Between travel and being sick, it's been a long time since I played with my ukulele group. I haven't even picked the darn thing up for weeks and no excuse for that. Fortunately, muscle memory retains that handful of common chords which make up about 90% of all ukulele music.
Our leader shares songs each week by airdropping them to our iPads-- no paper music in this group. That keeps things fresh and more interesting than playing the same old stuff over and over. And now of course, we are into Christmas carol season, so there was a new "book" sent around yesterday.
We're lucky to have a charismatic leader, and he challenges the players with different material. He is also a good teacher. However, he has a penchant for complicated covers by the legendary artists, like Frank Sinatra's jazzy "Jingle Bells" or Bruce Springsteen's rocking "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town." Just my humble opinion, but 40 amateur ukulele players can't really do these brilliant arrangements justice.
But who cares, all in good fun!
Gosh, it was cold sitting out on the coffee house patio for 2 hours. I even got there 15 minutes early, but the chairs under the heaters were long taken. The group has become so popular and it looked like people had been sitting there for hours. But it was nice seeing familiar and new faces.
More holiday fun this Sunday-- we have tickets to the Seattle Symphony Holiday Pops Concert. That should drum up some much needed Christmas spirit.
Have a good weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment