This winter, I invite music enthusiasts and players to take part in a powerful new class I’m co-teaching with Lois Leveen that reframes American music history through the voices too often left out. We’ve titled it: Women in Music: From Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog” to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. It’s part of an on-going series of mixed-level classes I like to teach that go deeper into the historical and social contexts of the music we love to play and listen to.

Although Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter might have been considered ground-breaking, it is rooted in a long history of Black musical traditions. Country music is one of many American genres shaped by Black artists, and Black women in particular have been central to shaping the sounds that define much of American music. This history is often obscured, as when the commercial success of Elvis Presley’s cover of “Hound Dog” looms larger in American culture than Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton’s powerful original recording of the song. 

This class digs into Black women’s genre-birthing, genre-bending, and genre-defying contributions to the lineage of American country, blues, and rock’n’roll. Join us to learn to play, sing, and appreciate the music made by foremothers from Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Libby Cotten to contemporary musicians like Rhiannon Giddens and Beyoncé. 

As I mentioned above, I will co-teach this class with historian, author, social justice activist, and your fellow ‘ukulele student Lois Leveen. Lois and I have collaborated on historically contextualized music classes before, most recently co-teaching the class  Songs of Activism: The Music and the Movements of Harry Belafonte and Cesar Chavez in Spring of 2025.

The class is designed for ‘ukulele players, with adapted charts available for baritone ‘ukulele and guitar. However, anyone interested in the topic—and willing to sing along—is welcome, regardless of instrument or experience level. So, please spread the word!

We’ll be co-teaching this class Thursday evenings, January 22 – March 12, at Artichoke Music in Southeast Portland. You can register for that cohort here.

I’ll also be teaching this class on my own Wednesday evenings, January 21 – March 11, at Music Together Resonate in Beaverton. You can register for that cohort here.

Learn more about all upcoming classes, workshops, and jams in this blog post.

I hope to see you in class! 🙂

Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed the holiday season with friends, family, and fun. I am really looking forward to making music with you in 2026 and am here with info and invitations!

Weekly ‘Ukulele Classes

As per usual, I’ll be teaching Wednesday evenings in Beaverton at Music Together Resonate, located at Cedar Hills Crossing (close to the Powell’s location there, for reference). I’ll also be teaching Thursday evenings in Southeast Portland at Artichoke Music. I’ve included class descriptions below, and specific registration links below those, so be sure to review the entire post for the info you need!

All classes start January 21/22 and run 8 weeks:

• ‘Ukulele for Beginners (5:30-6:15pm). Covers all the basics you need to know for early success in your ‘ukulele playing: how to hold and strum your instrument, a strong repertoire of songs, and other essential skills and good habits. 
• Beyond Beginner ‘Ukulele: Strum Patterns (6:30-7:15pm). For players with basic skills looking to take it to the next level. We’ll use popular and accessible songs to focus specifically on improving our sense of rhythm and repertoire of strum patterns! 
• Women in Music: From Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog” to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter (7:30-8:30pm). A mixed-level ukulele class for players of various learning styles and experience. We’ll dig into Black women’s genre-birthing, genre-bending, and genre-defying contributions to the lineage of American country, blues, and rock’n’roll. Join us to learn to play, sing, and appreciate the music made by foremothers from Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Libby Cotten to contemporary musicians like Rhiannon Giddens and Beyoncé. 

(What about live online classes? I am working on some potential online possibilities, but I have a greater in-person class load this term than I usual have – thanks for hanging tight, I will do what I can!)

How to Register for Weekly Classes

Wednesday Classes in Beaverton. To register for classes on Portland’s west side, please fill out this 2-question form to secure your registration. I’ll follow up with an individual email confirmation.

Thursday Classes in Southeast Portland. To register for classes on Portland’s east side, please visit the specific class links on Artichoke Music’s website:

• ‘Ukulele for Beginners
• Beyond Beginner ‘Ukulele
• Women in Music: From Big Mama Thornton to Beyoncé

Workshop: How to Change Your ‘Ukulele Strings

Saturday, January 31 ~ 10:00am – Noon @ Artichoke Music. It’s that time again! Join me for my annual workshop on changing your strings. I’ll provide a demonstration of technique and approach, and then offer support as you change the strings on your own instrument.

We’ll discuss a variety of things to consider – ‘ukulele size, different string material, techniques for knotting and winding, and more.

All materials provided, including a new set of strings from Artichoke’s store. Learn more and register here.

Monthly / Quarterly Jams

Our monthly jams at Artichoke Music will continue on 1st Saturdays, running 2:00-3:30pm. Save the following dates and join us!

• Saturday, January 3 
• Saturday, February 7 
• Saturday, March 7

Stay tuned!

There are a few things that are still in the works:

• Since losing my Southwest Portland location in early December, I’m still looking for a suitable jam location, so thanks for your patience as I figure that out. I will be sure to put the word out when I’ve got one.
• I am also looking at some potential dates for a Spring Online Jam via Zoom, stay tuned for that, as well!
• Finally, I am working on starting a regular bi-weekly Songwriting Sessions series, hosted hybrid in-person and live online. I hope to start that series in February.

So much fun ahead!

