Losing My Religion : Hayling Ukulele Festival...
- Jon Wheeler
- 14 hours ago
- 2 min read
This year I had the privilege of being asks to teach a workshop at the Hayling Island Ukulele Festival. This festival is one, if not the biggest, of our local ukulele festivals and features literally hundreds of performers from local groups, plus several more professional bands.
Okay, so I've played in an R.E.M. tribute band (REMbrandt) for over eleven years, so it was the organiser's contention that I would be the ideal person to try and impart some wisdom on possibly R.E.M.s most famous song, 'Losing My Religion'. I hasten to add that in those hundreds of gigs, I never had to play the ukulele, nor sing the actual song, so I don't profess to be an expert at either. It is a favourite of our ukulele group 'Coustics' though, so I was happy to oblige!
This therefore is a little bit of a playalong for those people whom either attended the workshop and wish to practice further, or I suppose, for anyone who missed it. The attached notes therefore are our group's arrangement, plus how to play the introduction, bridge and outro sections which feature prominently on the original record, and were played by R.E.M.s guitarist Peter Buck on a mandolin. (Nice fella, very chatty and keen on brightly coloured shirts....anyway, I digress).
Below therefore is a download of the worksheets I handed out, a basic video for you to play along to or practice against should you wish, and a shorter video of me playing the introduction, bridge and outro sections.
If this is the first time on my blog....
Hi! This blog is free, and it's free to subscribe. Subscribing means that you will very occasionally receive an email from me telling you about the blogs I've written most recently... don't worry it doesn't happen often, and I can assure you that your email address is not used for anything else - in fact, it's stored on the site system, I don't even get access to it.
In the blog you'll find short articles about loads of different music related stuff, including other ukulele chord sheets, play alongs and lessons.
I'm a guitar and ukulele tutor, running three acoustic music groups called 'Coustics' (you can find us on facebook, we meet near Bognor and Chichester in West Sussex), I play in loads of bands, run open mic nights, and I'm a songwriting tutor on the 'I Am A Songwriter' online platform.
If you have any questions about anything I do, please get in touch.
If you attended the workshop - thank you, you were a great group, and I hope you felt your learnt something! I'm teaching again at this year's Southdowns Music Festival in Bognor Regis in September - perhaps I will see some of you there.
First of all, perhaps listen to the original if you are unfamiliar - it is somewhat faster than we played it last weekend ;-)
The original track.....
Download your worksheet here.....
Basic song play through....
Intro, Bridge and Outro demonstration....
Comments