New strumming season

[Tom]

Delta Strummers weekly rehearsals resume this evening (Jan 6). A practice list of 13 songs has been published, including several new-to-us numbers, with more new numbers being rearranged. The larger list will eventually be whittled down to the final performance playlist for our Spring concerts. Lots of work by our Music Director and members of the Music Committee.

We're still in the MidWest, so I'm practicing with myself. A few of the songs I hadn't heard before; YouTube to the rescue, although one has to be conscious of derivative versions. Talked with our MD yesterday, and he's anticipating a few challenges with a couple of them.

The Delta Strummers – A group of ukulele players

 

[Tom]

Chris took the new web site header shot between our 2 Christmas concerts. That was fun (not) getting 55 people eager for food to stand/sit/kneel still long enough to change camera settings.

A few issues with the pic:

- Some parallax is evident, although I don't understand why.
- My hot shoe external flash decided to not work; Had to rely on bright overhead room lights and built-in camera flash. Result is uneven lighting.
- I hopped into the pic after dealing with the flash issue; Couldn't get tucked in behind the guy on my right shoulder due to a heavy object and a sofa behind him. So I "stick out" on the right.

 

[Tom]

Chris again took concert videos that have been trimmed/clipped and uploaded to YouTube. I had hoped to use a new setup to help overcome the 'flat floor' room setup:

- Mount camera on a 10-foot light stand instead of 6-foot tripod.
- Use remote controlled gimbal for pan & tilt.
- Use new camera allowing wifi to control zoom and monitor video on cell phone.

A couple of defective/wrong purchases meant we had to resort to the old tripod setup. I"ll hopefully get it resolved before our Spring concerts.

 

[UTTransplant]

Yesterday I attended my first rehearsal with the Greater Quartzsite Ukulele Orchestra (try saying that three times quickly). About 20 players, most of the music was simple enough that I could sight read, though there was one with a quick four chord progression that is quite challenging on my baritone! It was great fun though. I have to keep practicing; 24 songs to learn before our concert on 29 January! And it made me feel very young; the vast majority of music was from the 40s, 50s, and early 60s.

 

[Tom]

... most of the music was simple enough that I could sight read,...

Just curious, were you using lead sheets of chords and lyrics, or music scores?

 

[UTTransplant]

Just curious, were you using lead sheets of chords and lyrics, or music scores?

Lyrics are typed, but chord notations are mostly hand written on top of the lyric. A few have typed chords. On the side or bottom of the page there is a chord fingering note for “normal” ukuleles, but since I am playing a baritone, I just keep a chord sheet handy. So far I only had to learn 3 chords on the fly LOL! This is NOT a professional group, but it is fun. Only one other person in the group uses a tablet, and the director wasn’t happy with that at all. I guess she’s going to have to get used to it, because I have put all the music into MobileSheets and use my foot-tap page turner. When I was working the phrase “Pam doesn’t do paper” was widely known; computers exist for a reason folks.

 

[Tom]

Lyrics are typed, but chord notations are mostly hand written on top of the lyric. A few have typed chords.

Handwritten or typed, either is fine. The rest is muscle memory.

Only one other person in the group uses a tablet, and the director wasn’t happy with that at all. I guess she’s going to have to get used to it,...

Approx half of our 60 or so members in the Delta Strummers use tablets, thanks largely to some friendly badgering by one of our members who also volunteers to run "classes" for folks who are new to ipad. We attempted to get folks converted to tablets for a number of years but didn't really make any progress until this lady's recent efforts.

I use a pair of Android tablets at home, in the RV, and sometimes during performances, but use paper during practice. I find it easier to hand-write markups on paper than editing on-screen real time.

A member of the Band who usually sits next to me uses iPad exclusively, but is always online to our web site that hosts our song books. I've asked him repeatedly "what if the web site or wifi at the venue goes down?" He shrugs his shoulders and says "I'm screwed". Also, our 'official' lead sheets don't always get updated with last-minute markups from rehearsals and, as a result, I occasionally see him playing something different from the rest of the Band.

 

[Tom]

A practice list of 13 songs has been published, including several new-to-us numbers, with more new numbers being rearranged.

Last evening I published an updated/expanded practice list of 21 songs and lead sheets to the Band, including new songs, updates, and songs from our portfolio. Our MD will have the Band beat on these for a few practices before homing in on a playlist for our Spring concerts.

We're still in the MidWest, so I'm practicing with myself.

I'm having to be disciplined. When we're away (e.g. here in Ohio and summertime in Wyoming), I want to play around on guitar and, when we get home and I return to Band practice, I realize how much uke-related muscle memory I've lost That would be less of an issue if I normally played baritone uke.