› Hands in Sync: Uke Techniques (Grantville Online)

About the Workshop:

Whether you are new to ukulele or have been playing for a long time, the level of cooperation between your left and right hand can make a huge amount of difference to your playing.

Most people can shape a chord with one hand and strum with the other. In this workshop, we will be looking at a few ukulele skills that shine when you have both hands working together including chucking, sliding and hammering. 

No, this is not a woodworking course, it is a ukulele workshop!

All levels of ability are welcome, although being fairly confident in playing the basic chords of C, F, G and Am will mean you get the most out of the presentation. Dan will be using three riffs from two different songs to highlight these skills. The riffs are written in TAB form and can be downloaded via the links below before the workshop.

Meet the Leader: Dan Maceoin

Dan has been a student of music, theatre and circus for over three decades. He has been teaching these skills to primary school students for over two of those decades. He is currently writing this and feeling sort of old.

The ukulele is a fantastic instrument with which to teach music theory. The students don't even realize they are doing work. They are too busy having fun and achieving a feeling of success. It is one of the few instruments that an absolute beginner can pick up and be playing a song off the radio (maybe not perfectly, but at least recognizably) after just ten minutes of practice. That instant success is what keeps people interested in learning more.

He is currently the music teacher at Emerald Primary School, the Chairperson of the Hills Ukulele Festival Committee and the President of AUTLA (Australian Ukulele Teachers & Leaders Association).

How to prepare for this session:

1. You will need a ukulele
2. A Riff Sheet and Slide Song Chords will be available for this workshop. They will be screen shared during the workshop, but you can also download them (below), If you prefer to download them, you will need a way of seeing these - either self-printed and lent up against the computer screen, or watching the computer screen, or using a separate tablet.
3. Headphones or your speakers turned up enough to hear what is going on.
4. You will also need a single-minded dedication to improving your musical skills…nah, just joking, this is the ukulele, we’re going to have fun…and improve your musical skills!

Downloads:

• Download 1: The Riff Sheet
• Download 2: Slide Song Chords

How to Register:

• This workshop is part of Grantville Online (CMVic Music Camp 2020). Check out the full program here!
• It’s totally FREE to join but please register online here as soon as possible.
• All workshops will be online on Zoom (you don't need to have a Zoom account to join in).
• After you register, you'll receive an email with a link, Meeting ID and password for the whole event.
• You only need to register once, regardless of how many Grantville Online workshops you are joining.