Donate gifts for patients at Montana State Hospital through “Gifts with a Lift” program. Drop off gifts Nov 24 – Dec 6 2023 at Bozeman Daily Chronicle, front lobby: 2820 W. College, Bozeman. Open 8am to 5pm, M-F. Or donate online at NAMIMT.org (GIfts with a Lift, now in its 71st year, is jointly coordinated by the National Alliance for Mental Illness-MT and Montana DPHHS.)
GIFT IDEAS: Montana State Hospital is especially in need of winter coats for men and women in sizes M – 3X. (Larger sizes preferred, no hoodies can be accepted.) Other cozy and uplifting gift ideas include socks, slippers (no laces), blankets/throws, t-shirts/sweatshirts (no hoodies), winter wear (hats, gloves, jackets), playing cards, magazines, pocket games/books, phone cards, batteries, headphones, handheld battery operated AM/FM radios, postage stamps and stationery.
You can also collect gifts or “adopt a resident” at the Montana State Hospital this holiday as a workplace, family or group activity! Print out flyers, shopping lists and coloring pages provided below, and be sure to drop off the gifts you collect by December 6, 2023! (In Bozeman, the drop box is at the Bozeman Chronicle lobby.)
You may share the above images in social media. Please include the text: Donate gifts for patients at Montana State Hospital through “Gifts with a Lift” program! Drop off gifts by Dec 6 2023 at Bozeman Daily Chronicle 2820 W. College, Bozeman, MT (Open 8am to 5pm, M-F) Or donate online at NAMIMT.org (Gifts with a Lift is coordinated by the National Alliance for Mental Illness-MT and Montana DPHHS.)
Because I love you, I’m sharing the LONG BLURB about my art show at Kirk’s Grocery in Billlings, Montana (USA) this August! Kirks’ is an awesome indy art/performance space that has been showing Montana artists and the Billing community love in a big way since 2018. Or in their words: “We are an art gallery and all ages performance space dedicated to showing contemporary art from local, regional, national, and international artists that fall outside of the typical Western Art that is associated with Montana galleries.” Can I get an “Amen!? I love Kirks’ and its proprietors, Shane and Mary, and their incredible crew of volunteers, personalities and satellites, not the least of whom is artist Jon Lodge who recently encouraged me to “give up the relentless pursuit of tedious virtuosity and make some noise!” OK, I’m paraphrasing, but, noted, Jon! I’ll minimize the tediousness and save some noise just for you! But on to the…
August Art Show and Performance
“Out of Hand: Misremembered Memoirs and Untouched Sounds,” a collection of paintings and mixed media work by Bozeman painter and performance artist Marla Goodman, opens this August at Kirks’ Grocery. Goodman’s work revolves around her 15-year obsession with the Theremin and fantasies that arose from her experiences as a street performer on this strangely fascinating electronic instrument. (One of the first electronic instruments ever invented, the Theremin is played without being touched.) A fifth generation Montanan, grandmother and self-described community art activist, Goodman divides her creative time between “painting, practicing, and pretending.” The exhibit includes music- and Theremin-inspired paintings and collage/assemblage work drawn from Goodman’s imaginary world as fraternal twin Thereminists. A performance component of the show features Goodman’s twin personae, Polly and Dolly Vinyl interpreting classic Theremin repertoire through a wildly fictional and darkly comedic family history.
An introverted person who attended a two-room Montana rural school and spent her formative years wandering the hills near Bozeman on horseback, Goodman is the last person anyone would expect to become immersed in performance art. That changed when she found a karaoke machine in her storage shed. “I had been learning to play the Theremin and I wanted to make Art Walk a little more colorful. I dressed up as a washed up Lawrence Welk Show champagne lady look-alike and played songs like “Hey Jude” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” in front of Cactus Records,” she said. The street performance costumes gradually took on distinct personalities drawn from Goodman’s ranch family heritage and her penchants for comedy and kitsch. Polly Vinyl, an incurable narcissist, and her longsuffering fraternal twin Dolly, navigate the pitfalls of former child stardom through short stop-motion animations, YouTube videos, storytelling and live Theremin performance.
