It was lovely to have my daughter over for a few days. It did highlight how nice in the end it is to get your own space back again though. We used to laugh at our parents when they said they have their routine and hated being put out of it!
Kate is not the tidiest of people and don't get me started on the Bathroom! She has a knack of splashing water everywhere whether taking a shower or just a face wash!
Hugukuleletv123 well we finally went live last Friday and to say it was daunting would be an understatement! So thanks to Kate for jumping in and running everything. I know I have a steep learning curve but please bear with me as it will vastly improve things for us and of course for you. Hopefully, you got a taster of things during the Fridays stream. the major one being the opportunity to stream video whilst also doing other things like lyric/song projection to play along to. It's probably true that the best experience is on a larger screen and connecting to a Smart TV is ideal. It has long been the case that good Broadband is no longer a luxury but a necessity and the current situation is highlighting this as more and more social interaction is on line.
I deliberately went live last Friday because Kate was still here and we would learn so much from a live trial. She only finished installing everything the day before so there was no real time for me to learn. I have learned a lot in the past week and no doubt will continue to do so. It is mostly about the different ways a PC handles data and file management, boring I know and not necessary for you fortunately. The importance for our stream is because I will utilise many different sources so need to be able to store retrieve, copy and import files.
So Friday, I am flying solo! Expect mistakes but should be fun. I had lined up for us to stream out a live session of Geoff, Sheila and myself playing but circumstances have intervened to prevent this. So I will get creative to combine pre recorded material and Youtube content that I hope you will enjoy. Unlike the Audio files we had been using where we had 50 or so songs to select from we are only just building a stock of video recordings. I am sure you would get bored playing the same songs each week! So we will mix things on Fridays.
Do please make video recordings if you want to. I am working on file transfer as a next priority so I can stream them. Don't send me anything as yet though please.
Quick Lessons, Fridays Lesson ended up a little disjointed as it was the first thing we did going live so sorry for that but thank you for persisting!
I have posted the Quick Lesson 12 on our website in the usual place. This should clarify things for you. I hope you are taking something from these sessions. Our current situation is an ideal opportunity to not stand still but improve the variety of our playing.
I will continue with another Lesson on Friday for those of you joining us.
If any of you have any particular topics you would like us to cover then let me know for future Lessons. The criteria is that it will break down in to sessions of about 10 minutes so that it can be a Quick Lesson.
Currently, I record the support video n Sunday morning, my aim though is to start recording the Lesson from the Friday Lesson and make this available virtually immediately, I am now able to do that. In effect that means you can review the lesson whenever you want.
This facility to learn on line will be useful in normal times.
Quiz Night, ok so last night we attempted something unique by introducing an Interactive Quiz to our night. I wanted to give this a go so that we can be more involved than simply reading out questions. For those of you who hung on in there as we resolved teething problems a very big thank you, I hope you are not deterred from future Interactive quizzes! I am sorry if you gave up but it was inevitable we would have initial problems. Firstly, the Quiz is very much in development and secondly the fact that we all have different systems and quality of internet connection made it harder to resolve start up problems. All in all you did really well with what is something totally new to you. Kate came to the rescue and talked through the problems thankfully only a few experienced.
We ran the Quiz and at least people got to experience being able to participate by interacting with the questions on screen very much in the mode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The answers and scores are displayed also.
The only minor issue is to enable the quiz to record your score on the scoreboard using your Twitch name. If this isn't done it doesn't stop people participating but means people are simply identified as a Candidate number. I think we all learned a lot so now we know what to expect. A the last moment Kate showed me how to get some background game music playing, so much better! Next week we will combine the quiz with playing along with some songs. And of course a music round to recall memories.
If you didn't join us then please do, I will go through an initial trial of 2 questions to help you understand. it is only a question of getting used to it.
Youtube, we are building our following on our Youtube Channel HUGUKULELE and continue to grow the number of hits videos get, thanks go to all who are promoting our channel.
The whole thing about Hugukulele123 is that it is here for all of our benefit with people involved as much or as little as they want. One thing is clear though because the channel is deliberately open access others can join in if they want. There are people who we know who have not been able to play ukulele for some time and it would be great for them and others to tune in and participate so if you know people like this encourage them to tune in, they will be very welcome.
The best way to promote joining us is to tell people to visit our website:- thewus.co.uk as this contains all the ways to join in whether it's how to join us on Twitch, how to visit our Youtube Channel, songs and lots more.
Finally, let me say I do not take your support for granted and thank you at this stage for supporting what we are trying to do to hold us together in these unique times. In particular Geoff and Sheila who have been tireless in their promotion, support and making themselves available when asked. There is more to come but it is pointless if people no longer tune in, sadly only half do. Knowing that you are getting something from what we are doing is my motivation to continue.
Dave