Events survey outcomes

Back in late October, we asked members to give us their thoughts on the events and workshops we have run and their opinions and ideas for future events.  

Events Survey Results:  

Thank you to all those people who completed our recent Events survey.

The objective of the survey was to find out the types of workshops and events you would like us to organise.

We got 29 responses in all. Of these,19 replies from members who described themselves as having intermediate ukulele skills, 5 replies were from beginners and 5 replies from advanced players.

Skills Focus for Workshops

The survey provided a list of choices for workshops. Respondents were most interested in

• Improving their playing, particularly the use of riffs to make their playing more interesting,
• Fingerpicking,
• Strumming patterns.

Another favourite was choosing the right key to suit your voice.

Of less interest were workshops on chord progressions, bar chords and exploring music theory and the ukulele. (A quarter of respondents were interested in those topics.)

There was little interest from our respondents in overcoming performance anxiety or learning skills to lead a jam.

Open questions

One of the best parts of surveys is asking for ideas and comments.

Suggestions for other workshops:

• How to play music by ear
• How to maintain your uke – care, changing strings etc.
• How to play bass – beginner to advanced
• Playing in an ensemble, a small band workshop
• Sound – How to set up sound systems – for small bands / workshops/ jams
• How to play different genres – eg. Reggae, Folk, Blues, Country blues, Country, Irish, Australian, American traditional, Ragtime, Jazz, Dixiland, Zydeco, Funk, R & B, Rock n Roll, Gypsy Jazz
• Songwriting
• Some respondents wanted more workshops run by interstate and international players like those run recently by Sally Carter, Wild Women of Nowhere Beach and James Hill.

Suggestions for events

There was support for more performances by BUMS bands (and other ukulele bands) at events like World Ukulele Day, SPRUKE on the Square, the Planetarium, Concerts and Cabarets.  New venues were suggested to spread the fun of ukulele to the wider public, such as in Queens Street Mall, Ukulele by The Bay, or a Battle of the Bands.

Suggestions were also made for performance opportunities at events to be advertised beforehand so that individual and group performers know about and can apply to participate in those performances.  Suggestions were made for NUMB BUMS to repeat the jams they ran on their practice nights some time back and to offer more day-time jams both on the north and south side.

The survey responses will help us to investigate and plan relevant future workshops and events for everyone.

Events Manager