Last night I got my song Want and Need to work on the ukulele and it has given me the upbeat ukulele tune that I needed (or was that wanted?) so now I have a four song acoustic mini set finalised for the Gary’s club open mic in two weeks time.

I’ll play two on my Faith jumbo acoustic and two on the uke. No pew guitar or spinning speakers this time I’m concentrating on the songs! Just need to decide which order to play them in. and practice!

Set list:
Want and Need
The Last Days of Summer
Black River
The Grand Old Pier

Event details:
Admission £4 in advance or on the door.


Friday December 11th 2009
7.30pm for 8pm start, Coolham Village Hall, A272 nr Billingshurst, West Sussex RH13 8QN
Free tea & coffee available, bring your own mug.
(Performers slots now fully booked 11/09/09)

Event is open to general public, all welcome.
The stage will be full concert set up with lighting & PA. Seating with tables for audience members provided numbers fall within the fire regulations or it will be concert seating format.

Performers on Friday December 11th 2009
Stick In A Pot
Andrew Perry & Peter Clifton
Andy Stone
Dianan Plummer & Chris Wolferstan
Charlie Davies
Les Elvin

Headline performance 10pm - 10.30pm
'3 Of Us'

Please contact Gary on 01403 785674 for information.

Mando-guitar to Mandolele in an hour!

How to make a Ukulele in an hour!
Bluey my 2nd mando guitar is no longer! No don't worry she's undergone a little tuning change and is now a double 6 steel string ukulele! (approximately concert size) I've changed a few string gauges around and she now tuned ADGCEA All the pairs are in unison but the extra A&D also tuned like the G in what Ukulele players call re-entery or in plain English an octave up from what you'd expect. So I play my standard guitar chords but have no bass but can now play melody lines on what usually are the bottom strings! Weird! Strum across the strings once and it sounds like twice! (Is that like Nashville style tuning Ed?) I just need t o replace all the stings I stole from Mando guitar Woody! (Who is made to a standard mando scale length but tuned DGCFAD and capoed to save string breakage!) I made Bluey shorter so she could easily tune up the whole octave but I choose Bluey to adapt mainly because being shorter her bass strings sound a bit duller and has a zero fret and so it's nut is therefore less fussy about string gauges. So the result is a new instrument in about an hour!