Pling Pling Twang Twang Time For a Ukulele Jam!

On the 11th of september 2021 I started to help out at the new format of Ukulele courses at Jack Drum Arts. My job during the courses is to run the tech side of things as it is partially online in a zoom session and partially in person with people both sitting in the main hall and calling from their homes across the country. 

The ukulele sessions are a paid course that happen every saturday morning from 11:00am until 1:00pm. They are for all ages and abilities with some of the youngest being in their early teens and the oldest being in their 70’s-80’s. 

Early on into the session I noticed a couple of the ukuleles in the room were out of tune so I assisted Jack who was leading and I tuned the ukuleles while he was explaining the session and how this new format was going to work. This obviously made the session run a little smoother as Jack's time wasn’t taken up by tuning ukuleles that were out of tune. This also meant that there was more time for the people to learn new parts for the ukuleles and new songs to play. 

A difficulty I had was knowing when to switch between cameras as I had 2 cameras set up in the room of Jack up close and of the participants in the room as a whole. However towards the end of the session I was getting a grasp of when to switch between cameras and when the people on the zoom call needed to only see jack and when they needed to see everyone. Such as when we are playing a song it's better to see only Jack as then they can see the chords close up and see what Jack is playing, and during the discussions and general chatting it is easier to see everyone as a whole so we all know who is talking. 

All in all the session went well and I also managed to stay on top of the Zoom chat box too and feed back to Jack what people were saying during the session when it was necessary to do so.  

I can’t wait to keep up with this session every week and see the progression of new learners and experienced players working together to create music, learn music and then next year perform music at a music festival that Jack Drum Arts are organising for summer 2022.