Though she received a BFA in painting from MSU in 1988, Goodman considers herself an outsider artist, generally preferring to organize art shows in places where “people who weren’t looking for art” will be exposed to it. With musical influences rooted in folk and jazz, she became interested in the Theremin through her husband, David, a retired electrical engineer. Since 2018 she has studied the technique and history of the instrument in earnest, most recently with London-based Russian Theremin virtuosa, Lydia Kavina. Goodman has been featured on the Theremin 30 Podcast and in St. Petersburg’s “Thereminfest” Electronic Music Festival. She has also recorded soundtracks for independent films. She first performed with her sisters in a folk/comedy group called The Existential Cowgirls and later founded the musical outreach community Bozeman Ukulele Cabaret. She is also involved in the Bozeman-based arts outreach nonprofit, Random Acts of Silliness.
The “Out of Hand” exhibit runs Aug. 4–Sept. 23 2023 with Goodman’s Theremin performance scheduled at 7pm, Aug 3. The artist will also discuss her work and demonstrate the Theremin at a reception during Art Walk, 5-9pm Aug 4.
Reservations for the Aug. 3 Theremin performance (7pm: 1-hour Theremin show and Q/A demo, followed by rEEk, the synesthetic excrete of Seattle-based DIY noise/performance artist Justin Lazar at 9) are $10 advance/$12 door and can be made through Venmo/Cash App (@kirksgrocery), PayPal (kirksgrocery@gmail.com), or at the door. Kirk’s Grocery is located at 2920 Minnesota Ave., Billings.
If you loved getting to know Luella Sibylla at Cabinets of Curiosities in the Story Mansion and miss her Phonarium of Amusing Voices, I thought it would be fun to offer the sounds Luella collected as ringtones. Click to visit Luella’s free ringtone download page! (If you lose your way, find it later on the main menu at my web site goodwerks.com.)
Luella Sibylla’s Phonarium of Amusing Voices by Marla Goodman and David DiGiacomo, sponsored by Random Acts of Silliness.
In November of 2021, Random Acts of Silliness (RAS), a local nonprofit that creates surprising, creativity-provoking immersive arts experiences for all ages (my description, not theirs) sent out an RFP for a spring pop-up installation called “Cabinets of Curiosity.” RAS provided the concept: A (fictional) family of eccentric Victorian collectors, The Sibylla Siblings, each of whom traveled the world, passionately collecting very unusual things. These collections were to be “discovered” behind a (proverbial) locked door at the top of the stairs in a mysterious mansion. Each artist got to invent a Sibylla Sibling, their passion, their collection, and to present it in some type of cabinet.
Meet Luella Sybilla. RAS asked artists to make the cabinets as interactive as possible, so David and I chose to make little Luella Sibylla a collector of odd sounds. Our idea was that when you opened a drawer, a sound would mysteriously come out of it. (David would figure out how to make that work, and I my job was to make it look and sound interesting). Some pages from our proposal here.
RAS (a non-profit supported by donations and sponsorships) provided funding for materials and time. We had about three months to create the cabinets.
First, we gathered materials. After web surfing and antique store safaris, we bought a lovely antique sewing machine cabinet on sale for $100 and a smaller, additional set of drawers (which were not antique, and frankly were not very nice and a bit overpriced, but we needed to get started). The sewing machine cabinet had already been made into a vanity, so we re-re-purposed it.
David removed the treadle mechanism from the sewing machine and scrounged the electronic components from his archives.
Next, we created the cabinet’s contents. I dreamed up unusual voices, and gathered/made visual components for each drawer, representing mementos from Luella’s imaginary travels. The mess in my office was epic. I used items from my collection of ephemera, public domain images from Wikimedia Commons, and all sorts of curios that I had on hand, or liberated from my mom’s house (with her generous permission).
We needed to tell a story. In order to further connect with viewers, I decided to tell Luella’s story through a journal. I bought a leather covered journal online and aged the bejeesus out of it using coffee, watered down paint spatters, Vaseline, decoupage and sandpaper. I used an old calligraphy book to practice my Victorian handwriting with a quill pen, but decided to typeset some of the journal entries and decoupage them onto the pages, like a scrap book. It ended up being 150 pages!
I invented a notation system that Luella used to document the sound waves she heard, and came up with a back story about how she developed a system of bottling sounds with a special sonic solution. I have an AMAZING sample book of vintage perfume labels that my mom gave me for my birthday once, which I digitally reproduced for some of the jar labels. I also used some really cool reproduction Victorian scrapbook cuts that Mom had brought me back from England, probably in the 1990s.
Putting it together. Finally, we needed to do something to tie together the two sets of drawers, and to make them look old and intriguing. I had shown an old phonograph horn in my mockup (to convey the idea of sound) but I didn’t want to ruin a real one, (they’re expensive). I tried to make one out of tagboard and papier maché, but I quickly concluded that it would take many hours — cheaper to buy a replica on Ebay. One of my more flagrant budget splurges! We still needed to figure out how to attach it. Later, we cannibalized a floor lamp from our living room as a base to hold it atop the Phonarium.
