HUG NEWS 14 19TH November 19

Hi all, first off just a note to wish Bill Woods a speedy recovery, we are thinking of you. For those perhaps not so familiar about how HUG came about, Bill Woods was very prominent in facilitating setting up the group after I had said to him "why haven't Heswall U3a got a Ukulele Group?" He then "persuaded" me to take on leading it. Well I say persuaded, it was more a case of getting me to come along in the pretence of joining a new group and then informing me that I should run it!

Thanks Bill.

Just some random thoughts, have you hugged your Ukulele today? Never forget, happiness comes with strings attached. Wherever you go now its full on Christmas mode, on TV adverts, Pubs and wall to wall Christmas songs in shops! Ever not wanted to hear Last Christmas ever again? Any of us involved with other ukulele groups will be relearning Christmas songs. At least we are ahead of the game!

Christmas songs I have been busy pulling together our Christmas Gig List songs ready for Saturday. You will now find 8 Christmas Songs listed as Christmas Gig Songs on the website. Now in a more accessible form. Just to clarify, wherever a song is underlined you can click on this to open the song in a PDF (PDF stands for Portable Document Format). Once opened the song can then either be printed, or put into a file so that you don't have to be on line to access it. For instance I have a file for HUG songs, this means I don't have to be on line to use them. Its not advisable to rely on being on line to access songs, especially in a gig situation.

I have adjusted some of the songs to clarify playing format, starts ends etc. I suggest holding off printing or saving them for a couple of days initially as I may still make tweaks.

By Thursday at the latest they will be the versions we go with. You can either print off the ones that have changed or save them to a file if thats your preference. To save on printing you can just note the changes on your current copy. If you do go for a new print though make sure you scrap the old version so as to be sure we all have the same version!

Gigs We have 13 people signed up to play at St James Church Christmas Fair on Saturday 23rd November, so thank you.

We will play at 11.30am for half an hour. Suggest arriving at 11.00 a.m. We have been spoiled so far playing on stage at Heswall Hall so it is best to presume this time space will be limited. A good discipline to get into is to buddy up with someone and share music and stands. We will have 6 microphones to use. Be prepared to battle the audience as it will be a Christmas Fair going on with people coming and going. Suggest wearing anything Christmassy that you want/have.

Gig 2 Garden Society Christmas meeting 2nd December at Heswall Hall. We will be playing from 8.15pm. The whole evening starts at 7.30pm. The organisers are happy for us to play a mixture of singalong favourites and some Christmas songs. I have been informed that there will be nibbles and refreshment available for us! You are invited to join in the activities from 7.30 pm. There is a gardening quiz apparently so lets see if we can win! (Competitive - who me?). Parking free after 6.30 pm. We should have access to the Green Room to store any stuff you want to, Just not valuables!

Gig 3 Heswall U3a Christmas Meet, 9th December, There will be a lot of people there and we will set up on the Stage as we did previously, to the right looking at the stage. We will be playing Christmas songs and the audience will have song sheets for them to join in. We will get them singing, hence our rehearsal of instrumental bits. No exact time for us yet but recommend attending the whole two hours anyway and joining in with other activities.

Christmas Meal Not long now to go to our Christmas Meal at the Fox and Hounds, really looking forward to it. Thanks go to Sheila and Dot for taking care of everything for us. It was suggested that we take along our Ukes, the Fox and Hounds have politely asked that we limit numbers playing as there will be other customers with us. I am sure 8 or so of us can play and all sing along and have a good time!

Bass Player We have the prospect of a Bass Player joining us and he will be with us on Friday, hopefully then permanently!

HUG 2 the new group had its first proper meeting last Friday afternoon. It is fair to say most are starting from the absolute beginning! Do you remember the realisation that its not quite as easy as it looks? I love a challenge! We are going to learn Achy Break Heart on Friday, I can't wait!

Dominant 7th Chords These are the chords G7, D7, A7, E7, B7. Most of them you are familiar with. There is a useful rule to know and that is for each key you play in there will be a Dominant 7th Chord. We play predominantly in C for example and the Dominant 7th Chord in C is G7. This means for example, if it is easier or quicker for us to change to a G7 instead of a G it will work. An example would be where you have to change from F to G in say a single beat, or at least very quickly. Its harder to do this from F to G than it is from F to G7. Because you have to move all three fingers, whereas G7 only requires you to leave your first finger down and move the other two. So if we know the key a song is in we can make use of the Dominant 7 in that Key if we want to or need to.

Here are the Dominant 7ths for the following keys we are likely to use:-

Key of C = G7, Key of G = D7, Key of D = A7, Key of A = E7, Key of E = B7

See you all Friday ready to have a run through of or Christmas songs.

Dave