The 6th Newkulele Festival
18-20 october 2024

In this workshop, Graeme “The Scotsman” McColgan will lead you to captivating stage performances with your uke.

This workshop focuses on building confidence through simple techniques, engaging your audience, and enhancing your overall stage presence. Learn techniques to express yourself, connect with your listeners, and deliver memorable performances.

Perfect for ukulele enthusiasts of all levels, this workshop will help you shine on stage and make your music truly resonate.

Jo and Ruth have decades of singing experience from their early days with the Café of the Gate of Salvation choir to teaching and performing.

They will help you get the best out of your vocals and teach you how to harmonise with others.

What makes a performance captivating? What are the steps you can take to prepare before your performance to make sure everything runs smoothly? Are there any tips and techniques you can use if you are nervous while performing?

This fun and interactive workshop covers the do’s and dont's for getting started with performing, including the gear that you’ll need, what you’ll need to do before you get on stage and how you can draw the audience in while you are there.

Melissa Saunders works full-time at Hive Creative Studios in Charlestown as the director of their under 8’s Creative programmes, including uke, xylophone and percussion. She is willing to work with local existing ukulele groups from local schools or uke groups to create a performance for the festival. Alternatively, depending on your expected attendees, she could run a parent attended music experience with children under 7.

Get down the dusty end and into the interesting shapes and places.

Demystify chords and all those funny words like “Inversions” and “Voicings”.

Make C, F, Am and G7 a challenge again!

Campanella Ukulele – for high G soprano/concert/tenor ukuleles. Sally Carter will show you how to make your ukulele sound like a harp by playing as many open strings as possible when playing a tune.

Three tunes will be looked at and different techniques will be discussed.

TAB reading skills required.

Have you ever wanted to learn the bass? Every uke group needs one!

Come and learn the basics from Newcastle’s premier Ubass teacher, John Wallace, and leave with the skills to accompany your uke group effectively on almost any song.

In this workshop I cover:

• Microphones – types, pickup patterns, care and feeding Microphone use – How to correctly use them for both vocals and ukes.
• Pickups, volume/tone controls and the audio frequency spectrum.
• Amplifiers.
• Wireless transmitters – types, range and some interesting facts before buying one.
• Basic mixing desk controls and techniques.

Are you interested in learning the art of planning and hosting successful events? Would you like to seize control of your earning potential as a musician? In this interactive workshop, you’ll delve into the “how to” of event planning, covering everything from initial concept development through budgeting and marketing all the way to post-event evaluation.

Whether you’re organising a fundraiser, a community music event, or (as a working musician) you’d like to reduce your reliance on venue bookings and maybe host your own successful workshops; this session will equip you with the essential skills and knowledge needed to execute your own flawless events from start to finish.

Your workshop hosts, Graeme McColgan (NSW) and Jackie Barnes (TAS) have over 30 combined years of experience planning and hosting successful community & corporate events, festivals, workshops and one-off specialty functions. Graeme, as musician and dance caller, has organised and performed at events for decades in the UK and Europe as well as his new home of Australia. Jackie has been a vocalist for over 10 years in multiple successful bands and is Festival Director of the annual Launceston Ukulele Jamboree.

This workshop will show how to incorporate Latin American music rhythm concepts such as the Clave, strumming styles and melodic elements into your playing, with original compositional examples as well as well known Latin American music classics.

Abe has extensive experience as a music teacher, performer of Latin American music for over 30 years and has a fun and knowledgeable teaching style.

Who can write a song? You can!

Prolific songwriter, Jane Cameron brings her interactive and engaging introduction to songwriting to Newkfest. Whether you are 10 years old or 80 years old, Jane will share simple tips and tricks to provide a low stakes, fun and collaborative entry into songwriting.

Together you will unblock your creativity and find the path to free your inner songwriter!

A feature of the Coolibah Coolective repertoire is writing music to poems we love, for example we do a musical interpretation of Ariel’s Song from Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’.

Ahead of the workshop we circulate a poem – perhaps keeping it local with a poem by a local poet (subject to permission from the poet). Participants are encouraged to bring along their voices and/or instruments to add to the song that we write together.

In the first half of the workshop we discuss the musical vibes the poem conveys to participants; how we (Coolibah Coolective) go about creating our own parts; and seek input from the group.

In the second half, participants jam out the song ideas we have worked up together. We record the end result (phone) and share with participants.

Audience participation is key and the skill level and teaching techniques used ensures this workshop is accessible to people of all ages.

David Megarrity and Samuel Vincent (Tyrone and Lesley) offer a workshop in which we learn a new song, ‘Strumalong’: a tune about the joys of playing in uke groups, designed for uke groups to play.

The experience, open to players of all skill levels, offers learning around half-chords, simple strumming and basic choral singing. Along the way we may learn more about the mysterious art of songwriting.