This afternoon, I taught approximately 50 ukulele players how to swing “I Will Survive” on the uke. It was awesome. Everyone rocked. My work here is done.
What worthwhile thing did you do with your Sunday?
Photo: Angela, Me, Dan under the mirror ball at SUPA. Thanks, Lori!
If you had a uke, you might have had the pleasure of having the Nikkei Horizons Ukulele Band come to play for you and your ukulele club last weekend. If you had a uke, you might have learned that the old guy in their club is 90 and the youngest 11, and you might wonder how old your club’s old guy is. You might find yourself experiencing even a tiny fraction of the happiness you see on this guy’s (photo above) face, surely brought on by the joy and delight of being in a room full of people who also think you need a uke. Sure, you could spend your winter afternoons watching lousy 70s movies on cable, or you could wander over to some fluorescent lit hall filled with aloha and song.
It’s your choice. But don’t say I didn’t suggest that you get a uke, already.
A few more barely adequate pics here. I was messing with the lighting settings in my camera so the results are not that great.
I’m up in Sam Rosen’s place. Ben has sent me there, but when I tell Sam this, he doesn’t remember Ben. Finally, he says, “I remember a guy from Seattle, Uncle Ben? Do you mean him?” That’s the one! I say. “You should have just said Uncle Ben!” Sam teaches a 10 day uke making workshop up at his place in Holualoa. He had one proud student finishing up while we were there - he was just lowering the strings a little on his new tenor, a beautiful little instrument. I played almost every uke in Sam’s shop and while we were there, a big, shirtless local dude with lots of tattoos wandered in and out. I was strumming away in the corner and the local dude, brown as coffee, stops and says to me, “Sister, you can play the uke! You must be part Hawaiian!”
I probably don’t need to tell you that it’s lovely here.
And Ben, Sam says hi and to send business card for people visiting from Seattle who are looking for uke teachers.
I love this charming little tune not just because it features the ukulele. I heard it today on the radio, but you can hear it on Jaymay’s My Space page. It’s currently the first track in the list, Gray or Blue. I’d like to learn how to play it - it seems a simple enough tune but I don’t have Jaymay’s sweet clear voice.
“I can’t stop staring at your mouth without wondering how it tastes.”
That is S. E. X. Y. Sing this song to the object of your affections and see what happens.
Here’s a little video in which I do not entirely mangle this delightful 1936 tune. This is the fourth take. I’m posting it with mistakes, crazy bed head hair, and the dropped last couple of seconds because who do I think I am, Madonna? I have no stylist, video production crew, sound engineer, or, oh, yeah, shame. It’s a .wmv file, you’ll need Windows Media Player to watch it.
Sometime back I learned to play this song for a workshop on alternate chord use and playing by ear. I did not get it. A year or more later, when I sat down to noodle this thing out, it all came together.This isn’t exactly the way we learned it and I’m not playing it by ear, but I did use a lot of what I learned in that class while playing this tune.
If you need a little ear/eyewash after that, here’s Louis Prima and his crew swinging the tune the way it oughts to be done.
Hey, if you showed up at my house with your saxamaphone, we could record this together. That would rule.
Now you, go practice your uke. You know who you are.
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