song circle in uke class

Uncle Rod Higuchi

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I have been inviting STRUM to come and join my uke class for the
last lesson (5 0f 5, 5th week) to give my students the experience
of participating in a real ukulele song circle.

one of my objectives in my 5-week Basics I class/course is to prepare
students to confidently participate in any song circles they may want
to attend. So I have been taking them through the Practice sheets of
the Ukulele Boot Camp (see link below) and going through a few
songs in each new key week by week.

When STRUM shows up, we set up Franken-screen (vertically-oriented
vs the regular horizontal portable screens) so we can project songs
from our songbook for everyone to be on the same page, so to speak.

we do slow down the tempo a bit to encourage the newbies, but we
don't hold back on song selection. We do Jumbalaya (2 chords) and
others with many, many more chords :)

BTW another objective is to have them learn sections A and B and the
1st and 2nd endings to Crazy G... which we will also do tonight :)
I want them to have a chord melody in their back pocket, so to speak,
so they have something to play for anyone who asks them, "Hey,
you play the uke. Can you play something for me?"

just thought you'd like to know :)

keep uke'in',
 
That’s a fun teaching and learning method. I’d been noodling around for nearly a year before I started attending my twice-monthly jam, and there’s no substitute for being with a friendly group of people and learning (or trying to learn) songs on the fly. Great idea!
 
the class did very well and had a great time (see STRUM's facebook page for picture).

we went through each of the 5 practice sheets of the Ukulele Boot Camp... backward,
that is beginning with the key of D, then A, G, F, and finally C. I increased the tempo
slightly with each more familiar key, and they all did very well... esp compared with
the first run on week 1, 5 weeks ago!

then we hit the song circle, slowly at first with Diana, then Jumbalaya (2 chords :) ),
then we upped the tempo and went with songs that had 5 to 12 different chords. Of
course, by now the students had been exposed to many of those chords via the Practice
Sheets. There were only up to 5 absolutely new chords for them to 'meet-n-greet' :)

They all received a complimentary Holiday Songbook (2017 :)) and a STRUM button.

Next Basics I (5-week) course begins Thurs, Oct 11th.

keep uke'in',
 
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