Next jam: April 25th and May 30th at General Panet High School

The next PUC jam will be at General Panet High School from 7-9pm. Please feel free to come a bit early to tune-up & settle in. We will be playing from the PUC Songbook, there will be 6 copies for sharing at the jam. You can view the songbooks here.

We’re a friendly bunch & if you’re out of tune & don’t have a tuner, we are more than happy to share. You could also check out the online tuners on the Getting Started page.

I’m crazy busy with school right now, so I don’t have a lot of time for updating the website or adding songs. But I do have General Panet room 121 booked for the 2nd Tuesday & last Thursday each month until the end of May.

Hope to see you there!

Upcoming Jam September 27th 7-9pm

We will be meeting at General Panet HighSchool in the General Purpose Room. I’ve added Maggie May to our song list in celebration of back to school.  I’ll also switch up the easy songs to: I’ll Fly Away (requested song), Jackson, & Froggy Went a Courtin (from the June song list).  As usual if you have any suggestions please email me or bring copies of the song to share. We will try to quickly cover any club business at the beginning of the meeting & then warm up with a few easy songs. We will then move on to the more challenging ones.  If you have been working on a song (or skill) that is not on the list, we`d love to have you play it for us.

PUC songbook – all songs we have played can be found here.  Feel free to print or update your current copies with pages numbers.  There will be 6 songbooks at the the jam for sharing so don’t worry if you can’t print your own copy.  New songs will be added to the back of the books with page numbers, so don’t fret if your favorite song is not in there.

Order of play:

I’ll Fly Away

Froggy Went a Courtin’

Jackson

Maggie May

Happy by NeverShoutNever

Little Red Uke (an adaptation of the Beach Boy song Little Deuce Coupe)

When I’m Cleaning Windows by George Formby

Something by the Beatles

CCR’s Proud Mary

Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl

Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues

Boney M – Rivers of Babylon

Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville

Next Jam August 23rd, 6:30 – 9.

The next jam will be August 23rd at the gazebo in Centennial Park starting at 6:30. I’ve bumped the time up because it gets dark earlier, but if you can’t come until 7, don’t worry, please still come. Suggested donation $1.

We will be playing the same set of songs as in July. I decided to make a few changes as we felt it was a bit heavy on the Johnny Cash. I love Johnny, but I also want to include music to suit the taste of all members. So, we will warm up with:

Clementine, Drunken Sailor & Good Old Hockey Game (all from June).

I’ll add 3 4 new songs:

Happy by NeverShoutNever

Little Red Uke (an adaptation of the Beach Boy song Little Deuce Coupe)
When I’m Cleaning Windows by George Formby  (it seems the link didn’t work before, but it shoud now)
Something by the Beatles

We will still play the following from July’s playlist:

CCR’s Proud Mary

Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl

Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues

Boney M – Rivers of Babylon

Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville

If there is something else you would like to play please suggest it. Or if you would like, you can play it for us.

Loose format of the jam will be:
— quickly discuss any club business
— warm up with some easy 2-3 chord songs
— play the more challenging but not difficult songs
— break for chit chat
— open mike if anyone is interested in sharing a song or skill with us
— play any songs we missed

Next jam, July 26, 2012 7-9pm

The next Petawawa Ukulele Circle jam will be Thursday July 26th from 7-9pm. Again, we will be at the Gazebo in Centennial Park taking advantage of the beautiful summer weather.

At the last jam we decided to pick a few songs to learn for July’s jam.

Boney M – Rivers of Babylon
Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl
CCR’s Proud Mary
Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire
and Folsom Prison Blues
Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville
Beach Boys Surfin U.S.A.

We can warm up with a few of the easy songs from June:
Clementine
Drunken Sailor
You are my Sunshine
I Walk the Line
The Good Old Hockey Game

Want to suggest a song? Make a comment or email me at mcoreen@yahoo.com

First PetUke Jam Thursday, June 28th. 7-9pm

Posters are up & I’m pleased with the amount of interest so far. I’m excited to have finally booked a location for our first jam. We are going to take advantage of the beautiful summer weather & meet at the bandstand at Centennial Park (B on the map). There is a large parking lot off Park drive, the bandstand is down the path to the right, past the beach & play structures. Or you could park near town hall on Victoria Street and take the stairs down behind the fire station. The bandstand has a roof so if there is a light rain we will have some protection. Bring a chair and if you happen to have a music stand bring that along too. Please print off the songs I’ve linked to below. I will bring along extra copies. I will try to get a hold of some music stands and work on a contingency plan in case of heavy rain or thunderstorms.

Since many of us are beginners I wanted to get the song list up for our first jam. I’ve picked some that I can already play plus some that I think I can learn before the first jam since I will probably end up leading the first jam. It would be great to take turns leading songs though! If anyone has more song suggestions please feel free to email them to me & I can add them.

June Song List

Don’t worry if you can’t play the songs yet or if you don’t have a ukulele. You can still come out, sing & learn more about ukuleles.

I plan to run the first jam loosely based on what BUG in Ottawa does:

• club business (announcements, introductions, etc)
• play some songs
• break (chat, practice, etc)
• open mike time (if anyone has been working on a piece or technique, this is the time to show off what you’ve been working on)
• play a few more songs

I thought we could take some time to review chords at the beginning of each song if we need to for the newbies. I’ve tried to put the songs somewhat in order from easier to more difficult. If you are not familiar with any of the songs you should be able to find them on youTube. I did try to pick ones I thought most people would know. The songs came from BUG (on the song & song book pages) or Dr Uke plus one or two taken from Ukulele Boogaloo.

Friends or family teasing you about the ukulele? Show them the video below – most people think of Tiny Tim when they think ukulele, but Jake Shimabukuro rocks!

Petawawa Ukulele Circle closer to reality!

Posters for the Petawawa Ukulele Circle are starting to go up. I stopped in at the Petawawa Library, the Parks & Recreation Office, & Moncions today. I planned on going to base as well but traffic was already bad at 2:45! I’m trying to get the word out as much as possible. I plan to drive into Pembroke on the weekend to drop a sign off at the music store & the malls.

I’ve also been in touch with Sue Rogers from the Bytown Ukulele Group (BUG)in Ottawa. She was able to offer some great insight into how to get the club going. BUG has grown from 1-4 regulars to the current about 80.

We already have some interest in the group & I will be announcing the first meeting soon. I just need to work out a few more details. My plan is for monthly meetings on a regular night plus maybe a few public jams spread over the year to get the word out.

Let’s start a Ukulele Club in Petawawa

Last week, with visions of a good old-fashioned family sing-a-long around the campfire in my head, I scurried out to the music store & bought a ukulele. After figuring out how to tune it & looking up a few chords online I was able to play a couple simple songs. Not well, but still I was making music! The only problem now with making my vision a reality is 1. My family doesn’t have campfires very often & 2. We don’t have sing-a-longs. So what’s a fledgling musician to do? Why not start a ukelele group right here in Petawawa? We can meet up monthly to play, sing, learn, chat & have fun. Ukers of all ages and abilities will be welcomed. More experienced ukers can share tips with less experienced ones. Even people considering taking up the instrument would be welcome. My plan is to try to recruit some potential members & sort out the details after.  Why not give the Petawawa UkuleleCircle  a try?