Burning Uke or Bust! My Burning Uke Experiences So Far!

Tomorrow night right when I get off work, the adventure begins as I head over the hill to Little Basin up in the Santa Cruz mountain redwoods – to Burning Uke X campout! I’ve looked forward to this all year. This will be my third Burning Uke experience. I’m excited and anxious – how many ukuleles shall I bring? The first year I only had one ukulele and now I have five!

Burning Uke 8  my first Burning Uke Experience (September 2010)

“Mom are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Jeremy asked me as he handed me the tent I’d ask to borrow.

“Of course I will! It’s going to be fun.”

“But who are these burning ukulele people and I hope someone helps you with the tent…”

“Don’t worry!” I laughed.  Although, I was new to the ukulele world, I felt as if I fit right in.

Just two months earlier, I had seen a sign at my long-time favorite coffee shop, Dana Street Roasting, in downtown Mountain View – the coffee shop where my youngest daughter pretty much grew up, my regular hang-out place. So many memories at this coffee shop. The sign said, “Ukulele Singalong Jam, Second Monday Nights!”

My friend Mike gave me a ukulele. It was incredibly random. Although it was a baritone ukulele, the largest of them, he said he tuned it like a soprano ukulele – the re-entrant G-C-E-A tuning. At first I wasn’t happy because I knew guitar chords and this meant I’d have to learn how to play a whole new set of chords – I wondered if I would ever even be able to do that. So I’d downloaded some chord diagrams off the internet and messed around with the ukulele – remembering that really cool chick who called herself “Ukulele Donna” the one time I was able to visit Maui for a week – and how she’d showed me a few ukulele chords. But she played the ukulele upside down and left-handed because “that’s how my grandfather taught me,” she explained. So I was more than a little confused yet mesmerized by this wonderful happy-sounding instrument that always reminded me of Maui and magical places.

So I took my ukulele to Dana Street Roasting Coffee Shop expecting a few people with ukuleles. Nothing prepared me for well over 75 people with ukuleles! I remember Dave Fitchner, a happy guy with a deep voice, welcomed me as I walked in and offered people loaner ukuleles. I managed to find a seat at a table with a couple of other ukulele players – and I couldn’t stop looking around the room. I don’t think this coffee shop had ever been so crowded. We all played and sang songs, and I was still thrilled to see the signs Lynn held up reminding me of the ukulele chords from diagrams I downloaded from this website. This was all amid having to move from Mountain View to San Jose and all the craziness of my life.

People told me about the large group of people who play ukuleles on the beach in Santa Cruz and a couple of weeks later I had to check it out for myself. I was hooked. Next thing I knew, I had signed up for Burning Uke campout – I’d only been playing the ukulele for a couple of months in my spare time.

A few days before Burning Uke 8, someone sideswiped my car and totaled it, so I had to get a ride to the campout – Bob Carson, an 82-year-old semi-retired orthopedic surgeon guy, who played ukulele and could sing bass beautifully, offered. So armed with a tent borrowed from my son, assorted mattress pads, one ukulele (the only one I owned), a purple music stand I’d just purchased and the Santa Cruz Ukulele songbooks, we headed out in Bob Carson’s truck towards Plaskett Park in Big Sur. I got to listen to his amazing stories as we made that frightening journey down Highway 1, the truck swerving just a little too much at times when Bob would doze for a just a moment and then immediately wake up again. I had forgotten how beautiful the Big Sur area was – breathtaking ocean views.

We managed to get there in one piece and thankfully people welcomed us and helped me set up the tent Jeremy lent me – turned out to be a huge 7-person tent just for me!

Burning Uke 8 (September 2010) - my FIRST Burning Uke with my FIRST and only ukulele!

Darkness enveloped us quickly at Plaskett Creek Park down at Big Sur where I'd gone for Burning Uke 8 - it was a Thursday night, so no big community music jam was planned, just a group of people getting together to sing and play by the campfire. I fumbled around in the tent I got help setting up for stuff.  It was so dark and I couldn't really see anything. I could hear rustling outside and hear the ocean tide, though. I managed to find a flashlight and the special LED light, and the black case that had my purple music stand in it...and of course the Uke and the songbooks.

I just followed the music as I tripped a couple of times on uneven ground and a small hill towards the people playing and singing by a huge roaring fire. As I approached, suddenly a glowing set of lights in the shape of a ukulele high up on a tree lit up and everyone cheered.

"Welcome to Burning Uke!" I could hear someone say. Everyone cheered again - I saw shadows of people, most with ukes. Oh and there was that hyperactive hippie guy, Pat, whom I'd seen at the Santa Cruz Beach jams on Saturday mornings before.  I couldn't miss him even in the darkness with his bright-colored tie-dye on. He had this huge upright bass he'd made and he never stopped moving and dancing while he played. People sat on benches and folding chairs, some stood, music stands with yellow lights shined dully, and then there were the headlights that people wore on their heads that constantly moved. I didn't feel comfortable with one of those headlights. Somehow my LED light and my books ended up sitting on a wooden picnic table and when it got completely dark, I couldn't find them again - I hoped they wouldn't get mixed with others. I finally stood up with my uke strapped on - thankful that I had a shoulder strap for it and looked on with a couple of other people huddled around a music stand, with someone's head light (literally on people's heads) guiding us as someone would call out a song number from our Santa Cruz ukulele songbooks.

