May 2019 Update

Ukulele & Vocals

The major ukulele performance this month was at the Hills Ukulele Festival. This is a wonderful ukulele festival in Emerald, Victoria and is usually run around mid-May. I had just lost my voice a few days earlier, but somehow managed to sing for our Balla Balla Ukes jazz ensemble set as well as my own solo set. Even though I was quite husky, it sounded great! The Balla Balla Ukes main group also performed at the festival and did a great job.

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The Balla Balla Ukes also did a gig at the Casey Lifestyle Village earlier in the month.

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I also tried busking at the Akoonah Park Market in Berwick this month. I learned a few things by the experience, such as bringing a trolley to cart all the gear from the car, and learn more kids songs! Most of the money in my case was placed by kids. It was cold, but really fun and I look forward to doing this more throughout winter.

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I was booked a long time ago to play background music for the Pakenham Arts Show and I’ve been waiting for this one for a while! It was a really fun night and the art on show was amazing. I sang for two hours across the evening and I loved seeing people just sit down and singing along.

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Percussion

The largest focus for this month has definitely been on percussion! I helped organise a major concert band festival for my band, Cranbourne Lions Concert Band. The festival featured 11 school and community bands – that’s a lot of musicians in one place! In addition to playing with my band, I was also asked to fill in for Chelsea Concert Band and Southern Peninsula Concert Band – so I also had a lot of extra rehearsals! I mainly played mallet percussion for the set with my band, and mainly timpani for the other bands. The event is always fantastic and a huge highlight of the year for the local bands.

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I have also been rehearsing with the Little Miss Country Band. My friend Jan has asked me to play drums for her 3 hour country music set at the Mitchum Social in July. It’s been fun playing drums without a conductor or sheet music in front of me! To break things up a bit, all of the band members have been asked to sing a few songs too, and so it was fun working out if I can play drums and sing at the same time – and it turns out I can… well to a basic level anyway. I wouldn’t want to be doing crazy drum fills at the same time!

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