CL Patron Newsletter | March 2020 (Patreon)

{Patron-only post: please click through and heart this post so I know you've seen it, thank you!} 

Aloha, Patrons!  

These are strange times, aren't they?  I hope that wherever you are, you are staying healthy and safe, and taking care of yourself and those you love.  FYI my events in SF and NYC are still on track, but like all event organizers, we're keeping a close watch on the virus outbreak to make sure we're doing what's best for ourselves and the community.

They say March comes in like a lion, and it sure has roared so far.  Read on for updates on changes to our Patron vote and Live Lesson, and some news about my latest projects!  

And as always, thank you for being here, and thank you for directly supporting my work and for helping to create a powerful and positive online ukulele community.  I believe we can change the world, one uke at a time. :)

xo cynthia 🌺

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If you are a new Patron, welcome!  Please introduce yourself in the comments below.

Feel free to share how long you've been playing, what kind of uke you play, if you have an uke club to play with, what songs you've been working on, etc. And if you've been a Patron for a while and want to share, please go ahead. This is a good place for questions too - fellow Patrons, feel free to help me answer any newbie questions.  If you have questions about Patreon, please ask the community first and check the New Patron Guide/FAQ post. Please comment there if you have a question that the FAQ doesn't answer to help us continue to update the FAQ.  See the Community Notes at bottom of this post for ways to join and post to our Community.  

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March 2020 PATRON EVENTS CALENDAR

See all Patron events on our Patron Google calendar (also accessible through our Patron App). 

• Thurs 3/5 @ 5:30PM Pacific Time - Beginner Live Jam ($10+ Patrons).
• Thurs 3/12 @ 5:30PM Pacific Time - Patron Live Lesson for "Make You Feel My Love" ($5+ Patrons) 
• Thurs 3/19 @ 5:30PM Pacific Time - Intermediate Live Jam ($20+ Patrons).
• Sat 3/28 San Francisco: Beatles Uke Jam 2020 + FB Livestream For tickets and more info, check out our FB Event page.

Details for all Patrons events will be posted separately.  I also invite you to join me most Wednesdays at 5PM Pacific Time for my 5@5 Instagram Live Show. Follow me @cynthialinmusic to get notified when I go live. 

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February 2020 Recap - Patron Events and new Videos:

• For our February Patron-Voted Live Lesson, I taught both Tones and I's "Dance Monkey" and The Beatles' "In My Life." That lesson is now available to all Patrons. 
• We jammed together using my Beginner Songbook and I shared my arrangement of "White Sandy Beach" at our February Beginner Live Jam ($10+ Patrons).
• In our February Intermediate Live Jam ($20+ Patrons), we jammed to 80s classics with the SF Uke Jam 80s Songbook, after beginning with a vocal warmup session
• I posted a new ukulele play-along video for "All is Found," the Kacey Musgraves version of a song from Frozen II.  
• I shared another music video shot by Robert Gomez Hernandez in San Francisco before I moved, a play-along for the song "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay."  

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Changes to the monthly vote and Live Lesson

After reading all your comments on the latest vote, I've spent time evaluating my own teaching goals for the Patreon community, and considering the effectiveness of the vote.  I love seeing your song requests, and I love seeing you all get passionate about the music you love.  That's why we're all here, to be inspired to play and grow and learn.  On the other hand, we've also seen that month after month, the same songs get requested (because the songs you want are still the songs you want), which makes the whole vote process seem repetitive.  After years of monthly votes, I have a pretty good idea of what you all want to learn. :)

With all this in mind, I've decided to put the vote aside, for this month and going forward.  Instead of voting, I will choose the monthly Live Lesson songs based on their teaching value, quality of songwriting, and the current zeitgeist of a song, which is the way I've created my lessons and tutorials all along.  Ultimately, I believe that it's a better use of my time to simply focus on the songs that I'm most excited to arrange and teach.  Please know that I will always do my best to create an enriching lesson for all levels.  Please know that I intend to share a mix of music from all genres and eras.  It is my goal to cultivate a strong sense of music appreciation in our Patreon community (and in the wider world), because expanding our minds and musical tastes is how we grow creatively and culturally.  And please know that I will definitely still ask for input and feedback from Patrons. I'm not sure right now what the best forum for song requests is, but I can see us having a periodic Patron Suggestion Box for song  requests (and we could open up the Suggestion Box to any and all suggestions to benefit and shape the community).  

For this month's Patron Live Lesson, I will teach "Make You Feel My Love," (written by Bob Dylan, made famous by Adele) which has been a runner-up in several votes.  I have created a special ukulele arrangement for the song - I even added a chord melody solo, which is a stretch for me!  This year, I also have a goal for myself to grow my audio production skills, so that is another aspect of my song choice.  By choosing the monthly Live Lesson song, I can align my teaching with my music and video production goals.  I'm excited to share this part of my creative development with the Patreon community.

