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Recent Posts
- Read Rotate Repeat December 18, 2024
- Instrumental Halloween tunes for ukulele October 29, 2024
- Ukulele Fall 2024 Course October 11, 2024
- Ukulele Exercises Series (books) September 26, 2024
- Nutmeg Ukulele Festival 2024 August 27, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Rest of the Year Pass August 27, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Hunter’s Full Moon August 21, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Holiday Songs August 21, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Sad but beautiful songs August 21, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Disney August 12, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday television August 12, 2024
- Borrow ukulele from a library August 7, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday NAMES July 29, 2024
- Fun with Uke 2024 July 23, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Dance! June 25, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Hooked on Classics June 25, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Relaxation June 25, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Colorado Songs of John Denver June 25, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Parody Parade June 25, 2024
- 3 Chord Thursday Across America June 25, 2024
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December 2024 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Recent Posts: Concert Blog
REVIEW: Discovering Fingerstyle Ukulele Songbook by Colin Tribe
Colin Tribe’s new book offers new possibilities for ukulele players who aspire to fingerpick their way through thirty of the most popular songs of all time. These chord melody arrangements show a variety of ways the high G ukulele can be used for instrumental solo or duet (such as chord accompaniment and melodic fingerpicking) . […]
REVIEW: Piano Animals (duet) by Heleen Verleur
This 31-page book of four hand piano music is sheer FUN with a capital F. The composer Heleen Verleur knows just what pianists love playing: music that is easy to read, sounds hard to play, but is so much fun that you don’t want to stop until it ends.
REVIEW: Ukulele Picking Tunes Classical Gems by Paul Mansell
This 40-page book is the latest contribution to the ukulele repertoire by the UK-based ukulele and guitar composer Paul Mansell. Guitarists who play the ukulele are few and far between, for many adult learners pick up the ukulele without knowing the guitar. Yet it takes a guitarist who understands the possibilities of the re-entrant tuned […]
REVIEW: Modern Pieces for Ukulele by Paul Mansell
Review of first three pieces from the new book Modern Pieces for Ukulele by Paul Mansell
Group piano class in Zoom
Introducing my group piano class online: Group Piano Class in Zoom. The first series of seven weekly one-hour class started in June 2021. The second (continuation of the first) started in October 2021 at alternating weeks, until end of December (seven sessions). The third series of 16 consecutive weeks started at the beginning of 2022. […]
Tag Archives: writing
Songwriting Course
Whether you are already writing songs or you’re curious about the process, join us on an 8-week journey in Zoom. Engage with other music lovers and learn the craft of composition. It’s the first and newest course of its kind! … Continue reading
Seated marathon of words
“Support my fundraiser! Come to my soiree on the 22nd!” He invited me to play the grand piano or bring my ukulele group for a singalong to fundraise for his half-marathon in Jordan. I can do neither. I am already … Continue reading
Remembering dad on Father’s Day
Today may be the first time I’m joining everyone else in cyberspace, to remember my dad on Father’s Day. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for father is “ba ba” which sounds like “eight eight” — thus the eighth day of … Continue reading
The freedom and friction of fiction writing
“Pick up a postcard on your table and write your address on it. Take what you’ve learned in this conference and write to your future self. Which words of encouragement would you impart?” Among the postcards of city scenes and … Continue reading
Anita Shreve, I never got to meet her
A pop-up window flashed “Anita Shreve dies at 71″ while I was on FaceTime. Suddenly, I felt a pang of regret. I’m attending a major writing conference in Boston next week. I’ve moved to New England, where Shreve had set … Continue reading
Electric vehicles in paradise: the newspaper column that was
Four years ago, I started writing my first newspaper column: EV in Paradise for Maui Weekly, the free local paper with a website. A year later, funding for the electric vehicle project ended. The project produced several substantial reports: planning report … Continue reading
The two Cs
My dad warned me about the two Cs when I was leaving home for college. “Beware of chemistry,” he said.
Dad’s questions
I remember the day my father came home from his office in Yomitan-Son, Okinawa complaining that he and his colleagues had to learn how to use a word processor. It sounded like a major obstacle. Until then he seemed happy … Continue reading
Writer’s block
6,000 words. Six thousand words. That’s what I have to produce this weekend. I keep putting it off. First I had to do filing. Pay my bills. Clear my desk. Next, I decided to install Sibelius, a process that took … Continue reading
Creating
On the first day of a 5-consecutive day writing workshop, I learned to view writing as a process, not a product. To get started, we did free writing, which is a form of pre-writing to warm up. On a blank … Continue reading