It’s a Friday evening in the Oates Performing Arts Center on the campus of St. Paul’s School and if you listen closely, you can hear the light strumming of a few ukuleles.
But it isn’t a concert or a class; rather it’s just members of the Concord Ukes – or CUkes – during their bi-weekly jam session.
The jams happen on Fridays (the next one is this week), and really, all it consists of is a group of ukulele enthusiasts, of all abilities, getting together to play some music.
There’s no performances or rehearsals – just people who like to play the ukulele.
The email list is about 40 names long and on a good night, a dozen or so will show up. When we happened to stop by for the final January jam, it was a small contingent of three, but it didn’t stop them from putting out some great tunes.
“There’s no typical size. There might be three, there might be 12. It depends on the night,” said Bill Potter, who formed the group with his wife, Debbie.
They played classics like “Obladi Oblada” by the Beatles and “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley, among many others. There’s a collection of songs – about 70 or 80 – that the Potters put together with everything from the ‘20s and ‘30s to contemporary. So don’t be surprised if you hear Lady Gaga one minute and the Who right after.
“And if someone has a song they want us to play, I tell them to email me or bring a copy,” Bill said.
How it works is simple: One person picks a song, the group plays the chords and sings the words (singing is optional) and then they go around in the circle so everyone has a chance to play the song they want. Once everyone has had a chance to choose a song, they go around again until the session is over.
Each jam session runs for about an hour and half, although it has been known to go longer if everyone is having a good time.
“If you can play a chord and are happy to be here, that’s enough,” Bill said.
The great thing about the CUkes is that you don’t have to be a master ukulele player to take part – you don’t even actually have to know how to play. Those who decide to attend one of the jams can play as many or as few songs as they’d like.
“We tell people to play the chords they know,” Bill said.
The group formed when someone in the Upper Valley Ukulele Club (which the Potters are also members of) mentioned they had a list of prospective players in the Concord area looking to jam and if someone was interested, there was basically a group ready to go. The Potters decided to take on the task of getting it up and running – and that was three years ago.
“I wanted it to be available for students and the community,” Bill said. “Anyone who asks, I put them on the email list.”
The Potters still play with the Upper Valley group every other Monday, as well as the Southern N.H. Ukulele Group on the off Fridays for the CUkes.
And while we thought it would just be the Potters and Susanne Kibler-Hacker during our visit, in walked Callie Burkhart. Burkhart had heard about the group from a fellow St. Paul’s student, but was usually too busy on Friday nights to make it over.
But with it being a surprise holiday, her Friday night opened up. Burkhart had never played the ukulele before. She played the guitar when she was younger, and her cousin offered to teach her, but that had yet to happen.
So the trio stopped what they were doing, grabbed one of the extra ukuleles and taught her a few chords.
“Those of us who are experienced help out,” Debbie said. “And we have a lot of ukuleles, so there’s always extras.”
Soon enough, she was jamming out with the group, and even picked a song – “Brown Eyed Girl.”
Teaching people the art of ukulele playing is just something the group likes to do. They want more players out there.
As you can tell, it’s a pretty relaxed environment. So if you play and are looking for a group to jam with, email Bill at concordukes@icloud.com. If you’re interested in learning, you should do the same.
They always have a few extras for those who don’t want to make the investment quite yet (thanks to group members and borrowing from the SPS Ukulele Society), which we learned is only about $40 for a quality instrument.
The next get-together is Friday at 6 p.m. and it goes until whenever everyone has had enough jamming.