I thank you in advance for your understanding - as I've said before, this community is a growing (3400+ members!), living thing, and my career and demands are also growing and changing.  Share your ideas, comment with aloha, and we'll keep moving forward together. 

New Beginner Live Jam Songbook for $10+ Patrons

Beginner Live Jam Patrons are getting a new Songbook for today's Beginner Live Jam!  The new Patron-only Beginner Live Jam Songbook has 31 songs that are great for Beginner-level jamming.  For the Live Jam, we'll choose a handful of songs to play through together, and I'll teach various techniques and strums at a slow, beginner-friendly pace as we work through the songs.  

I think there's a lot to be learned from jamming.  If you're interested in getting the songbook and joining us for the jam, you can edit your pledge at https://www.patreon.com/join/cynthialin.   I think we all could use a little jam break today!

New album, music production, and 100 Days

For the last 2 months, I've been spending a lot of time in the recording studio, wrapping up the new trio album with Ukulenny and Abe Lagrimas, Jr. which is on schedule for a summer release.  It's sounding amazing, and I'll be sure to share some sneak peeks with Patrons when I can.  The 10 tracks have a Hawaii-meets-bossa nova vibe, with sophisticated jazz arrangements by Abe, island reggae influence from Lenny, songs in Portuguese, Japanese and Hawaiian, and 2 original songs by me.  More soon!

I've had the opportunity to work on polishing the album tracks with Grammy-nominated producer Imua Garza here in Honolulu.  Just watching his mastery in the production studio has inspired my own audio production goals.  Keep an eye on my IG stories for glimpses from the studio.

For this year's 100 Days of Ukulele Songs project, I'm inspired to take my audio production to the next level.  I'm preparing myself now and putting time into audio production for "Make You Feel My Love" and for an upcoming video for "Dance Monkey."  The 100 Days of Ukulele Songs officially kicks off 4/7, check out this post from last year to learn more about the project.  You can start mentally preparing now to join us for the project, I'll follow up with more details about a Patron project group for 2020.

Help me name our Patron Newsletter - winner gets a prize :)

I've been calling this monthly events post "Patron Events" because I'm terribly boring when it comes to naming things (I leave that job to Ukulenny!).  I'd like to make this post more of a monthly Patron Newsletter and share more news with you all.  Can you help come up with a cute Patron Newsletter name?  Musical/uke puns preferred.  The winner will get a set of Worth Brown strings.  If multiple people come up with the same name, the first person to comment will get the prize.  

Some cheesy ideas I've had so far that you can riff off of:

• CL Monthly Tune-Up 
• CL Monthly Mic Test 
• Patron High Notes
• Patron Plog (something with P alliteration?)

As you can see, I need help.  Comment below, multiple entries allowed! 

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UPCOMING 2020 EVENTS: 

4/3 NYC Concerts Two shows at Rockwood Music Hall, get tickets at http://cynthialin.com/events 

4/4 NYC Ukulele Retreat  See all the details in this post. I hope to see lots of Patrons there!

4/7: 100 Days of Ukulele Songs officially kicks off for 2020! Details to come, but check out this post from last year to learn more about the project. 

7/24-26 San Francisco Summer Uke Fest The weekend for our San Francisco Summer Uke Fest 2020 has also been announced! Watch our Flash Mob video and get more details about next year's festival here. 

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COMMUNITY NOTES:

1. Join our private Facebook group (email patronhelp@cynthialin.com with your Facebook email address) - lots of activity, sharing videos and advice, and support and encouragement!  If you're not on Facebook, you can post on the Community tab here on Patreon. If you have questions about Patreon or ukulele or otherwise, posting the question to our very helpful and active Community will generate the fastest answer.  

2. More Facebook public groups - we're using Facebook as our community gathering place because it has the best community features.  Find all the CL groups here, including the CL Uke Newbies group and several active regional groups (NYC / LA / Portland / Hawaii and more).  https://www.facebook.com/pg/cynthialinmusic/groups

3. Learn to use the Cynthia Lin Song Index, created and maintained by the amazing CL Community Managers!   The super helpful CL Song Index organizes all CL songs, Patreon posts, YouTube videos, and tutorials.

4. Download the Cynthia Lin Patron App, created by our Patron Community Manager, Rich! Android app | iOS app 

5. Find all Patron events on our Patron Google Calendar

6. Find answers to many Frequently Asked Questions in our New Patron Guide/FAQ post.

7. To edit your pledge, visit https://www.patreon.com/join/cynthialin