WHEN: Wednesday, March 3, 2021
TIME: meet & greet check-in 6:45 pm, singing starts at 7:00 pm (eastern time, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)
WHERE: right in your own home
- ZOOM LINK
- ZOOM password: ukulele (if needed)
- Meeting ID: 828 3666 8214 (that's if the link above doesn't work for you, you can type the ID in once you click on JOIN MEETING)
Beginners! Have you just started playing ukulele and know a few chords, but you're not quite up to changing from one chord to the next chord at full speed yet? Do you have difficulty strumming and singing at the same time? Well - here's a fun jam that you may be able to really enjoy and keep up with! We'll play through some tunes really, REALLY SLOWLY, share tips and techniques that might help you, and try to answer any questions you might have. I came up with the idea of a BUG slow jam many years ago based on my experience of learning the fiddle and attending "reel" slow fiddle jams.
If you're unsure about how to tune your uke, hold your uke, etc., you may want to check out some of these instructional videos from Bernadette Teaches Music before the jam.
I've created a document, Real Slow Jam Notes, that you can read before our session to familiarize yourself with some terms and concepts we may refer to during the jam. Don't worry about the Chord of Fifths information on pages 5 and 6 - it's more advanced stuff, but you may find it interesting. If at some later time, you want to explore that concept further, visit Circle of Fifths Explained on our TIPS & HELP page.
We'll display the songbook on your screens and our host Sharon will be scrolling through for all of you. I'll also post the songbook below, if you'd like to look at it ahead of time. On your own screen, you can resize the songsheet window to take up most of the screen, or if you've got a big screen (we plug our computer into our TV) you can resize the songsheet so that you can see more people. Those settings are entirely up to you! Click here for info about changing your view in Zoom.
HOW DO I JOIN IN TO THE ZOOM JAM?
- Download ZOOM - it's free!
- Click on the Zoom Link under WHERE at the top of this announcement.
- Turn off all other programs, apps, emails, games, that use the internet. That will maximize your bandwidth to help improve delay and choppiness. Some people have had much better success with Zoom when they plug their device directly into their router/modem with an ethernet cable (depending on your device, you may need to get a USB ethernet dongle to do this).
- The Zoom host will mute everyone just before the song is to start. Then only the song leader will unmute themselves and start the song. Everyone else needs to stay muted - otherwise it's a mess. So if you notice that for some reason your mic is unmuted during the song, i.e., there is not a slash through the microphone symbol, please STOP singing and mute yourself by clicking on the microphone symbol. At the end of the song, if you'd like to clap, hoot, and holler - which we hope you will - then you need to unmute yourself.
- For optimal audio quality and volume, plug an external speaker into your device or wear headphones. If you don't do that, the sound may be choppy, tinny, and you won't hear the uBass. If you're using an older Apple product there may be a headphone out jack that you can plug an external speaker into. For newer Apple devices, you may need a USB-C connector to a 3.5 mm audio adapter to connect an external speaker or headphones.
- Due to the noise/feedback that occurs when someone connects to Zoom mid-song, the "waiting room" feature will be enabled. So people will only be admitted to the jam from the waiting room in between songs. If you're arriving after 7 pm, please be patient as it might take a few minutes.
- If you're not familiar with Zoom, please take some time to read these help pages ahead of time - they tell you how to test your audio and video:
How Do I Join or Test My Computer Audio
How Do I Test My Video