Amid the campfire smoke blended with sea air, we sang and sang, and I played even when my hands felt too cold to strum or finger the chords, feeling the strings of the uke against me - I could see some of the ladies, two of them called "the Hula girls" whom I thought I recognized from Santa Cruz, dancing close to the campfire as we played song after song 

Some songs I knew and some I didn't. I played them all and I didn't care if my fingers got sore. I thought of my friend Mike. This was all because of him - he gave me a ukulele and now here I was surrounded by all these people at a campsite playing music. Who knew this would happen?

This guy named Andy, who apparently was one of the founders of Burning Uke, played some really cool stuff on his tiny ukulele - he and his wife had traveled all the way from Hawaii to be here. It was so much fun - I wasn't a spectator, I was playing right along with everyone else. When everyone finally decided it was time to go back to their tents to get ready for a long, serious weekend of workshops, jams and playing. With the fire going down and people with headlights and flashlights heading down the hill to their tents, I became a little frightened - I didn't want to say anything to anyone, but how the heck was I going to find my stuff, get down the hill and find my tent? I could feel the dampness in the air as I managed to find my books which had become damp and my LED light. Carrying all of my things, I slowly made my way down the hill, trying to keep hold of my flashlight - towards the tents. I could hear people laughing and talking in the dark.

The weekend was filled with cool, ocean breezes amid sunshine and a whirlwind of ukulele workshops and jams, walks to the beach first thing in the morning, more ukulele playing and workshops, strumming until the late night hours…by the end of the four-day weekend, I knew how to play the ukulele.

Check out the Burning Uke 8 Photos here.

Burning Uke 9 – September 2011

This year I’m an expert! I've actually acquired three ukuleles and I've been to a couple of ukulele festivals and played on the beach in Santa Cruz a whole bunch of times, San Jose Uke Club, San Francisco Uke Rebellion -- and even jammed with the Sacramento Ukulele gang -- I've traveled far and wide with my ukuleles.  This year I brought my beautiful flame mahagony Kala ukulele with the pickup and the built-in tunor along with my tie-dye fluke ukulele.   I know all about Burning Uke and sort of what to expect. 

It's a good thing I brought my tie-dye fluke uke to Burning Uke 9 with me because it's made of plastic and cool, damp weather won't hurt it!

This time I got to sleep in a motor home for most of the weekend because I lent my car to Myrleen from the Monterey Ukulele Club so she her dog could be in a performance of Annie in Monterey. That worked out well. The damp, drizzly cool weather off and on over the weekend did not diminish the bright shining lights of Burning Uke 9 at all, the last year it would be held at Plaskett Creek Park in Big Sur we'd been told by Marty. The sun peeked in and out of the clouds, and the fog and dampness didn't stop us from strumming our ukes, or from festive singing and general merry making well into the evenings.

One evening a roaring fire in the fire pit at the top of the hill of our campsite kept us warm as we played and sang, but soon the group moved down the hill to a campsite. I made my way down to the campsite to sing and play some more -- even though it was cold and damp staring longingly at the nice, warm fire at the top of the hill.

"Hey, everyone, let's go up to the fire where it's warm!" I said several times between songs.

All of a sudden, Bobbi, Jay, Wendy and gang broke into a lovely song on the fly -- in perfect harmony, which sang "Mary, bring the fire down here!" It was amazing...they had created the song just for me and sang it for a very long time...

In the evenings, lights danced through the campsite and Sandor and Carolee led us all in songs -- people went up to sing and play and the people from the Hang Gliding campsite next door migrated over and participated too. This year the workshops made so much sense -- Alan taught us the Hesitation Blues and I learned to play Yellowbird -- Rhan had us all dancing and stomping in rhythm on a damp afternoon.

the fog didn't stop some of us from walking on the beach.

Me and Cherie on the beach at Big Sur on a BEAUTIFUL gray morning!!!

The Beatles jam led by Pat and Carolee was definitely one of the major highlights of the weekend!!! I was thrilled to be able to help lead! Eileen kept rhythm on conga, and Cliff from the Strum Bums played the washboard!



The sun even came out for a while while we played Beatles songs! It was one of the most popular jams of the weekend! I was excited to be a part of it.

As I looked out at all the people while we sang Octopus' Garden, I saw people from the Santa Cruz Ukulele Club, from our Silicon Valley Group, from San Francisco, High Desert, Monterey and beyond, all of us here to play ukuleles together in peace, love and harmony...I felt overwelmed with warmth and gratitude, happy to be a part of something so amazing... it didn't matter what the weather was like...everyone here shined brighter than the sun.

On the second night of the evening singalong/jam and burning uke ritual, a group went up and played these...they look so much like bongs -- they found them on the beach and used them like horns! It was absolutely hilarious. I laughed so hard that I couldn't get any good pictures.

I laughed for literally hours when I watched the group with these!!! HILARIOUS!

and of course, on the final morning, Sunday morning when Rhan and Rick closed us out with Matthew Mark UKE and John...what happened? The sun came out!!!



good-bye Plaskett Creek Park, hello Little Basin for Burning Uke X!



I stopped at the beach one more time on my way home because it was such a beautiful day -- and saw the hang gliders...some had joined us and one guy even sang "Rawhide" while we all played ukuleles the night before!

Burning Uke 9 -- last year at Plaskett Creek in Big Sur, another fabulous, amazing experience.


Burning Uke 9!!!!! Oh yeah!



Check out Burning Uke 9 Photos here.