Right

I’ve updated with two videos, one with the strumming pattern, and one with the sing-along for the Ooo Ooo OOOs.

You can find them under either ‘Scores and Tabs’ or ‘Practice Videos’.

I’ve added the beginners group recordings. I must say, listening to the playing – “beginners group” is doing the group a bit of an understatement.

We now have added:

• Tennessee Waltz (recording 4)
• Tainted Love
• Blame it On me (recording 2)

• Sweet Caroline
• Somewhere over the Rainbow
• Fairy Tale of New York
• I’m in the Mood for Ska

If you head to the practice videos page, you can now see It Must Be Love and I’m in the Mood for Ska.

The set-list we were looking at for at least the june concert is <drum roll>:

• Purple Haze
• Harvest Moon
• Blame it on Me
• Everlong
• Take On Me
• Galway Girl
• Since You’ve been Gone
• Man of Constant Sorrow

I’ve put the summary score for “Blame it on Me” in the Scores and Tabs page. We now have both scores up there. The summary score hasn’t had any changes in notation, so I suggest you speak to someone in the group and see what annotations they’ve made.

Here’s the strumming pattern. It starts with just your thumb on the G string.

Well, it’s November 2015 and that means a start to the half-term after three (yes, three) weeks off. We have two new faces (welcome Philippa and Jackie) and two (potentially three or four) who are moving up to the senior group.

This is great news, and whilst their enthusiastic participation will be missed, it’s good that the beginners group is serving its purposes, which are:

• boot-strap people up to the next group
• give those that want to not go up, somewhere nice to come for a play and a sing

So, I’m enjoying teaching this term, and we have started on Cecelia by Simon and Garfunkel. It’s going to be epic, and we’re going to mess with it a bit and keep it raucous.

I’m particularly inspired by this cover below by Local Natives:

Well, we made it to the end of the summer concert, with one or two informal concerts, a formal one, and an excellent session at the York Ukulele festival. This was an excellent event, lots of GREAT groups with a huge mix of styles, hosted in a pub. What’s more, Red Cow had engaged an excellent set of ents managers and the sound quality was great. It’s difficult to sing when you don’t have good feedback.

we are lined up for a great birthday concert for one of our members in October, and we are lined up for the Harrogate Club in November.

The beginners group has gone incredibly well, with only a couple of drop-outs. We’ve gone from a gentle start with Tennessee Waltz, to getting deeply into playing “Five Years Time” by Noah and the Whale. It’s a great sone – sounds simple but is actually very layered. It seems to have only three chords, but the strumming pattern is complex enough to make it a challenge.

We’ve had one social and there are more to follow.

Finally, Music Centre is moving from Harrogate High (which is being rebuilt) to St Aidan’s. It’s going be a interesting week or two whilst we find our feet in the new venue.