Details, details. I painted the small drawers to look (sort of) like Victorian black lacquered furniture and decorated the horn and drawers with matching motifs in gold, then covered the top with some old linoleum I’d been given by a friend, (I had it tested for asbestos at a lab in Oklahoma). I added antiqued brass drawer label pulls, which I hand-lettered in vintage ink found in my mom’s shed. I discovered that old clay-coated magazine pages make a beautiful smooth surface for the ink. (Those in the photo are actually some that I tried typesetting, but I decided to hand-letter them instead.)
Inside the drawers: I papered the insides of all the drawers with public domain Victorian-era ceiling papers from Wikimedia Commons, images from Public Domain Review, and with some beautiful brocade fabric swatches I’d been given by a friend who worked for an interior design company. I lined the bee drawer with actual wax honeycomb purchased at the honey and beekeeping store downtown, and they also gave me some honeybees. MSU bee researcher, Casey Delphia came through with some bumblebees and sweat bees. My mom gave me that amazing baby doll shoe! I bought old bottles at thrift stores and antique shops. I bought the dinosaur tooth replica for the dragon drawer online, because I knew kids would love it.
Luella’s tools and instruments. I also spent a lot of time inventing Luella’s tools for capturing sounds, and made some hands-on sound toys that kids could touch and play with. I probably drove David crazy with my attempts to create a manually powered fart-horn using a bicycle horn and balloon rubber. It was never robust enough to move forward with, but was a valuable part of my artistic process. 🙂
The electronic magic behind the magic. Meanwhile, David was in his lair, soldering, wiring, and coding. He also got the job of constructing a way for the wiring to connect the computer and speakers to the drawers. He used a magnet on the back of each drawer to actuate a reed switch that signals the Raspberry Pi computer running opensource kiosk software which sound to play. (14 in all) Scrap wood and paint stirring sticks hold it all together. As a final touch, he added lighting to the moonlight drawer.
Our first beta tester was our grandson, Ira, age 3. We noted that he and his mom, Wren, didn’t notice the lower drawers, so I added brightly colored reproduction lithographs to draw the eye downward. Ira also identified that some of the drawers didn’t open and close smoothly, so David did some shimming. At this point, we didn’t have all the real sounds installed—some (such a the phone and elephant) were placeholders. We decided to keep the gong as the intro to the din drawer though, since Ira enjoyed it.
Installation Prep — Before installing at the mansion, we added plexiglass covers to the drawers, because their delicate contents would never have survived a 4-week exhibit and prodding from curious little paws without a little protection. I finished mixing and recording all my sounds, and David compressed a few to punch up the volume a bit. One drawer was going to be burps (eructations) but then I made such funny quacky farty sounds on my Theremin that I decided to put them in. (It was a mistake to make this drawer the top left! It hadn’t occurred to me that a lot of people would go top-to-bottom, left-to-right in their exploration, so “farty-quacky” was often the first drawer a lot of people encountered. 😐 )
I used a blue snowball mic and an ipad running Garageband to record Theremin, voice, mouth sounds guitar and ukulele for the tree sounds, moonlight sound, dragon snore, mermaid song, fairy opera, eructations and giantess. Friends provided some of the sounds: The dog sound is a combination of my sister Jana’s poodle Shep, and her son George’s dog, Artie. For the infant phenomenon, I used my granddaughter Bertie’s voice, spliced onto a reading of Henry V from freesound.org, which I pitch-shifted in Logic Pro. My friends Jericho and Tommy provided sounds too. I used Tommy’s epic belch as the finale of the eructation drawer, and Jericho’s hurdy gurdy and giggles as the basis of the Din drawer (a sound stain, resulting from a long-ago spill of Luella’s sonic solution). I compiled the bees, cats, steam machinery, barks, and bird song from public domain files at freesound.org.
More than 8,000 people visited the eight different artist-created cabinets at the Cabinets of Curiosity installation, (conceived, organized and sponsored by Random Acts of Silliness in Bozeman, Montana) during late April and early May of 2022. If you missed this installation, here’s a little video I made of Luella’s Phonarium. (Not all of the drawers are depicted. This other video has all of them.
