Voice Over Uke

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Anne Ku

Voice Over Uke (formerly named Hum & Strum) is a music (group) class focussing on your singing voice. Playing the ukulele while singing helps get your voice in tune, stay in tune, and in time (in sync). However, it’s not immediately obvious.

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3 Chord Thursday: Wild Life Day (animals)

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Anne Ku

Thursday 3rd March 2022 is Wild Life Day. We celebrate with songs about (wild) animals and bring a stuffed animal if you don’t have a real pet. Our one-hour song sessions are livestreamed but no longer publicly available after the livestream. Please subscribe to the Youtube Channel to get notification and the link to the video so you won’t miss it.

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3 Chord Thursday: George Harrison

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Anne Ku

On Thursday 24th February 2022, what would be the day before George Harrison’s 79th birthday, we share up to 10 songs he either wrote or performed (or made famous) in our weekly thematic song session.

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3 Chord Thursday: multi-instrumentalists

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Anne Ku

On Thursday 17th February 2022, after Valentine’s Day and a month before St Patrick’s Day, we celebrate songs with many different instruments. Can you say “multi-instrumentalists” without stopping to take a breath? Here’s the opportunity to accompany yourself with something other than a ukulele or in addition to your uke.

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Burns Night with bagpipe, ukulele, and piano

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Anne Ku

Robert Burns, the famous poet of Scotland, was born on 25th January — a date synonymous with Burns Night. I celebrate this day by sharing my compilation of two videos and two audio recordings made on Maui, where I heard the Isle of Maui Pipe & Drum Band on a warm tropical winter evening.

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The Gift of Music

Posted on January 19, 2022 by Anne Ku

I thought about the act of giving while recording “From Me to You” by the Beatles. Music enthusiast Paul (HI) had given me a list of Beatles songs that included the harmonica as a precursor to his harmonica workshop for 3 Chord Thursday. All I had to do was record the ones I could sing and play on the ukulele and/or piano.

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3 Chord Thursday: love songs to warm or break your heart

Posted on January 17, 2022 by Anne Ku

On Thursday 10th February 2022, we anticipate Valentine’s Day by sharing love songs that will warm or break your heart. DRESS CODE: pink and green to represent LOVE.

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3 Chord Thursday: ukulele all over the world

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Anne Ku

On Thursday 3rd February 2022, we celebrate World Ukulele Day which falls on 2/2/2022 (in fact, 2nd day of the 2nd month every year). We will share songs about the joy of playing the ukulele in any language or culture. Songs that are famously accompanied by the ukulele, songs about the ukulele, … songs with ukulele in the title are all possibilities.

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Ukulele Jeopardy Winners & Losers

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Anne Ku

At the last 3 Chord Thursday session in 2021, we played our third ukulele jeopardy game in Zoom. I invited a co-host to help me test the game beforehand and teach the ukulele jeopardy theme tune “Think!” in the beginning of the session while I set up. The winning team received a special prize — and hand-drawn group picture by the Houston-based artist Eve Myles.

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Kanikapila in Hawai’i (part 4)

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Anne Ku

There’s something different and special about jamming with other ladies (in contrast with an all male or a mixed gender group). It feels like going to an all-female luxury spa, such as the Korean body scrub spa in Seattle some five years ago. You can let your hair down.

On Maui, I participated in two wahine kanikapila. Wahine means female. At the one in Kahului, we play and sing through as many songs as possible, with hardly any pause or chit chat. Then we break for lunch when we are thoroughly exhausted and famished. More recently, I joined a group in Kihei. There was chit chat between the songs, probably because we were getting acquainted.

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