30","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T03:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/?p=541"},"modified":"2013-08-05T08:29:32","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T15:29:32","slug":"thats-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/thats-entertainment","title":{"rendered":"That’s entertainment!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t know about you, but I’m not really \u201centertained\u201d that often. Sure, I have oodles of MP3s loaded in iTunes and I can stream just about any movie right on my iPad. But, despite the musician or the actors, those things often leave me feeling a bit \u201cblah\u201d and lifeless.<\/p>\n

Contrast that with a live performance by an ukulele player whose passion is charming an audience and you have an evening that is real entertainment. That\u2019s exactly what Ralph Shaw<\/a> provided to a lucky group of folks on May 29 in nearby Chico (California).<\/p>\n

Ralph journeyed through our section of the world as part of his \u201cLove and Laughter\u201d tour. The two new CDs (yes, one is \u201cLove\u201d and the other, \u201cLaughter\u201d) are delightful to listen to\u2014but tons better is being entertained by Ralph for an entire evening.<\/p>\n

I was even luckier\u2014Ralph and his lovely wife, Kathryn, were staying at our home for the night (gee, we rated higher than the local Residence Inn! Well, I know we\u2019re cheaper\u2026) so my fun began in the late afternoon when we broke bread at the uber-popular Sierra Nevada Taproom Restaurant<\/a> before heading over to the church where Ralph was teaching a workshop then offering a concert.<\/p>\n

Ralph packed the workshop (\u201cInfinite Strums\u201d) with playing techniques, real-world examples and so much information that participants might have been left reeling\u2014if not for the humor and very approachable teaching manner Ralph specializes in. Go ahead and just ask me about \u201cghost strums.\u201d I\u2019ve nailed \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem now!<\/p>\n

The concert, though, is where Ralph\u2019s innate sense of showmanship and entertaining sparkled like sequins on black velvet. But not that<\/b><\/span><\/span> kind of showmanship (you know, where, as an audience member, you feel as if you\u2019re just filling a seat and providing ticket income). That\u2019s not it at all. On this special evening, Ralph truly entertained us.<\/p>\n

From his stories between songs (many of those songs were Ralph originals) to his playing, Ralph delighted the audience. I looked around and saw others, leaning forward, seemingly oblivious to the wooden seats on the folding chairs. And I watched people smile.<\/p>\n

For over an hour, Ralph took us with him on a journey to new music and a place far from those hard chairs. He pulled us near to him with superlative playing but, even better, with his full attention. Not once in the evening did he lose an audience member\u2014from tweens to folks in their 70s. At the end, our hands were warmer than the night\u2019s summer air from clapping. We looked around at each other and knew we\u2019d shared something special and vital and pretty rare these days.<\/p>\n

It was much more than a diversion. It was pure pleasure. Now that\u2019s entertainment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t know about you, but I’m not really \u201centertained\u201d that often. Sure, I have oodles of MP3s loaded in iTunes and I can stream just about any movie right on my iPad. But, despite the musician or the actors, those things often leave me feeling a bit \u201cblah\u201d and lifeless. Contrast that with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,4,1,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning","category-performers","category-personal","category-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Ralph1.jpg?fit=960%2C540","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Wqkt-8J","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}