Hi all, I don't propose to put anything in the Blog about you know what! Except that is to say please do keep checking our website for updates in the Members Area, accept no substitutes!
Que: why do so many people take an instant dislike to the ukulele?
Ans: It saves time.
Missing HUG don't know about you but I missed our Friday get together for the playing and the socialising and its only a week without it. Whilst I have been playing at home its quite hard to get motivated without a purpose.
Bit of a departure this Blog, I thought I would give you some quizzes to work on. So as soon as I can I will put some quizzes or links to quizzes in the Members section of our website, just keep on visiting the Member Area from time to timeThe first person with the right answers to all the questions gets a sea cruise to be taken next month.
Que: Why don't Ukulele players play hide and seek?
Ans: Because no one will look for them.
Time on your hands? I thought it would be nice to share what fun things you have been up to to fill your time if you are having to stay home pretty much. Email me with BRIEF detail. I stress fun things, not that you have been gardening! I will share some next week. Music related ones, all the better. Any silly photos even better, go on be creative!
It is our open Mike session next Friday so get working on contributions. I think I will be able to do something with them to share with the group. More on this to come in the next Blog but prep if you want to take part.
HUG Fee, I have decided to put aside the £3 I would normally pay each Friday in my new HUG FEE JAR. I will donate all of this money to a Charity that we would have supported. It is likely at this time charity contributions will suffer. A small gesture I know but I would happily pay the £3 each week in normal circumstances.
Que: if you are lost in a desert, what do you aim for? a good Ukulele player, a bad Ukulele player or an Oasis?
Ans: A bad Ukulele player, the other two are figments of your imagination.
HUG On Line Streaming, now the very important news. Setting this up has consumed my time over the last week. (This is our spare bedroom now set up as a studio ready to live stream). It was being decorated but I found something better to do than watch paint dry!
With not inconsiderable help from my daughter in Germany I am pleased to tell you I am ready to go live with as many of you as can and want to join in.
To start with it will be a modest dip of a toe in the water as I get to grips with live streaming. It is something completely new to me (and most of you I suspect).
There will be some things I will need you to do to get ready for live streaming I will go through this for you.
Firstly a health warning! If you don't have a computer then you are probably not reading this, doh!. Seriously though, apologies if you are in contact with someone in this category, there is no way around this. Secondly, if your computer is steam driven (ie. old, it is unlikely to cope with streaming to. Thirdly, it is likely you will need a good Broadband speed. Do locate yourself as close to your router as you can, walls tend to degrade signals.
OK so here goes! Assuming you want to join in with live streaming this is what you will need to do......
1. In your search engine (thats Safari for Apple iPads) its where you put a search in on the internet, enter the https that is at the bottom of the email I send you. If you know how to copy and save it then thats great. If not then please ensure you type it in exactly. Very important!
2. if you are successful you have joined the hugukulele123 channel on Twitch (yes we have our own streaming channel!)
3. Not to be too technical but our channel is on a platform called Twitch,which is an Amazon company. Think of it like Youtube. Youtube does the same thing but is more complex to set up.
4. Once you have hugukulele123 loaded you should see me live streaming. If you cannot see me either I am not on line live or there is a problem.
5. If you see me but cannot hear me yet I am talking then it is likely that sound has defaulted to mute. Click on the Black area around the picture and there should be a speaker icon just click on this, that should bring in sound.
6. It is possible that some of you will have technical problems at the initial stage. Both Roger Drake and myself will try to help. Please remember we cannot physically come and help you, therefore can only offer you our best endeavours.
7. Assuming that you are receiving the live feed then you will see and hear me, I cannot see or hear you.
8. Initially I will do a quick live stream from 2pm today Sunday the 22nd March. So that you can see if you are able to receive the live stream. You will need to be logged on to hugukulele123 at that time. Remember I cannot see or hear you so will just play and talk for 10 minutes. This is just a test stream. I will then do another quick live stream at 4.00pm today. Then Tomorrow the 23rd March at 11.00am I will do another quick live stream for 10 minutes. Remember, to see the live stream you will need to be logged on to hugukulele123.
9. Once the live stream ends I need you to email me hopefully to just say yes fine, or no I have problem. I will email you to find out what the problem is. Bear with me and Roger who I will ask to help, it will take some time to do this if there are a few who cannot get on.
10. Remember though age of computer and speed of Broadband will be critical factors. It could be that you have the stream up but it does what is called buffering. This is when the picture and sound keeps stopping then after a while starts again only to keep on doing this stop start. This is about Broadbands speed and probably means you don't have enough speed to handle streaming, it takes a a lot of processing and speed to handle video and speech.
When we go live for real, fingers crossed those of you who want to join in will receive an acceptable stream. My aim is to go live for real next Friday at 10.30am. This will become our default day and time each week.The first time will be a moderate session maybe half an hour initially. I will aim to stream for an hour as we progress over the weeks.
What will we do? Well my wish is to do via the live stream what we were doing in our weekly sessions. Mainly though to have a sing and strum along together. Also to do a little bit of teaching and explaining of techniques to try out, such as strumming patterns, new chords, playing down the neck. We can learn new songs. I would like to cover playing the Blues on Ukulele, at least to those who want to learn.
Once we are up and running and have settled in to it there will be a facility to live chat with me via text. I do not want to swamp you with this at the moment because our aim certainly first and foremost is to strum and sing our favourites.
Text Chat is best for when I am demonstrating something and you want clarification. more on this as we progress.
Just a point on Twitch and our Channel hugukulele123 this is open to anyone in the World to follow. Like any of the thousands of channels. Twitch started as a gamers platform for them to show others who follow them playing online games, they have massive followings!
Lately it is now being used by musicians and is getting popular.
Que: What do you call a beautiful woman on a ukulele players arm?
Ans: A tattoo
Exciting times and out of adversity comes opportunity. Live streaming will be very useful for us even in normal times (if that ever exists again) because I can demo to you prior to our Friday meetings.
Only remains for me to say thank you for sticking with HUG, stay safe and well and I will see as many of you as possible on live stream, well actually you will see me but I won't actually see you I promise!
Cheers
Dave
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