As you must surely have noticed – I haven’t posted a new article on this site for some time now.
There are two good reasons why:
One, I have been incredibly busy with performing and teaching the many topics I discuss here on this blog. My student group, The All In Good Time Orchestra, is opening this week for The United Kingdom Ukulele Orchestra – quite a prestigious gig, I must say.
But the other reason I had taken a break has been to put all this material I have been writing about into a book. A book about music, rhythm, and the mindset I have found to be helpful in achieving those things.
If you have any questions about playing music – I would love to hear them as they, hopefully, can be added to the book.
Of course, you can ask me about ukulele specific things, but I am really looking for general questions about playing together – how it works, how the musician dynamic works, etc. It’s easy to look up a way to play a chord, but it’s harder to look up how one musician looks at another to convey a chord change…
All that being said – stay tuned for more posts about music, rhythm, and musical life here on All In Good Time.
All In Good Time 
November 3, 2014 at 8:29 am |
…. good 4 u rhan — an inspiration 2 the community – & the planet – broadcasting ur lght & love !!! thank you !!!
November 3, 2014 at 8:51 am |
Looking forward to the book.
November 3, 2014 at 9:02 am |
As a long standing fan of yours from the UK I am sad that you are having anything to do with the United Kingdom players who have copied so exactly and possible intend to pass themselves off as The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain who have been playing wonderfully for 25 years. They are not the same band at all and it has caused much annoyance and anger over here amongst the UOGB fans.
November 29, 2014 at 9:29 am |
Liz,
Thank you for your comment and for sharing your thoughts on this. While respecting your opinion and the fact that you are there and know much more about the situation than I, I find myself with some conflicting thoughts about the matter.
First off – I realized the second I heard the name “The United Kingdom Ukulele Orchestra” – that is was not the same group as “The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.”
Close, admittedly – but not exactly the same. (But I do certainly realize that their names are similar enough to, hopefully, be associated with a group they much admire.)
And that’s where I realize another thing: The long standing Orchestra of Great Britain has created a template for others to be inspired by. As a matter of fact, my own group, “The All in Good Time Orchestra” was built with the aspiration that someday we could work hard enough to perform similarly. (As it is, we are much too large and our skills are much too varied to pull it off at this time, so we are going for another community oriented approach. But if we were to get our act together, literally, would be be in trouble for using the word “orchestra?”)
One can see similar examples of successful groups and formats inspiring others:
The New York Philharmonic Orchestra
The San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra
Any orchestra in the world….. similar physical set up, same instruments, same general type of music.
The Beatles
The Animals, The Turtles, The Monkees, .
Any four or five piece rock band ever… drums, bass, guitars, long, moppy haired lead singers…
The way I see it is that there is plenty of room to spread the joy of playing and listening to music by anyone who takes the time and effort to create it.
Granted – if one group is trying to pass themselves off as another – to the point of fraudulently presenting themselves as the other – then there is a problem.
But I didn’t see that happening.
Does our good town of Santa Cruz NOT get to see a well rehearsed group simply because another group thought of putting out 8 chairs, music stands, and playing music on ukuleles first?
(The other group hasn’t even shown interest in coming to our town anyway – I believe they are playing up in San Francisco sometime in the future – an hour and a half away.)
And how many ukulele “jam” groups have been created – modeled after other ukulele jam groups and ukulele clubs?
Does my group not get to perform for the first time on a real, large stage with a real, large enthusiastic audience?
The positive effect on my players is still evident, as I continue to get raves and stories of how empowered they all felt by being given the chance to perform.
As for deception – I agree with you in being put off, but I was talking to a pro sound man friend of mine about this, a man who has traveled the world working for big acts, and he reminded me of this:
there are many groups out there nowadays that have but one original member of a group that still use the original name, or who refer to the original group they played with:
Greg Rolie – the lead singer of Santana
Three Dog Night – I think there is ONE original member
Family Stone – two original members of Sly and The Family Stone
Journey… you get the picture…
In professional music circles imitation happens all the time, and why not? There is plenty of need for music, and as long as the quality of the group is maintained – they survive. Time and lack of talent weeds out the bad groups.
So I wonder – what is the real problem with this other group? The name? The format? The content? The instrument? Their tactics?
Knowing the answer to this would really help me to understand the problem, as presently, I can’t quite wrap my head around it.
Most Extremely respectfully,
Rhan
January 5, 2015 at 3:33 pm |
Great news that you are moving along. Haven’t visited you in a while, but love what I see happening now. I’ve not updated my ukulele-perspective.com in some time either and am making other instruments in addition to playing the ukulele. Would love to see a section in your book about improvising and how to teach improvising with ukulele and other instruments. Best to you in the New Year, – Judy