Workshops
Saturday, July 11
Buda, TX
Bob Guz, Kevin Carroll, Neal Kassanoff, and Dan Piccuirro bring you workshops for many levels of play, and for a variety of interests.
9:00 a.m. to 9:45 a.m.
Coffee/arrival/check-in at Buda United Methodist Church
9:45 – 10:45 a.m.
Workshop Block 1
at Buda United Methodist Church
Bob Guz
Strum With Confidence: From Foundations to Mastery
Unlock the full potential of your ukulele in this hands-on workshop dedicated to developing a strong and confident strum. Using practical exercises and drills, we'll explore: cultivating a fluid yet powerful strum hand; replicating strum patterns accurately; switching up strum patterns in different parts of a song; and coordinating strums with chord changes.
This session is open to players of all levels. We'll start with the fundamental mechanics and layer on more advanced skills as we go, ensuring that beginners get a firm start and seasoned players find fresh challenges.
9:45 – 10:45 a.m.
Workshop Block 1
at Buda United Methodist Church
Kevin Carroll
Maximizing Musicality on the Ukulele
A Kinesthetic, Ensemble-Based Experience
This workshop explores how greater musicality on the ukulele emerges from the whole body—not just the fingers and hands. Through simple, body-aware movement and listening exercises, we’ll focus on relaxed hand position, efficient motion, consistent rhythm, and a fuller, more resonant tone.
Rather than relying on charts, visuals, or handouts, this session emphasizes sensing, listening, and playing together in real time. Participants will experience how posture, breath, and natural movement directly influence groove, timing, and ease of playing.
The workshop will culminate in a notation-free, in-the-moment ensemble experience—an ad hoc “Ukestra”—where the group creates layered rhythms and textures through shared pulse and deep listening.
This session is welcoming to all levels. No advanced technique or music reading is required—just curiosity, openness, and a ukulele. (All Levels)
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Workshop Block 2
at Buda United Methodist Church
Bob Guz
Understanding the Circle of Fifths
Start using the Circle of Fifths as the ultimate musical GPS. In this hands-on workshop, we'll demystify its construction and dive into its practical applications. By understanding how keys and chords relate to one another, you’ll gain a deeper "under the hood" look at why your favorite songs sound the way they do.
We’ll explore a variety of musical styles to see the Circle in action, learning how to predict chord progressions and transpose songs on the fly. This session will provide the roadmap you need to navigate the ukulele fretboard with clarity and precision. While players of all levels are welcome, this session is best suited for those with a knowledge of basic major and minor chords.
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Workshop Block 2
at Buda United Methodist Church
Kevin Carroll
Blues Modularity: Re-purposing Blues Elements for Maximum Musical Expression
"Blues was my first real musical language and one that I love to share with fellow ukulele players. The focus of this course will be on applying the same skills and concepts in varying contexts for modularity and adaptability that will challenge IKEA. This continuous course will include deep-dives into Major and Minor 12-bar progressions, Blues scales, judgement-free soloing practice, classic blues riffs, rhythms, solos and melodies. Requires some note-reading and/or tablature reading experience." -Kevin Carroll (intermediate/advanced, low-G and high-G friendly.)
1:15 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.
Workshop Block 3
at Buda United Methodist Church
Dan Piccuirro
As much as we love our campfire chords, and their ease of use, adventure awaits when you leave home. In this workshop we learn how to apply what we know about the open chords and we begin climbing up the neck. We take the foundational shapes that you know well, and learn how these patterns can be applied in a range of keys, and in a larger octave range. This is a fundamental step in journey of visualizing the fret board for both melody and harmony, and helps players to see how much more they can get out of their instrument.
Through this workshop, you will see that what you have already learned in home position gives a lot of clues for what you can do as you play up the neck. Look forward to finding new ways to voice the same old chords and to venture into a whole new level of compositional and harmonic skill.
1:15 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.
Workshop Block 3
at Buda United Methodist Church
Neal Kassanoff
Ukulele often plays the role of tried and true accompaniment for singers, but there’s so much more to unveil with harmonized arrangements. In this workshop, we learn to play a melody first, and then we discover how we can accompany our own melodic thru-line. By discovering the operating principles, the formula emerges, and a well spring of arrangement skills become apparent.
The workshop begins with an easily learned sample arrangement, plus the plucking, strumming and sweeping techniques needed to master it. Following this, we explore the “why” of what we have performed, and how can take any melody and find the right notes for creating rich accompaniments for our ukulele melodies.
3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Workshop Block 4
at Meridian Venue, Buda
Grand Finale Workshop
Bob Guz, Kevin Carroll and Neal Kassanoff each offer up their favorite songs to teach, and invite all participants to join in for this last workshop hurrah before the concert begins early evening.