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2nd Sunday NVUS Group Virtual Lessons (Jun 2020)

2nd Sunday NVUS Group Virtual Lessons (Jun 2020)

When

06/14/2020    
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Bookings

Bookings closed

Where

Virtual Online
4520 Daly Dr, Chantilly, VA, 20151

Event Type

PSA: Until we have a clear indication of conducting our regularly scheduled meetings at Ono Brewing Co., we will continue to have our meetings virtually. NVUS Primer’s and Lesson’s for Society members will be conducted via Zoom. Jams will be open to the public and streamed Live via YouTube. NVUS Open Mic will be conducted using a combination of technologies and streamed on Facebook Live.

ONLINE: Zoom ID will be posted here as a comment. This Zoom meeting is for Society members and will cover beginner to intermediate ‘ukulele skills.

This meeting may challenge some beginners, and does require some practice on everyone’s part.  But, have no fear!  We believe we are successful in not leaving any member behind.  And, even for the more advanced members always have something to learn.  Maybe even get you to teach what you know to the beginner/beginner-intermediate/intermediates of our club members.  In the end, we are a Society of Ukulele aficionados and need to help each other improve to play together as a group, playing by yourself is easy.

Logistics

  1. Bring a comfortable chair. Ideally, one with a drink holder since beer glasses from the tasting room is allowed.
  2. Bring your music stand
  3. Bring your music books or electronic devices — recommend you also acquire and use a blue-tooth enabled page turner. Moses uses a ‘Cicada’ device, especially for the 2-pager lead sheets (song sheets).

Basic Rules @ Ono Brewing Company Brewhouse Venue

  • Cleanliness: Since we can bring food into the Brewhouse from OddBBQ and when prior approved and explicitly announced by NVUS leadership, police after yourselves and other members if they forget. They do work there when we’re not using their brewhouse
  • Accountability: Remember to pay and close your tasting beer tab. Also, be accountable for your actions.
  • Respect: Careful to not lean or tip over any boxes — beer brewing materials are relatively expensive. Ono Brewing is one of our sponsors, but their materials is for their business and they are gracious enough to allow us to use it for our Society meetings.
  • Enjoy: Let’s enjoy ourselves but not be rowdy or overly loud. While the brewhouse is pretty insulated from the tasting room for transient sounds. If loud enough, sound will carry — especially low tones (e.g. Bass or UBass)

Basic agenda we follow is below with occasional excursions that might be appropriate to the songs and how we will play them in our club. Please, don’t forget the signature songs, too — Sweet Wahine, Kaulana Kawaihae, and Beautiful Hawaii.

General Agenda

  1. Review of scales and chorded scales in Key of C and F. Note: Baritones can use the same lesson package in F, as your key of C. The Key of C for standard ukes is actually your key of G.
  2. Discuss Circle of 5ths. Note: With author’s permission, we posted a paper in our file store that was written by a former member of the KookieUkies who now has his own group but still associated to KookieUkies. This paper has a good technical description of how the Circle of 5ths works.
  3. More on Rhythms (Strums), Blues, or What-Nots. Note: download our Cheat Sheets from the “Lesson Pamphlets, Booklets, Sheets” folder and  and bring it with you.

Practice makes perfect! So, practice, practice, practice.
Here are some practice suggestions, even if for 10 min a day — ideally on each.

  • Practice Item #1: 1-2 min for scales going up the scale of C, then in reverse. Keep tempo.  If you can go faster without making any mistakes, then speed up.  If you have mistakes, slow down.  If you think you have the C scale down, then try F and G scales — remember they are only 1 note different from the C scale.
    Objective: correct notes in a key of a song, so you could play melody lines, riffs, or even solo breaks — in the right key
  • Practice Item #1 (for intermediate and higher): We’ve been practicing primarily using your thumb — try using different fingers (suggest trying pointer/index and middle only). An alternative is to start with thumb, then pick the next note using index finger, then alternate between them.  Then try playing the scales in thirds (see Moses, David, or Sandy).
    Objective: same as above but mo’ bettah!
  • Practice Item #2: Do simple chord pattern strum in C (C, F, G7), F (F, Bb, C7), or G (G, C, D7) for 1-2 min straight. Focus on 1 strum per count in 4/4 (4 beat bar/measure) with 4 beats per chord.
    Objective: able to easily transition between the common chord sets in the common keys used in ukulele groups or jams, eventually in any key.
  • Practice Item #2 (for intermediate and higher): Try the same thing as the regular Practice Item #2 with different progressions in 2 or 3 keys: Do Wop: I-vi-IV-V, Do Wop with 7th: I-vi-IV-V7, Wagon-Wheel: I-V-vi-IV — some songs we have in our jam book and play often follow these progressions — albeit not always in the key of C.  Know them for keys C, F, G, and perhaps A and D, too.
    Objective: play common progressions without lead sheets for any given key
  • Practice Item #3: 1-2 min 4-finger chromatic scale and arpeggiated closed chord exercise (see Moses Kamai’s finger practice cheat sheet in the files section – “Lesson Pamphlets, Booklets, Sheets“)
    Objective: clean, quality tones for each note held on the fret board for any chord shape — clean arpeggios = clean strummed chords
  • Practice Item #4: don’t forget the arpeggio’s that we started before Christmas. Practice the [41]-4-2-4-3-4 arpeggio that goes with Silent Night — it’s 3/4 time. If you get used to that arpeggio and want to try, 4-2-3-2-1-2-3-2 arpeggio, this is in 4/4 time.
    Objective: easily alternate between strumming patterns rhythmically to picking patterns over a chord progression

Bookings

RSVPs are closed for this event.

3 Comments

  1. Want to thank all those who attended either the Society’s Primer or Group Lesson. Those who did know we’re putting a Society video featuring our Ensemble for the Tribute to 50th Anniversary Ukulele Festival Hawaii. Some of you might not know that your Ensemble has performed in Hawaii twice. So any member who submits a video will get included. Lead sheet and MP3 are in the Audio Catalog and Jams folder. Upload your video latest by Friday evening. That gives us time to review and help you put your best foot forward.

    Upload to https://www.nova-uke.org/file-uploads/

  2. Sorry those who missed participating in today’s Primer and Lesson’s session. Not sure why GoDaddy went down at an inopportune time. In discussions with them now. If you want you can contact me and I can try to go over it.

    Bottom line – we’re invited to submit a group video. We need your video by this Friday night (Thu is better, and grudgingly we’ll accept them on Saturday morning). We can’t take them later as it eats into editing time David and I have to do to submit on time for the group.

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