January thru April in Bozeman can be a bit disheartening – it’s just cold and ice and darkness piled up on more cold and ice and darkness, and never Christmas. This year, a non-profit community arts outreach group called Random Acts of Silliness asked local artists to create engaging large-scale snow sculptures around town to help break up the monotony of winter, dress up our ubiquitous snow piles, and cause a few smiles.
My submission was Mr. Snowtatohead. I wanted to do something modular that could be installed in any of the huge berms of snow and ice that pile up around town. And what’s more modular than that famously beloved toy, Mr. Potatohead? The sculpture needed to be visible from a distance, durable enough not to blow away in a blizzard, and relatively cheap to make, ideally with reused materials.
Materials
Reused upholstery foam (kindly provided by a local company, Green Seam Designs).
Plastic platters (white part of eyes)
Large Peanut Can lids (eye pupils)
Spray Adhesive (to laminate foam)
Large plastic planter drip tray (for hat)
Picture hanging wire
Pool Noodles
PVC Pipe and t-connectors
Acrylic Paint
Tools
Drill
Electric Bread Knife (for cutting foam)
Electric fish filet knife (camping section, Walmart)
Spray bottle
I found a delightful trove of Mr. Potatohead information and history, which I highly recommend exploring. I decided to go with the look of the Mr. Potatohead iteration that was seen in Toy Story, because probably most recognizable.
Prep and Sculpting—
I up-scaled dimensions from an image to figure out how to best utilize my foam supply.
I laminated the foam sheets to a carvable thickness using 3M Super 77 spray adhesive
I outlined shapes to the up-scaled dimensions on the foam
Then I carved shapes using an electric bread knife and fileting knife
Painting— I used watered down acrylic paint that I had leftover from some prop painting a few years ago, but it was messy and time consuming using a sponge brush. Later, I used a pump-style spray bottle, which worked quite nicely. If you do this, first shake up your watered down paint really well with some weights (e.g. screws, washers, nuts) in a jar, and strain it through mesh, or it will clog up your spray bottle.
Connecting—
I connected the eye parts together by drilling a small hole and securing with a small plastic bolt. (I had also drilled two holes in each platter behind the pupil, where they wouldn’t show, to add picture wire and a PVC T connector for attaching the eye to the snowbank.
I created an oversized sewing needle from re-used utility flag wires, and sewed a loop of picture wire through each foam part, through an area that would be sturdy, but now show.
I secured the wires through the PVC T connector, so each foam piece had the bottom of the T, facing down. (I used 2 on the larger parts)
To install, I hammered 30″ PVC pipes into the snow and connected the T connectors to them.
Installation—
Random Acts staff assisted me with installing Tater, as he was soon nicknamed, first at a pile of snow in a hospital parking lot facing the waiting line for drive-through COVID testing, and after the site closed, we moved him to a big berm on the front lawn of the public library. The library loved him so much that they based a children’s library activity on him. 🙂
Later, Tater attended my mom’s 88th birthday party.
I am learning a piece by Robert Schumann on Theremin that Lydia Kavina introduced to me last weekend. It’s a lovely melody, but I was having a hard time memorizing the beats, so I wrote lyrics. Warning, if you read them it might ruin the song for you. I imagine it as a 1940s radio chanteuse (or Ella Fitzgerald) singing:
Traumerei — Robert Schumann, 1838 reimagined as a 1940s torch song by Marla Goodman 2021
In dreams Of people that I’ve seen There will never Be another Person such as you
And though I know it’s just a dream I can’t help Hoping that you might just dream Of me too
Each day No matter where I go I see faces of the boy I left behind
Each night, I lay me down to sleep And I wonder will you be Here in my mi-ind
In dreams Of people that I’ve seen I will never See another Quite as sweet as you
And though I’m all alone it seems That I will always Keep on seeking For that fellow In my dreams
August 4-31 2021 — A rootin tootin posse of local artists present a colorful, humorous and family-appropriate exhibit of works that gently poke fun at our penchant for wrapping ourselves in the trappings of the Montana Myth. On display during business hours at Wild Joe’s Coffee 18 W. Main in Bozeman, MT.
Dress Like a Cowboy or “I See By Your Outfit” Group Art Show
When songwriter Greg Keeler wrote “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Montana Cowboy,” what was he getting at? I decided to investigate—through a group art show focused on the trappings of richly imagined Western-hood.
