The Ukulele Underground Forum has Threads for contests. Among these contests is an ongoing, weekly, contest (or challenge for some of the Season's ukulele players are in it for the fun and personal challenge mostly) called The Seasons of the Ukulele. Every week is another Theme. Themes are determined by the ever changing hosts who have signed up for the task. Hosts (who are also participants in previous seasons) also determine most of the rules for their season (week). I find it to be like a scavenger hunt for the perfect song(s) once the theme is announced. Some songs I already know will work and then there are seasons that it's a hunt for a new song to fit the bill. I have found it a challenge and improvement to my musical skills to find a song(s), practice song(s), and video record a performance(s) worthy of being in a contest in the week allotted. Nothing like jumping in with both feet, over your head, to find out if you can swim or play ukulele. A wide variety of ukulele players make up the regular challengers so don't be afraid to join in the fun. Be fore warned though. If you take the plunge you could develop the Seasonal Anticipation Syndrome. There is a thread for that as well in the Seasons forums. Come join us for the challenge and for the friendships you'll develop with ukulele players around the world.

Ukulele: Bluegrass and Country.

Living in the Heartland of the United States a lot of local festivals and jam sessions are country and bluegrass oriented. I am feeling that it would be a benefit for ukulele players here to be able to jam with the fiddle and banjo players in their own language (songs). Time to work on some bluegrass songs. Most don't think of a ukulele as a bluegrass or country instrument so I may get some funny looks but hope to prove that the ukulele and banjolele are viable instruments in these genres. After all, clawhammer on a banjolele does have an old time sound and should compliment a smoking fiddle player's lead.

My second thoughts about The Daily Ukulele songbooks.

I was going through the Blue and Yellow The Daily Ukulele songbooks, page by page, to find the songs with 2, 3, 4, and 5 chords. It is shown right under the title of the song which chords are used for each song. I was then witting the number of chords used, in the song, in the index between the title and page number of that song. I was doing this for quick reference to find simple songs right from the index. In doing this I realized that there were many more songs I am familiar with than when I did a scan of the indexes when I first got the books. I wish I'd had these books much earlier for there are quite a few songs I had hunted for on the internet or worked out by listening to the songs over and over to make my YouTube videos for the Ukulele Underground's Seasons of the Ukulele contest this year. Live and learn.

2 New Books. The Daily Ukulele songbooks.

I just ordered these books. It seems that ukulele clubs and ukulele Meet Ups like these two books so to be on the same page I thought I'd put these in the music bug out bag. Now I'll be ready when the music hits the fan.

Testing

Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three. Is this thing on?