Our next virtual meeting is fast approaching on Thursday, May 23, 7:00-8:30pm US Central Daylight Time! We’re looking forward to spending time with all our friends from near and far!
The live event is scheduled, and it is the very first item at the top of the Austin Ukulele Society’s YouTube channel page. Simply click the YouTube Live Event to join when we go live on the 23rd at 7:00pm (CDT, GMT -05:00). The PowerPoint presentations (with our warm up and closing songs, as well as the featured song we’ll learn) will be viewable alongside Bob, during the YouTube event.
Lyda will take us through the slides while Bob explains and teaches his arrangement of our featured song. If you are logged into YouTube/Google, please say hello and share any questions/comments with Jen, moderating on behalf of the Austin Ukulele Society – Jen can get inquiries about the arrangement to Bob for live response. 🙂 If you have a chance to practice the song in advance, and you have questions, feel free to email them to us.
Pro Tips:
- The event is accessible without logging in and you don’t need a YouTube/Google account to watch. But to comment, you’ll need to log into YouTube with a Gmail account ID.
- When you join the YouTube live stream, if the video or sound quality is not at its best, roll your mouse over the video to find the ‘gear’ icon. Click it and select the ‘Quality’ option; 480p or higher (we recommend 720p) should improve video and sound quality for you, if you have the internet bandwidth to make the change. 🙂
Our virtual meetings give us the opportunity to take a deep dive into learning a song, with a detailed tutorial presented by Bob, with live Q&A fielded by Jen and Lyda. At our quarterly virtual meetings, we learn a song that is different from the current month’s in-person meeting’s featured song; instead, we revisit favorites from past AUS live meetings.
On May 23, we’ll go back to a song that the AUS learned at an in-person meeting way back in 2012(!): the English version of Pablo Beltrán Ruiz’s timeless classic “Sway.” This song was written in 1953 and is a pop standard famously covered by many artists over the years, including Dean Martin in 1954 and Michael Bublé in 2003. We know you’ll love taking a deep dive into this tune with us.
Download the song sheet for “Sway” to practice. In it you’ll find:
- Pages 1 and 2 have the lyrics and chords
- Page 3 has a description of the main strum patterns, with a simplified alternative
- Page 3 also has tab that can be played during the Intro
- Pages 4 and 5 have tab that can be played during the Instrumental break, both as an accompaniment and as a solo chord melody
Get comfortable with Bob’s arrangement of “Sway” by playing along with Dean Martinand Michael Bublé. Bob’s arrangement is in the same key (Dm) as these two recordings.
This timeless classic will have something for players of all skill levels to learn, so please join us regardless of where you’re at as a ukulele player. During the livestream, Bob will perform “Sway” to demonstrate the arrangement, and then take us through helpful exercises to get us comfortable with the chords and chord progressions. We’ll work on a chord melody, as well as go over two special strums: the fan strum and the chuck, both of which add to the song’s Latin rhythm and feel. As always, Bob will be sure to share both the simple and more advanced options for playing this song, so players of all levels can learn and enjoy our meeting and his tutorial.
We always play Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” and Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” as our opening and closing songs, so if you’re new to the group and want to get familiar with them, you can play along using the presentations and our videos, available on our “Music Library” page. We’ll also display the presentations for these two songs during the live broadcast, for your convenience. 🙂
Newcomers and beginners are ALWAYS welcome, and we certainly look forward to having friends from far and wide join in with our livestream! Even if you’re a complete novice, we encourage you to join in. There are always easier ways to play the songs, even if you can play only a few of the chords. Or just sing along!
Stay tuned and keep strumming!! We look forward to having you join us at our virtual meeting on Thursday, May 23, at 7:00pm US Central Daylight Time!
Contact Us if you have any questions, need more information, or would like to be added to our mailing list.