As a member of a family that has made Montana home for seven generations, I struggle with the Montana Myth, and I saw this theme as an opportunity to poke a little fun while also playing with the grand tradition of Western wear colors, prints, iconography and mythos. This I explained in the call for entries when I invited art-makers from all walks of life to share their vision of “dressing something (or somebody) like a cowboy.” I welcomed goofy/fun interpretations and, perhaps hinted that a dash of subtle mockery was not off the table. I also stressed that works should be all-ages appropriate, and, if possible, “art that could stimulate a lively discussion with a preschooler.”
The result is a wild and wacky group of local artists, riffing on what it means to “Dress Like a Cowboy.”
Selected works are for sale through direct contact with the artists. Please see display cards at Wild Joe’s for contact information. All pieces will remain on display at Wild Joe’s through August 31, 2021. Please join the artists in thanking Wild Joes for supporting local arts and donating this display opportunity at no cost to the artists!
Join the DLAC Street Team!Download a printable Dress Like a Cowboy PDF, color or decorate it, take a photo and post on social media or share your original masterpiece in a public location you frequent.
Sneak Preview: Here are select details from the 25 works on display. A full slide retrospective will be posted after the show closes.
I sell prints, cards and other paper crafts on Etsy, so I needed a place to store packaging materials, papers, cards, envelopes, art supplies and—messiest of all well-intended things—reusable odds and ends.
I wanted to support our local economy by putting my stimulus check toward the project, so I asked a local fabricator for an estimate to make me what basically amounts to some shelving units with a table top across them. But lumber is so expensive that the estimate was four times what I thought was an ample budget. Keeping it local just wasn’t doable.
When I searched for birch shelving, ECR4Kids kept coming up, and my daughter had bought some good shelves from them, so I decided to buy three of their units and build my own storage work table with the help of my spouse, David.
We also needed a desktop, which we ended up getting for free, so that was – $0
Total cost: $651.98 (desktop was free)
Total time: ~6-8 hours
The shelves required assembly, which took a couple afternoons, and an electric screwdriver came in handy. All the pieces were there and fit nicely. They came with casters, which we chose to use. This resulted in:
Top surface of shelving 26″ wide x 48″ long, with a 9″ gap between the two 10-cubby units (where I stash a recycling sack).
We planned to haunt garage sales and resale stores for a ~30″x60″ desktop, but my sister had a 29.5 x 59″ Ikea desktop in her shed. Thanks, Sis!
Since the shelving units each has a ~3/8″ ridge that sticks up along the outer edges, we (i.e. David with his skill saw) cut a strategically placed C shape into the MDF and screwed the MDF “C” to the bottom of the desktop. This allowed the top to line up just within the ridges on the shelf unit edges. He added what he called a cleat (I would call it a wooden stop) to the inner edge of the C, to prevent the tabletop from shifting.
We may add more cleats to hold the top in place more securely, but I’m thrilled with the result and my Etsy paper craft workstation has never been tidier!
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE
Regarding Amazon links in this post: I’m a self-employed artist and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This is the Privacy Policy for Amazon. If you click on an Amazon link and buy something I get a small commission. Amazon may serve content and advertisements, collect information directly from visitors, and place or recognize cookies on visitors’ browsers when you click on their links.
My opinions are based on my first hand experience with the product.
Disclaimer: This is a free blog that WordPress monetizes by selling ad space. I do not endorse, nor do I make money from any creepy ads you may see lurking in this post.
(Except for my own book, of course! 🙂
Outside of SPELLING ukulele, tuning it is often the most terrifying thing for most beginners. Whether your ukulele (or uke) is brand new or it’s been sitting in a corner for six years, feeling confident about tuning it makes life easier and—needless to say—makes playing songs more enjoyable.
I’ll break down the basic steps of ukulele tuning below, but I’ve also made some videos to help you tune your ukulele if you’re frustrated, scared to try, or just plain mystified.
This one is a relaxed pace overall explanation of ukulele tuning for beginners.
This one is a review of the basics with even more tuning practice for people who really need some help!
This one is a simple step-by-step tuning video. It helps you tune your ukulele in about 3 minutes!
Basic Ukulele Tuning for the Absolute Beginner (or the Frustrated Novice)
Illustrations are from my book “The Easy Illustrated Book of Kids’ Ukulele Folk Songs: A first ukulele book for all ages”
Step 1. Get Out Your Ukulele (touching your instrument is key to tuning AND playing! Congratulate yourself!)
Step 2. Learn the names of your strings (Soprano, concert & tenor ukuleles are tuned GCEA in the U.S.) The G string is closest to your nose when you are holding the uke with the sound hole facing out from your body and the neck resting in your left hand. The A string is closest to your toes. I use the phrase Goats Can Eat Anything to remember string names.
