Report from the autumn ukulele meetup

I have had an extremely busy three weeks packed with ukulele events. After two course weekends — one Course I and one Course II — the ukulele meetup followed on 11 September 2021. When I started organising the courses and meetup in the summer, I hoped we would just manage to fit them in before the fourth wave of the pandemic, and that is how it turned out. So here is a short report from Saturday's meetup.

In the morning I was at a playground in Budapest's District XVI with my children, and while they ran around and climbed, I warmed up for the afternoon by playing a few songs. I have become used to the fact that during these quiet playgroundstrumming sessions, a few small children gather around me. Most of them have never seen a ukulele before, and naturally its sound catches their attention as well . You can never start nurturing the next generation too early — although in this setting that usually means nothing more than playing one or two folk songs or children's songs. This time I strummed Házasodik a tücsök and sang it with my little daughter, entertaining the small children who stared wide-eyed from the sandbox.

The afternoon arrived quickly, and by around 3:15 p.m. Kálmán and I were already carrying equipment into the venue, the Single Parent Centre. Many thanks to the Single Parent Centre for providing such an excellent venue. I had brought quite a few ukuleles, and the music stands and all the other bits and pieces made for a considerable amount of carrying, so special thanks to Kálmán for helping me. Naturally, I immediately told him that he could no longer avoid it: he was going to appear in the blog post . Inside, people gradually began to gather, and thanks to the dedicated work of several more helping hands, the music stands were already unfolded and waiting for the other participants. I do not want to bore you with the complications of music stands, but anyone who has never attended one of the courses or meetups may not know how carefully these stands have to be unfolded; otherwise the metal structure bends or twists and is very difficult to restore to normal. So thank youto Ricsi, Laci and Kálmán for doing the lion's share of patiently setting up and packing away the music stands.

In any case, four o'clock was approaching and the room was slowly filling up, although there were still fewer people than the number of registrations. So for the first 10–15 minutes I gave a short ukulele presentation and happily handed out instruments from my collection to anyone who wanted to try or strum one. To my great delight, three participants came who did not yet own a ukulele, so I lent each of them an instrument for the duration of the meetup. Several more enthusiastic young participants arrived during the presentation, and once they joined us, we all started playing.

We began with the folk song Házasodik a tücsök and practised accenting beats 2 and 4. Then, in a sudden change of direction, Hotel California followed. I think we played Love Me Tender after that, and from that point the events blur together a little — I no longer know which song came after which. I was simply enjoying how well each accompaniment came together, and every one of them sounded great without exception: the themes from Chariots of Fire and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Cielito Lindo, Sway, a little blues in A, then Bella Ciao — that one happened spontaneously — Hey Jude near the end, and Can't Help Falling in Love as an encore.

Special thanks to Nóri and her daughter Anka, who brought the beautiful, unique handmade ukulele cases made by Nóri. After one of the breaks we were able to admire them during a short presentation.

I was also happy that our ukulele duo Keskeny Megálló was represented in full, meaning my friend Gyuri was able to come too, and we played the accompaniment to Sway under his direction.

Alongside the shared music-making, there was also an opportunity to donate to charity. I placed my ukulele case on a table and HUF 34,500 was collected in it, which we donated to support the infant ward of Bethesda Hospital . I cannot thank enough everyone who contributed to the operation of the infant ward with their donations . I transferred the amount collected to the foundation.

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The meetup ended with a raffle of gifts from D'Addario — one of the world's largest manufacturers of ukulele and other musical accessories — including a tuner, strap, capo and two sets of strings. Thank you to D'Addario for the donation . The evening could hardly have ended more beautifully: the two sets of strings were won by the two youngest ukulele players. It was genuinely touching .

I would also like to thank Gyuri and Rita for sending me the photos and videos they made.

And the final thanks go to the enthusiastic ukulele players who helped carry the many ukuleles, music stands and all the other equipment out to the car. Without them I would probably still be packing .

Here is the video from the ukulele meetup .

And now for the photos: