HUG NEWS 56 2nd September 20

Well at long last it looks as though my daughter Kate will be able to make the journey over from Germany. It will be great to see her as it is now over 12 months since we last saw each other what with lock downs and the collapse of Flybe. It will be good to spend some quality time with her and enjoy a break. I have to admit it is time to recharge the batteries after a pretty full on six months. So this Blog is to lay out what is happening over the first part of September.

Hugukulele123, whilst it will not be possible to play a live stream as we have been doing I will continue to stream so please don't abandon our sessions! Because I had commandeered the spare bedroom and turned it in to a studio I need to convert it back in to a bedroom for a few weeks. So I am not sure Kate would appreciate three of us banging out tunes and streaming pictures of her in bed! I am hoping to have a variety of items for you including of course playalongs.

Timetable:

Friday 4th September Stream time as normal for about an hour from 10.30am

Quick Lessons: I will continue with these , so from 10.00am we will feature the Lesson.

We are currently working on enhancing our chords, I introduced the Finger lift as a simple technique to enhancing songs with few chords. We are using Jambalya as the basis for learning these techniques. This week I will expand on this technique adding a bit more complexity. As usual, I have posted a Quick Lesson Video of last Fridays Lesson for you to use as a guide and to review as often as you want. I will do this after each Lesson.

Like anything you are learning it takes time to become natural. Don't get discouraged and do ensure that you apply the techniques you are learning. It will be pointless just learning something new but not applying it as you play.

Friday 11th September, we will try to have a live session with Sheila, Geoff and myself as my daughter will be away in Wales, have to confirm this though as I may have to start dismantling the current set up to help Kate when setting up what is a completely new system.

Poetry, thank you to those who have sent in their poem. They are very good and it is great to once again see what a talented lot you are. There is no deadline so please do give it a go, especially if you have never done anything like this. Have a go you will surprise yourself and will be very well received. The aim is for the poems to be narrated so that I can stream them out. Who better to do this than the author, after all you know how it should be read.

Its very easy to record either via your phone or computer or Tablet. It is just a question of attaching in an email to me.

New Computer enhancements! As I said Kate will bring over the new PC and after her holiday will install everything and give me guidance on how to use everything! It is a PC and not an Apple Mac so a lot of things for me to get my head around. Also, there are many features that we cannot currently use because of limitations on my Apple Mac.

We will be able to record streams and so be able to review and access them whenever we want.

I will hold back on all of the features for now but will highlight them as soon as I can. One key change will be that there will be two cameras, this gives a lot of opportunities for us.

Set up will happen over a week or so. It is likely you will get Twitch notifications of Hugukulele123 being live at odd times. As before, this will be because we are trying things out and ensuring they work. If you do join the stream its fine but it is unlikely to be interesting as you are likely just to see and hear Kate and myself talking and trying technical things. You are very welcome to have a peek at any time, just say hi.

Friday 18th September, this will be the target date for the launch of the new system.

I will keep you informed to confirm. I am very much looking forward to the new possibilities for us.

Youtube: I continue to post to our Youtube Channel so please keep checking out, subscribing if you haven't already. And of course encouraging friends and family to follow us.

Hug and Lettuce Quiz, we continue to quiz on Tuesdays with a hardcore of quizzers.

We quizzed last night and were raided by a group who joined us, not knowing what was going on. After initial trepidation that they would be a pain and thinking I may have to kick them out through the site monitor they were in fact good guys who joined in. It was clear that they were not of our age because very well known to us 60s songs threw them! They promised to join in again! We will see. we will continue to Quiz Tuesdays for the foreseeable.

Linking: One thing I am keen to do is to make everything linked so that it is easy for you to move around our various media. You will find clickable links within the website.

I am currently linking the Original Songs via our website and Youtube so that you don't have to leave the website to go to a Youtube Video.

You will also find that our songlist will start to have links from songs to "recorded from live" videos from our Friday live sessions.

As soon as I can, we will start to record sessions involving others for streaming and linking in our website.

So, I hope you don't mind but I will be spending some quality time with Kate and enjoying some days in Wales. I don't want to stop streaming as we swop over though. I am sure you will enjoy the new possibilities for our stream. It will set us up with a resource that will firstly enhance our streams and secondly support our learning when we are finally back together.

See you Friday, for those following the Quick Learning lessons I will go live from 9.50am ready for a 10.00am start. Then from 10.30am we will have our streamed session.

Hope to see you. Thank you for your support.

Dave