This person is tuning the A string (closest to her toes)
Step 3. Listen to a reference pitch. You can use a piano, phone app, tuning fork, pitch pipe, Youtube video, etc. Even if you have an electronic tuner, listen to a reference pitch as you begin. Soprano ukulele string pitches are G4 (the G above middle C), C4 (middle C), E4 and A4.
Step 4. Hum the reference pitch. If you are starting on your G string, play the G pitch on a reference device and then use your voice to match it. If you are unable to match a pitch with your voice, try anyway, it’s good for you!
Step 5. Pluck the string (in this case, the G string, closest to your nose) and compare it to the reference pitch. Decide if your string sounds higher or lower than the reference pitch.
Step 6. Follow the string with your eyes or fingers to its peg at the head of the ukulele.
Step 7. IMPORTANT! Turn the peg a bit WHILE PLUCKING THE STRING, and notice if it is getting higher or lower. (KEEP PLUCKING! If you don’t keep plucking, you will not know if it is getting higher or lower, and your electronic tuner will not know either, because it and your ear both use the vibration of the plucked string to detect the pitch.)
Step 8. Listen and notice as you keep plucking/turning, whether your plucked string sounds like it’s getting closer to or further from the reference pitch. If it’s getting further away, turn the peg the opposite direction, but KEEP PLUCKING and LISTENING, so you can tell when it matches the reference pitch.
Step 9. STOP turning the peg when your plucked string sounds like the reference pitch. If you think you are getting close, only turn a wee itsy bit as you pluck the string. If you go past the desired pitch, don’t freak out, just pluck and turn an itsy bit the other way until it matches.
A note on confidence: Just do the best you can. Have a little faith in your ear. If you aren’t perfect at first, don’t beat yourself up about it. People with well trained ears have been practicing their listening skills a lonnnng time. Don’t let being a beginner bum you out. Babies never think, “I should be better at walking, everyone else is on two feet, and here I am clinging to the table.” Just do your thing and try to forget that self judgment exists.
About electronic tuners
It’s fine to use an electronic tuner to help you tune. But be aware that musical pitches go upward in sort of a spiral, e.g., A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A (an octave higher from the first A). Thus, when your tuner displays something like D, you need to have some awareness of whether it’s the D above or below your desired pitch!
By the way, # means sharp, which means higher than. So when you see G# on your tuner it means it’s halfway between G and A (higher than G). Similarly, D# means halfway between D and E, so it’s lower than E. This can be a bit confusing, which is another reason it helps to listen to a reference pitch. (Flat, (b) means lower than.)
More tips about electronic tuners: —Some tuners can pick up other sounds (birds tweeting, people talking) so if your needle is jumping all over the place, that’s probably why. If your tuner has vibration mode, use it to prevent this problem. Or, tune in a quiet room. —Tuners can be calibrated to different frequency standards. Usually in the U.S. we use the standard where the A4 pitch = 440 Hz (vibration cycles per second). It’s pretty easy, if you’re pressing buttons, to accidentally change your tuner’s calibration, so if your tuner seems way off, double check that it’s set at 440.
What are you waiting for!
Go back to Step 1 (Get out your Ukulele!) and click this link to hear reference pitches for G C E and A, and tune up!
If you have never played ukulele and want an easy starter book, here’s a link to my book. The Easy Illustrated book of Kids’ Ukulele Folk Songs: A first ukulele book for all ages. I wrote and illustrated it especially for people who really wanted an easy beginning to boost their confidence. It covers holding, strumming, tuning, and playing 12 easy songs that you will most likely be familiar with. Most of the songs only contain two chords, and I drew amazing illustrations and diagrams to help you succeed! The content is written with parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians and childcare providers in mind, but it’s also a great book for the adult who wants to start easy, or to teach their child, grandchild or grandparent! 🙂
Disclaimer: This is a free blog that WordPress monetizes by selling ad space. I do not endorse, nor do I make money from any creepy ads you may see lurking in this post.
I have made a video of the Big Brownpaper Christmas Mouse Alphabet Storybook, read by Brownpaper Granny herself, which you are welcome to share if you like.
Brownpaper Granny reads the Big Brownpaper Christmas Mouse Alphabet Storybook on Youtube
There are two versions: One has some “the making of” backstory with Brownpaper Granny (8 minutes total) https://youtu.be/lGRCZjTnFK8 And one has just the story:
Goodwerks Creative 
