WHO?
Queen City Ukes is a group of people from Regina and area, including Moose Jaw, who meet on the second Saturday of each month to play ukulele and sing together.
Everyone is welcome to join us, regardless of age and skill level. You only know one chord? Come anyway! Sing and then strum that one chord when it comes around. In no time at all, you’ll learn more chords. Every song we play has a chord chart .
WHAT to bring:
All you need is a ukulele.
We recommend you also bring the following if you have them (but there are usually enough people to share):
– Tuner for your uke.
– 2023 QCUkes Songbook (pdf), from which we choose songs as we go around the circle. Please print the book or save it on your device, as Internet is not provided.
– If there are songs you would love to sing that aren’t in the book, then please print off a half-dozen copies for everyone and we can all play. The QCUkes Music Page has a link to a huge library of songs.
– Music stand is optional as there are several we can use at the facility.
Please note: all outdoor shoes must be removed. (Non-marking, indoor-only slippers & shoes are allowed.)
WHEN?
The 2nd Saturday of every month.
2 – 4 pm
WHERE?
Ruth Pawson School. 20 Weekes Cres, Regina, Saskatchewan (click the address for a G-map pin).
Thank you to the Uplands Community Association for hosting us!!
There’s lots of parking on the street and in the highlighted Staff Parking lot.
The red marker-dot shows which entrance to use. Take the straight path that runs from the sidewalk, past the little playground, to the entrance in the
“triangle area”.
WHY?
It’s fun!!!
It’s healthy. True story! There are measurable health benefits to playing music and singing in circles. 🙂
Hi David,
I’m a Ottawa BUG member and currently provide the BUG Jams with the OnSong/ChordPro converted files and run the the BUG Night song overhead displays.
I have notice that you have uploaded the complete BUG OnSong archive (current as of Oct 2014) at your website. I must point out that this document (the BUG OnSong archive) is not available at the web BUG site and that it was given to you without any of the due credits.
This body of work represents more than 4 years of work by many BUG contributors (Sue Rogers, Gordon Thomas, Mike Cox, Chris Hill, Charles de Lint, Dominique Joly, Christopher Taylor, Timothy Blinks, Tim Kitz, Sharon Baird, Paddy Rayburn, Joel Jacques, Dave Mayerovitch and several others) and the ever careful editing of “UkuleleMa” Sue Rogers. I currently convert 99% of the BUG song sets to OnSong/ChordPro text files and I have done so since 2012. Personally this work represents hundreds of hours of my work converting Sue’s lovely .docx Song pages (>700 songs), building the conversion text tools, and preparing/uploading the PDF/ChordPro set and song versions. (I also email the BUG song set OnSong archive to BUG Archive subscribers before each Bug Jam and I would suggest that you email me with a request to be put on the BUG song set OnSong archive email list.)
I must compliment you on getting the Uke Geeks Song-a-matic up and running. You may have noticed that some of the BUG archived song show as incomplete or just look odd when displayed by the Song-O-Matic, this is due to the use of the OnSong mark-up in some of the files. OnSong mark-ups extend the basic ChordPro mark-up set and as such do not render in properly in Song-O-Matic. For example a “*” at the front on a line mean print bold in OnSong mark-up, “#” comment out the line, “:” at the end of a line is also Bold the Line. I try to avoid using the OnSong mark-ups but Sue’s delightful editing leaves me with little choice but to use them. I can send you a guide containing a complete list of OnSong mark-ups (if you wish) as there are many hidden features.
Sue is constantly editing and re-editting the BUG Song list and you will find the most up to date .docx printable and the ChordPro/OnSong/PDF text song versions on the BUG Jam or songs pages.
Thanks,
Claude Lacelle
BUG member/volunteer
Ottawa
______________
Hi, Claude.
You are right. Credit where credit is due. I did give thanks to BUG for the music in the post launching the song book, but I need to do more. I’m going to edit the software to include full credit in the library itself.
