Report from Ukulele Meetup II
You may already be used to me writing a few words about each meetup or workshop afterwards, and this time will be no different . Yesterday afternoon, Zsolt and I arrived at Pódium Hall, the venue for the meetup, about three quarters of an hour before the official start. Together with the Eldorádó team we arranged the room, set up the music stands, tuned the ukuleles, tested the sound system , and Zsolt hung up the ukulele garland (it looked fantastic!!!). Once again, many thanks to Eldorádó for the excellent venue, the ukuleles available to try and the technical equipment! A few minutes before the advertised start at 4:30 p.m., everything was ready, and the first early birds with their ukuleles had already arrived...
From 4:30 onward you kept arriving steadily, and before long we had filled the room. During the roughly half-hour warm-up and settling-in period, we played and sang a few songs, and then Zsolt's workshop began, where we learned a James Hill composition. I thought it sounded absolutely fantastic — an excellent choice by Zsolt — and even if we occasionally lost our way, which is perfectly natural when learning a completely new song, after plenty of repetition the strumming was already flowing smoothly.
I may have slightly misjudged the number of songs myself: I brought too many, so there were some that we rushed through, although of course there were others we spent more time on. I was very happy that you were able to join in with both strumming and singing on most of them.
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To be honest, I did not expect the very first, introductory part of my workshop to work so well. This ukulele echo game — which I actually invented on the spot — was so much fun that I could have carried on with it for a long time. From plucking individual strings, through playing chords, and finally to singing together, a performance developed spontaneously, and I think it turned out brilliantly. Thank you — you were excellent! After the classical pieces came two lighter songs, and our modest ukulele duo's other member, Gyuri, deserves enormous credit for his part in performing them. I would like to thank him here as well for his enthusiastic and excellent contribution. Gyuri — whom those present learned had only been playing ukulele for a few months — and I performed Cielito Lindo and When the Saints. We had arranged both songs together for two ukuleles and spent a few weeks preparing them so that we could surprise you with the performance. We were delighted to see (and hear) how enthusiastic When the Saints made you, and that you joined in and strummed along with us. |
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I was extremely happy that you boldly and actively joined in with other songs as well, so I did not have to play Ain't She Sweet alone either , and I had help on stage with several other songs too.
The four brave participants in Knockin' on Heaven's Door — especially the two complete beginners among the ladies — deserve enormous praise. Going up on stage can be stressful enough in itself, but then playing an instrument you do not even know how to play yet... well, hats off to you. See? Am7 and C major are not that difficult after all, are they?
The song worked on the first try. The four owners of the four chords played extremely well, and it was wonderful to see their joy after the performance.
At the end, Tequila played on flute was simply the icing on the cake — I was speechless . By now Hey Jude can almost be called our customaryclosing chordsong was exactly where it should be as well. And of course I would also like to thank everyone who took part and helped while sitting in their places, playing chords and singing throughout the meetup.
We closed Ukulele Meetup II — amid nerve-racking suspense — with a prize draw . We hope the winners will be able to make good use of their prizes.
A huge THANK YOU goes to YOU, everyone who came and honored us by allowing us to create a shared experience together on this early-autumn afternoon. I promise that next time I will bring slightly fewer songs and we will spend more time on some of them, but I hope that despite the sheer "concentration" of songs, you still had a great time!
And finally, two announcements:
1. Zsolt would like to ask the lady who filmed the ukulele playing at the end to please get in touch with us, because we would love to have a copy of the recording .
2. Several of you asked whether the material from my workshop would be available to download. Well, yes — click here to get the PDF!
Next come two videos, for which we owe Gergő a huge thank-you for the recording, editing and subtitles. And below the videos comes the usual photo avalanche!
