Noon – 12:45pm Ukulele for All, Sheela Das
Learn basic strumming, chords and folk songs! Bring your ukulele or borrow one of Sheela’s for this inclusive workshop for beginners and intermediate players.
Sheela Das is a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist whose commissioned music performances and workshops bring hundreds of novice and professional performers to the stage each year.
1pm – 1:45pm Strum Your Way to the Top! Mark Laskey
Harmony’s “Harold Teen” comic strip character wisely stated,“Music self-played is happiness self-made,” and they were right! For this workshop we’ll work on adding new strums to help make your uke sing. Triplets, the Split Stroke and other strums will help make your playing more interesting and fun.
2pm – 2:45pm Finger Picking on the ‘Ukulele, Mark Laskey
Learning to fingerpick on your uke is a great way to add variety and enjoyment to your playing. We’ll work on the all-important alternating thumb, rolls and patterns that will add a whole new dimension to your playing.
3pm – 3:45pm Blue Uke Special, Mark Laskey
While the ‘ukulele is often associated with happy sounds, it’s also well suited for the blues. For this workshop we’ll work on chord progressions, chord inversions, turn arounds and those special “licks” that give the blues, well, the blues!
4pm – 4:45pm Youth Jam Ages 13 and up, Sheela Das
Although this is in the Ukulele Room, this jam is for ALL INSTRUMENTS. Music students and other young instrumentalists join in a jam of old time songs.
As the artistic director and founder of Creative Concepts in Music, Sheela Das developed a standards-based literacy and music curriculum that is embodied in over 270 original songs whose use has been supported for over eight years in classrooms, local foundations, schools districts and public entities.
She has created original works for James Levin of the CLE World Festival, FireFish Festival, Freedom Festival, Ingenuity Festival, Parade the Circle, and Cleveland Theater’s Station Hope Event celebrating Cleveland’s role in the Underground Railroad.