Doune Ukulele Group

 

Hi DUGs,

 

I'm sorry I missed last Wednesday. I felt very unwell after returning from the Falkirk Festival at the weekend. Later in the week, I tested positive for Covid, so I was right to give our meeting a miss. Things are picking up now, and I'm confident I'll be back with you all this week.

 

No new songs this week. I have a few belters bubbling under, and we picked up some good Ideas on Sunday, but I'd like to concentrate on improving some of our more recent new songs. I know we have talked about having some teaching sessions, and I am looking at getting these underway soon. But I feel that, with a little time spent, we can make good progress on some of our existing songs.

 

The songs I would particularly like to play around with are:

 

Shake it Off

Galway Girl

What Was I Made For?

Texas Hold Em

 

We will also play through last week's new songs:

 

The Young Ones

Valerie

 

In the second half, I would like us just to choose some from our songbook. 

Have a look through the list before the meeting and suggest one or two of your favourites.

 

 

A dozen of us attended the first Falkirk Ukulele Festival.

A long day began with members of six ukulele groups from across the Central Belt joining together in song. There is something very special about over 100 ukulele players singing and strumming together.

 

Throughout the day, the individual groups performed their sets on the main stage. It was interesting to see the variety of styles and levels of abilities on show. One thing all the groups certainly had in abundance was a love of performing. I think we picked up some good ideas for songs and performances. Doune Ukulele Group performed their set mid-afternoon. As always, I was pleased and proud of our performance. all the practice paid off.

 

Videos of the DUG performances can be viewed on our website. The video files are too large to attach to this email, but links to the videos can be found on our website:

 

 

There were also two open-mic sessions. David Bright, David McDonald and John did a great little set in the first one. In the second session, I performed a couple of songs wot I wrote!

Again, it was interesting to see how other players performed. Some of them really were outstanding... some of them were me! 

 

During the day, there was a selection of workshops. These offered teaching from complete beginner to more advanced playing.

I had a go at the Songwriting workshop. It was fascinating. One of the areas we looked at was avoiding accidental plagiarism. No problem for me there... nothing accidental about my plagiarism! Be warned though, that I may come up with some original compositions soon.

 

John Gallagher, Ken Russel and Sally Young took part in the 'Twinkle Those Chords' session. In the workshop, they took some well-known chords and learned how to play them across different places on the fretboard to layer up their performances with a little more twinkle and a lot more confidence!

I'm sure they will be showing off their new skills over the next few Wednesday evenings!

 

John, Ken and Sally were very impressed with the workshop tutor, Sarah Farren. Sarah is a highly experienced Ukulele Teacher, Artist, and
Community Leader based in Glasgow. She is also the leader of the Southside Strummers, probably the most impressive of all the groups who performed at the festival. She's a very talented player and teacher.

 

Sarah has her own YouTube platform, check it out:

 https://www.youtube.com/@ukulelesaz

 

Or look at her web page: https://www.ukulele-saz.com/learn-with-me/ 

 

I have spoken to Sarah, with a view to her coming over to Doune to run some sessions with us. She is away on holiday for a couple of weeks, but we will speak further when she gets back... watch this space.

 

 

If you enjoyed the Falkirk Festival, or if you missed out and fancy something similar, the Loch Lomond Ukulele Group have their annual event coming up in October. It has a slightly different format to the Falkirk Festival, but is very well organised and a great day out. 

Places are always great demand for this event, and tickets will be going on sale very soon. 

Let me know if you are interested.

 

 

 

DUG Song Sheets