Howdy Friends,
I'm really excited To announce my winter schedule of classes for Mead Library of Sheboygan, WI.
I have been partnering with Mead for many years and when the pandemic began, all of my in-person classes moved online to their FB Live Stream.
For awhile I was doing Monday and Thursday nights, then it moved to Monday night only once a week.
These days I am doing three days in a row, usually about the middle of each month.
Every month I offer a variety of classes that cover technique, repertoire, style, and more!
I realize that many of you may not be on FB.
Often the classes are uploaded to You Tube, so you can search and find some of them there if you cannot make the "Live" sessions.
The classes are free, though I do solicit for tips via the virtual tip jar on the homepage of my website www.lilrev.com
The classes all begin at 6:30pm CT and go from 45 minutes to 1 hour in length.
Typically, I average 25-50 students from all over the world.
I hope you can join us one of these night!
Musically,
Lil Rev
I'm looking forward to a great summer of learning and study with my ukulele students from all over the world!
We meet most mondays at 6:30pm CT on Mead Library's Facebook Live Stream {Sheboygan, WI}.
Lil Rev teaches multi-level style. Meaning, everything he teaches is geared towards a variety learning levels.
The classes are free and open to the public.
Tips are most appreciated via lilrev's virtual tip jar at: www.lilrev.com
Each week we present a different subject relating to the ukulele including: Tunes, Techniques, Traditions, History, and occasionally a special guest.
We are offering a worldclass schedule of uke classes!
Hope you'll join us!
Thanks,
Lil Rev
www.lilrev.com
Lil Rev @ Las Cruces Uke Fest
Photo Credit: Craig Chee
Educational Book Review By: Lil Rev
Ukulele For All - Beginning Method For Group of Individual Study
Ukulele for All, is a 57 page method book written by Jenny Peters and her sister Rebecca Bogart.
The book was published by Kjos Music Company {KJOS} in 2017, to meet the growing demand for curriculum, that is classroom friendly for kids of all ages.
What makes this book so special is that author Jenny Peters has been a general music and orchestra teacher in the public schools for many years and her sister Rebecca is a classically trained pianist with a wealth of music theory and performance in her background.
Jenny leads local ukulele classes for groups and kids in the Chicago area and their many song books like: 21 Songs in 6 Days, Easy Songs, and 21 Easy Songs For Christmas are all Amazon favorites.
Because there are so many ukulele books on the market, its important to note that these kind of credentials serve to remind us that the authors have a real connection to the ukulele and are intimately involved in community music education.
The book teaches, tuning, instrument identification, practice tips, basic strumming, and melody playing in both tab and standard music notation.
I particularly like that the authors included finger number positions so that the student knows what finger he or she should use to fret a given note.
Especially important in this age of visuals, is an interactive video supplement to the book, so you can follow with video to firm up the songs.
As an author of many ukulele books and as someone who teaches ukulele to private students for over 30 years, I have learned that its always best to have both tab and standard notation.
If you really want to encourage music reading, you can always cover up the tab line, but the reality is, most kids today are going online to learn the songs they want to learn via chords and lead sheets. This book supplements that inevitable process by teaching ukulele pedagogy so that student can then use this as a springboard into whatever most interests them musically. I say this because there are a number of method books on the market that do not include tab and unsuspecting online purchasers need to be aware of this when looking for a good book.
Another great feature of this book is the wealth of world music, i.e. songs that are derived from a wide variety of cultural traditions including Germany, Israel, America, Mexico, Korea, Scotland, France, and Morocco.
The book is nicely rounded out with blues studies, holiday songs and fingerpicking.
As a former grade school music teacher myself and former college music history lecturer, I give this book an A grade. It's a nice starting point for teaching ukulele privately or in the classroom.
This book could then be supplemented with any of the authors easy strum books like: 21 Songs in 6 Days
Check out author Jenny Peters in acton playing this cool tune from the book called: Lonely Blues
The Book can be purchased at www.kjos.com or Amazon:
Reviewed by-Lil Rev 1/4/21
{Preview: This is a double-post about both online learning during the pandemic and Slide Ukulele!}
The pandemic brought about a flurry of interest in online studies.
If you were a ukulele teacher, with an established online curriculum, already up and running pre-covid it was cause to holler hallelujah!
If you weren't, like me, then you'd better come up with some cool classes and quick! {I'll let you be the judge}. In fact, 2020 will go down as the year I created more content than any other year in my 30 year career as a ukulele player, entertainer and instructor. {Thus my Intro To Slide Ukulele Class on 12/8 via Mead Library FB Live}
Most of my time, I've spent creating physical books, and touring the ukulele superhighway teaching in-person workshops at ukulele clubs and festivals all over North America. So the Covid crisis felt not only like a sucker punch {which I can take} but ultimately, many of us got caught with our pants down, not having an online school, course, or package to market, as folks began looking for places to study while quarantining. So we all jumped on FB live! Then Zoom.
The reality is, I love to teach! In fact, I live to teach, so these things really matter to me alongside the fact that I happen to make my living from teaching.
As for an online Lil Rev Ukulele School, that is about to become a reality in 2021. Stay tuned!
Back to the story...
Everyone realized that this would be a great time to build their skills while laying low and staying close to home. If ever you wanted to learn finger-style ukulele, improvisation, chord melody, basic skills, strumming or any other facet of study, one things for sure....2020 was the year to do it.
Pros have to keep on upping the ante as well! I chose to woodshed on slide ukulele!
As an instructor and performer, I've always loved slide guitar. I grew up listening to Duane Allman, John Hammond Jr, Blind Willie Johnson, Bukkah White, Robert Johnson, Ry Cooder, Bob Brozman, Fred McDowell and many others.
Locally, I've spent the better part of 30 years backing some of the best slide players in WI while on harmonica. See pic below of me with my longtime music pal and friend John Nicholson. John and I co-wrote the book: Fiddle Tunes for Ukulele. John is one of my favorite living slide players and his slide influence has really inspired and informed my harp playing and now my own efforts to build a repertoire of slide tunes on the ukulele.
So you see, it was only a matter of time before I decided to start playing slide on the ukulele.
Quarantining means more time to watch videos, experiment and work up tunes.
The person most responsible for my forays into Slide playing, is my wife Jenna, who bought me a National Steel Bodied Ukulele for my birthday this year. Once that happened, I was all over!
What I'm Doing With The Slide:
Mostly, I'm arranging pre-war blues stuff, but I'm also playing a lot of bluegrass and old time, with slide as a small added ingredient, or just enough slide to spice it up and make it interesting in a way that the ukulele world isn't likely to of heard all that much. I find that the slide can be used as a condiment would. Not to overpower a tune, but to help dress up the taste a tad. The difference in my approach is this...If I am playing blues, the slide leads the way, if I am playing old time or bluegrass I'm using the slide as an ornament in small doses. For example, there's a big difference between how I use the slide on, The Sky Is Crying by Elmore James, and how I use the slide on Columbus Stockade or Rolling In My Sweet Baby's Arms. All of this of course, is really evolving fast for me as I'm spending alot of time working on slide styles on the ukulele and am having a blast doing it!
My favorite players are Paul Rishell, Fred McDowell, Jerry Douglas {dobro} Blind Lemon's Jack Knife Slide, Blind Willie Davis Gospel Blues, All of the preaching Bluesman who used slide, Elmore James, Hound Dog Taylor, Lil Ed, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Charlie Patton, local music pal Peter Roller {who plays dobro and lap steel on most of my records, and too many others to list!
Here's a cool 8 bar blues called Crow Jane Blues that's a good example of how I'm using the slide on the baritone ukulele. {I plan to record a national steel piece soon!}
To Close, Dig This Deep Cut: Son House's Death Letter Blues:
Howdy Friends,
As Christmas is upon us and I am looking back on the last 10 months of 2020, I am both humbled and toasted all at once!
Humbled because of all of the support I have received from my students, fans, friends and family during what has been a very challenging year. Toasted, because of the sheer number of classes and private lessons that I did this year! Content creation this year was off the charts!
Making ones living as a troubadour, has never been about mining music's monetary goldmine, but rather the love of craft and connection with ones students and fans. But who amongst the legion of professional musicians that I know, was actually ready for what happened around the 2nd week of March 2020?
The gig economy crashed and while we all jumped onto FB live, it was fine for a month or two, before it became a mess o' madness.
When Corona hit I lost a years salary in under 8 weeks, via cancelled gigs, classes, festivals, concerts, as well as royalties from book sales that crashed when brick and mortar music stores closed shop, curtailed hours or patrons put off in-store shopping trips.
They say that when one door closes another opens...
Much to my surprise, Brass Bell Music of Milwaukee agreed to host a once a month class on their FB page and Mead Library of Sheboygan agreed to have me on Mondays.
To supplement these classes I took on a dozen private students and created a Zoom Webinar schedule for more in-depth, theme based classes like my Uke n The Blues Series {1920's, 30's and 50's}
Here's a sample of what's to come {plus 6 more on my website!} You can register for these via www.lilrev.com Zoom links are sent out 3 to 4 days prior to the class. Most classes are $35.00 unless its a two part class.
Now, back to Mead Library....
Pre-Corona, you could find me leading regular ukulele courses at the library as well as one off performances and our monthly ukulele club meeting.
Mead has been a huge supporter of community education, makers space classes and my local music escapades. I am most grateful to them. A finer library, you won't find in all of the America's!
So after 10 busy months of teaching ukulele, Mead has recently agreed to continue my Monday 6:30pm CT Virtual Ukulele Classes Streaming Live on their FB page thru 2021 {or until its safe to return to the in-person classes at the library.}
Here's the schedule for January 2021. The classes are free, though tips are appreciated. Music is posted for each class on The Sheboygan Ukulele Club Google Drive, which you can access on the home page of my website: www.lilrev.com {scroll down and look for the brown tab that says Sheboygan Uke Club, click on it and look for the name and or date of class}.
I hope to see you online in 2021!
Lil Rev
Hello Friends, Here's the unboxing video for my new KST 5 Super Tenor made by Kanile'a Ukulele's of Hawaii. I describe this inst...
