Kids and the Beatles

Two of the boys in the ukulele club at Alvarado Middle School are continuing to amaze me with their natural ability. Yesterday, Karsten played "Gently Weeps" ala Jake from start to finish. He figured it out on his own. I am going to try to get a video of him playing it. Aaron also is working on "Yesterday". I am amazed at what these boys can do with the ukulele. At this point I can only guide them and share with them tips that I have learned. They do a lot by ear.

Another student, Andrew has so much drive and passion that he wants to tackle music that is challenging. He is a little impatient but has the drive to learn so I keep encouraging him.

I am having such a good time with the kids and they really want to be in the ukulele class I am teaching next year. However, my class will be for 6th graders and none of these students will be able to take the class.

Derick Sebastian visits AMS

Yesterday afternoon Derick Sebastian came by after school to meet with the ukulele club here at Alvarado Middle school. We had a small group but it worked out well. Derick was wonderful with the students and they seemed to enjoy listening to him play and learning from him some techniques in playing.

He showed them a picking pattern that the students caught on to pretty quickly. A few of the students played a little for him as well and he was helpful and encouraging.

Today Derick is at the Santa Cruz Ukulele Club and I will not be able to attend because we have Open House tonight. Derick will be at Mike DeSilva's on Saturday in Berkeley and the Northern California Ukulele Festival on Sunday at the Hayward Adult School. Check it out, he is talented young man with lots of Aloha.

Herb's lesson and workshop

Yesterday, in Berkeley I was privileged to take a private lesson with Herb Ohta Jr. He is an awesome teacher, patient with a good sense of humor. We worked on Pua Olena which is a beautiful song. I have something to work and and there is a lot of room to add, embelish, work with the song. The workshop was helpful in getting some perspective and ideas for doing just that.

Tomorrow Herb will be coming to the middle school I teach at for a workshop with the ukulele club at my school. The kids are getting jazzed about his visit. It should be a fun day for all.

Ukulele class next year?

The planning for next year has begun at school. The powers that be have tentatively scheduled me to teach on section of Ukulele as an elective for 6th graders next year. I am now looking into getting 30 ukuleles for the possible class and thinking about how to teach and manage the class. It would be fun to actually teach a class for students, everyday. I would probably keep the ukuleles in the classroom since we meet everyday.

AMS ukulele club

Three of the guys in the ukulele club have been working on the Canon in D. They worked out the picking, chords and arrangement for the 3 ukuleles. The video quality isn't great but the sound is true.




The club is going well with about 10 students coming each week. It seems that there are always new students interested in joining. I am sure that this next week will see a renewed interest as this video was played on our schools weekly "video news".

As for my personal playing it looks like the Royal Hawaiian Ukulele Band, which practices on Monday nights at the Templebar in Berkeley, is heading to the Ukulele Festival in Hawaii in July. I hope to get more info soon. Until then we will be at the Northern California Ukulele Festival in Hayward at the end of April.

Uke Club this week

The students are working hard. Two students have been practicing, actually three but one of them was not there yesterday. The boys worked hard to get it right.

AMS Ukulele club

Yesterday we had another small group, less than 10, but they were very interested in playing, learning and practicing. I told them that I was going to get a web page up for the club and we talked about some pages where you can get some lessons on-line. Ukulele Underground and Live 'Ukulele are two pretty good sites. I know there are more out there.

Three of the students stayed a little later than usual as they were working out Canon in D by Pachbell. They were working out chords, strumming and picking for each of them and then went to Garage Band on the computer to record their sound. They were having a great time. We are going to try to video tape them for the weekly AMS video news at school. Should be fun. I will figure out how to download their recording for this blog.