I’ve said before that this group wouldn’t exist without Joel and Bytown’s encouragement. This library is more proof that I owe you all a great deal of thanks.
Yours,
Dave Calam
Hi Dave:
Four of us are attempting to get a regular ukulele club/jam session going in Saskatoon. As far as I know,, other than seniors groups, there isn’t one here. We would be very grateful for any advice you could give us. I would love to see this succeed.
I can be reached by the email address listed above.
Cheers,
Leigh
That’s great! I’ve had a couple of people ask if I knew of anything happening in Saskatoon.
I’ll try to put some thoughts together and send you an email. My best advice is to just go for it. I had no idea if anyone would show up to our first circle, but we quickly grew to 20 then 30 then 40 people. If you can visit an existing circle, you can figure out what would work for your group, but for the first few months I was mostly making it up as I went along. Eventually I figure out what works best and a structure naturally developed.
The most important part of our group – and probably the hardest to plan for – is the people. We have some extremely talented mutli-instrumentalists and others who have never played so much as a kazoo before. It’s hard to strike the right balance when introducing new music, but the ukulele lends itself to a wide mix of players; it’s easy enough for beginners to grasp and even the most accomplished musicians can still have fun playing simple two and three chord songs.
If you are ever down in Regina, we’d love to have you join us.
All the best!
What should a person bring to a session? Ukulele, tuner, music, music stand. Anything else?
At the minimum, just yourself.
The store has ukuleles you can try if you don’t own one yet. A tuner is recommended, although we’re a friendly bunch and are happy to share. We project the music onto the wall so your own binder and stand aren’t needed unless you prefer to use them. The room can be pretty cozy so the fewer stands the better. A great singing voice is a nice touch, but most of us make up for that with enthusiasm.
I just about started to play the uke a month ago, it’d be really great to be surrounded by people passionate about it. How does one join you guys? Thanks!
Just grab your ukulele and come on down! The next circle is 7pm on September 6 at Sawchyn Guitars. If you like it and want to stick around, membership is $10 for the year.
Dear Dave my sister-in-law and I would like to join your group. I was a member last year and we would like to know if we can pay on line to have access to your music. We play with Micki cowan, but because we are out of town we rarely make a session. However if we rehearse the same tunes as she I learning we can jam together at family functions. Love your group, great club, thanks for all you do.
Cheri cowan
Cheryl cowan yeas we are Cheri and Cheryl
Hi, Cheri and Cheryl! All of our music is freely available to members and non-members alike. Just go to the Music tab and you can browse through our entire catalogue.
I’m not set up for online payment, but you can pay in person when you come to the circle. See you soon!
Hi Everyone,
I’ve always wanted to learn to play the ukulele and was wondering if this is the right group to come and give it a try. I wasn’t sure if this was more for people who already know how to play or for people just learning? Also, I was wondering if anyone knew of somewhere offering group lessons? I think I would much more enjoyable to learn with a group of people and not just by myself.
Thanks,
Doug
Hi, Doug. We aren’t a class, but we do have a few beginners. Everyone is invited to go at their own pace; if there’s a chord or technique you aren’t familiar with, feel free to skip it or ask a neighbour for help. The chords will get easier if you stick with it. I try to post the music a week in advance so everyone has time to look it over.
I’m not sure who is offering group lessons right now.
Hello from Belgium!
I see you have succeded in getting the Scriptasaurus system up and running. I have been trying to do the same for my own collections of ukulele music, but am not able to get it to function correctly. (I am loading the files to their own folder on a remote server). I have adjusted some of the config.php settings, but find the instructions very confusing. I have finally got the css styles to work, but am now unable to go further.
Would someone be able to email me and to help me further?
Thank you in advance.
Hi,
When it comes to moving, special considerations must be made for families that own pets.
I’d like to write an article for your website that’s full of tips on moving into a new home with your pet. The article will include things you can do to help your pet feel comfortable in their new home.
Please let me know if you’re interested in posting this on your website. There’s no charge for the article.
Thank you!
Cindy