In a nice variation on the ‘playing a different tune on the ukulele every day for the whole year’, Steve Phillips has decided to use it to raise awareness & collect donations for SolarAid. This charity sends low-cost solar lights to families without electricity in remote areas of Africa (such as regions of Malawi, Uganda & Zambia), so that they can use free renewable energy, instead of relying on dangerous & inefficient home-made kerosene lamps, which are expensive to run.
Steve will be recording & posting a new song daily throughout 2018 & I’m sure will appreciate some ideas for sun & light-related numbers! He’s already done Bring Me Sunshine & Mr Blue Sky.
A donation of around £4 can get a lamp to a family. And donors leaving their email address will get the chance to have all 365 uke arrangements at the end of the year.
Merry Christmas everybody (other winter celebrations available)! I was pleased to spot a couple of the excellent long-haired, bearded, bare-foot Australian musician, Tim Minchin’s numbers in this year’s Ukulele Wednesdays Xmas Songbook. Why not hop over to page 37 to enjoy this jolly little number Woody Allen Jesus? And while you’re there, read about donating old ukes, volunteering to entertain for Crisis or even giving some goods or money to a homeless charity or foodbank. Thanks.
Please note the following arrangements for our club nights around Christmas:
Tue 12 Dec & Tue 19 Dec – We’re at the Lewes Club, as usual. We’ll be sticking with playing our regular numbers but I’ve copied Mele Kalikimaka to the 2017 Xmas Songs folder in Box, as we usually play that as our traditional Hawaiian festive number during December.
Tue 26 Dec Boxing Day – XMAS BREAK.
We return to the Lewis Club on Tue 2 Jan 2018. New members welcome.
Tamás Gáll has just developed a new chord training site called It’s Chordtime, which allows you to change chords to a regular metronome tempo and help become a smoother player.Read the rest of this entry »
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Shipping Forecast – the world’s longest continuous weather forecast. Warning of storms in thirty-one sea areas around the British Isles in a specific & concise format, it was originally sent by telegraph & then transferred to radio. The BBC have been broadcasting it four times a day since 1924, with a short interruption during WWII. Read the rest of this entry »
In this week’s PLUC session we were all very shocked and saddened to learn the news that Kitty Lux of the Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain had died. Co-founder and Director of the UOGB, she was a major force behind the Orchestra.
She had been ill for a while and thus unable to perform on stage with them for the last few years. Here’s Kitty’s rendition of the Lou Reed number Satellite of Love:
