About our group and how it works.
The start
The Vancouver Ukulele Circle was formed in September 2000 after Ralph Shaw, Vancouver’s own “King of the Ukulele”, and Virginia Ise put a small ad in a local newspaper.
Who we are
The Vancouver Ukulele Circle provides a place where ukulele enthusiasts can meet monthly, play some songs and have a few laughs. We meet on the third Tuesday of every month, with some exceptions, and you’re welcome to join us.
The Vancouver Ukulele Circle now has about 800 mailing list members but still has no goals or objectives except to provide a place where ukulele enthusiasts can meet, play some songs and have a few laughs. Attendance has varied from around 30 to 100.
We consider anyone a member who shows up at any one evening. There are no membership fees, but we charge an entrance fee of $10 or less for the evening to pay our leader and to cover the cost of the hall and the sound, depending where we are (we’re looking for a new regular meeting place).
Members come from a wide variety of musical backgrounds.
Most of us use the GCEA tuning but other tunings are also welcome…and we have one or two baritone uke players too. Players play wooden ukes as well as banjo-ukes, chrome resonator ukuleles, plastic ukuleles … you name it. If it has 4 strings and sounds like a ukulele then it is completely permissible.
Other instruments are also welcome as they provide wonderful accompaniment to our plonking. So far we have had 2 steel guitars, an electric bass guitar (now an electric bass ukulele), a trumpet, a banjo, a fiddle, a saw(!) and a normal guitar. For a while we were accompanied by very tasteful percussion.
How it works
The VUC generally meets on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. The doors open about a half hour before the start time. We all play together from the leader’s choice of tunes for the first part of the evening. After the break, we have short performances (limited to one tune) by a few willing people, followed by more tunes sung as a group. Music sheets and links to videos are sent to our mailing list the week before our monthly events.
Changes in location or day and other special news, including the monthly tune list, will be made known to people on the group’s Vanukes googlegroup mailing list. If you’d like to be on the list, contact us at Contact us (vanukes.ca) giving your name, location, and your interest in the group (enough to make it clear that you’re a real person, local enough to attend our sessions, and not a spammer).
Our ex-Songbook
We used to have a songbook, but we are not currently using it, we have none left, and we are not planning to print more. The book was compiled for use at our meetings. We regret that we do not offer it for sale. There are songbooks offered for sale elsewhere – here is a trio: http://dailyukulele.com/. And two from https://halifaxukulelegang.wordpress.com/hug-songbook/.
Repertoire
Just to give you an idea, here are the tunes from recent meetings, one of which was just before Halloween:
In the Pines
Auntie Christ
I’m In Love With a Monster
Creep
On the Road Again
Tequila Sunrise
Material Girl
Soak up the Sun
Tubthumping
Royals
Hey Jude
Our history page has among others some photos from the start and our anniversary celebrations.
Have a look around
Bob Leong posted this video on YouTube from our Christmas meeting at Our Town Cafe, our wonderful old location that we out-grew. It’s the same friendly atmosphere at our wonderful new location, though.
