Los Angeles Music Center Ukulele Xmas Orchestra 2014

KohanMike

Los Angeles, Beverly Grove West
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Tonight I attended the 2014 Los Angeles Music Center Ukulele Xmas Orchestra. It's a gathering of attendees of previous Active Arts Summer Ukule-Alongs, which amounted to about 300 people. They provided a set of about 10 songs, well known Christmas music and some not so well known. It was a very ambitious list and we ended up playing about 6-7.

I think they tried too hard to fill the program, the vast majority of us couldn't keep up with the speed they were going, especially the songs few of us knew. I actually mute strummed through the last three not knowing the words or melody. They didn't even sing with us to keep us on track, they just left us on our own, which to me was a mistake.

Overall I enjoyed an 2 1/2 hour evening playing ukulele, and seeing a number of people from groups with which I play/played. I brought my black mandolele.
 
Sorry you didn't have a great experience, but how wonderful that you saw so many people. 300 ukulele players is incredible!!! Hopefully, with some constructive feedback from folks like you, they will get all that fixed before the next one.
 
This was our 2nd year there. I knew most of the songs well enough to sing and play. They gave us different things we could do to play and we enjoyed that. One of the songs I'd heard before but not well enough to really know it. It was the jazzy Mr. Heat Miser, Mister Snow Miser. Big Bad Vodoo Daddy does a great job on YouTube with it. The one song I kept losing my place in was the Baby It's cold outside -- I kept singing the boys part and the girls part and you can't easily play and sing both parts. At least I got confused. It helped that this year we sat in a front row with friends. I could see fingers and and they have a wonderful bass player keeping us at tempo. Last year it was hard for hubby and I to keep up but this year it was lots easier. You should have all been there to hear the 300+ folks strumming and picking ukuleles with different parts playing and voice harmonizing. Mike, it'll be more fun for you next year as you'll know what to expect. I always to try to run through the chord progression practice sheets they email a few times so that I have an idea of the chords used for the song sheets they hand out at check-in time.
 
I've gone to the summer Ukule-Along for two years now and enjoyed the sessions.

However, I don't understand why they hold the Christmas Orchestra at 6:30 on a Friday evening instead of a Saturday midday/afternoon when it would be much more convenient for many. A lot of people work in outlying areas, and with traffic what it is at that time of day, just can't make it to downtown in time.
 
However, I don't understand why they hold the Christmas Orchestra at 6:30 on a Friday evening instead of a Saturday midday/afternoon when it would be much more convenient for many. A lot of people work in outlying areas, and with traffic what it is at that time of day, just can't make it to downtown in time.

This is the main reason I haven't considered going - the drive from the westside could easily take two hours plus on a Friday night. Traffic-wise I suppose there really *isn't* a good time to make that drive any more, but I would think a Saturday afternoon would be better for everybody coming from...just about anywhere except a downtown office building.
 
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