Whew! We’re in for a ton of fun in the New Year, I hope you will join us. As always, you can stay most up to date by subscribing to my e-newsletter and/or reach out any time with questions and concerns. Both of these options are available here.

While teaching earlier this year at the Port Townsend Ukulele Festival, I connected with some folks based in the Port Townsend region year-round and was invited to return for a one-day workshop and performance event with Ukuleles Unite. We had a great time, and I got to sneak in a few other favorite things in the process!

I was invited to teach one of my favorite workshops: How to Sing and Play at the Same Time. I really love having a full hour to break down just one song into its different layers – strumming, chording, and singing – and slowly and consciously integrating them together as we build the song back up again. These folks did great!

I took advantage of the weekend and camped out at Fort Worden State Park. I was familiar with the grounds from my previous visit, but I was able to explore a lot more of it this time around. The meeting of woods and water has always been a special place for me, and let’s just say the pelting waves against cliffs of towering conifers and relentless winds at the Point Wilson Lighthouse did not disappoint.

Capping off the weekend was an in-person visit to KPTZ radio, which is located right on the park grounds, just a short walk from my camp site. I got to chat and play live on the air with DJ Phil Andrus for a whole hour of his Sunday evening program Cats in Our Laps. It was a real joy to get to know him, to share meaningful conversation about music and artistry, and to be able to play so many tunes from The One Who Remembers. I cannot emphasize enough how important local radio DJs like Phil are to the overall health of the creative community. While we’re hunkered down in our studios, or traveling around to peddle our latest creations, these folks are digging in and serving their local community, earning their trust, and making meaningful connections between artists and audiences. The music industry is wide and vast and easy to get lost in. DJs like Phil and community-based organizations like KPTZ and Ukuleles Unite keep us all grounded in our direct relationships to each other, which is where the magic of art really happens. I am so grateful to have been a part of the magic of this weekend! ❤️

Call me a total nerd, but September rolls around and I am ready to go back to school! 🤓 As musicians, it’s a great opportunity to refocus after our summer adventures and reconnect with basic skills in a way that allows us to go deeper and keep growing.

Beginning next month, I’ll be offering two different workshop series that I hope will serve you well on your continuing musical journey. Learn more in the video below and/or scroll down for more detail:

Musician’s Toolbox Workshop Series

Over the past year or so, I’ve had several students ask a question in class that gets at what I call the skills of musicianship: hearing chord changes, finding the starting pitch of a song, knowing which strum pattern to use, etc. I’ve done my best to answer these questions in the moment, but it’s time to give these questions their due.

The 5-week Musician’s Toolbox Workshop Series I’m offering is focused on the essential skills that support everything we do as musicians, but don’t always get center stage in a typical class. Instead of learning a new repertoire of songs, we’ll revisit familiar songs from recent classes and use them as springboards to explore the building blocks of musicianship: ear training, rhythm, and music theory. Each 75-minute session will focus on a different “tool”—a skill that strengthens your overall musicianship and makes playing more intuitive, expressive, and fun:

• Week 1: Ear Training ~ Hearing Melody: Learn to recognize melodic movement by ear, follow a tune more confidently, and connect what you hear to what you play or sing.
• Week 2: Ear Training ~ Hearing Chord Progressions: Learn to recognize harmonic movement underneath a melody, catch common chord changes, and predict what chord might come next.
• Week 3: Music Theory ~ Beyond the I–IV–V: Many of you have learned the basics of song structure with me. Let’s take some more steps to learn about other chords in the Nashville Number System, and expand our repertoire of common chord patterns in different musical genres.
• Week 4: Rhythm ~ Feeling the Beat: Explore rhythm through your first instrument, your body! Deepen your sense of rhythm to help you feel better grounded in strumming patterns, time signatures, and the overall groove of a song.
• Workshop 5: TBD – Your Toolbox Questions, Explored
  We’ll design this final session based on the themes, questions, and challenges that come up in the first four workshops—so we can go deeper where it counts most.

You can participate in the Musician’s Toolbox Workshop Series in one of three cohorts:

• Wednesdays, 6:00-7:15pm in Southwest Portland
• Thursdays, 6:00-7:15pm in Southeast Portland
• Saturdays, 9:45-11:00am (PT) live and recorded Online via Zoom (find your time zone here)

Click on your desired class location above to learn more and register.

Whether you’ve been playing for a little while or you’re deepening your practice, this series is designed to help you connect the dots and build confidence from the inside out. You’ve already got the tools—now let’s learn how to use them!  😊

Intro to Songwriting Sessions

The creative process can be an inspiring, fulfilling, yet sometimes lonely journey. This introductory Songwriting Sessions series is designed to introduce you to the basics of songwriting and support your individual writing experience in meaningful community with other songwriters. This term, we’ll have 4 bi-weekly in-person sessions, and 4 at-home self-directed sessions with prompts and studies for guidance.

Each in-person session runs approximately as follows:

• Participants reflect on their engagement with the creative process since our previous class.
• I’ll bring a song or two to study together as a group, discussing different approaches one might take to the lyrics, music and/or a song’s arrangement.
• We’ll have some time for participants to work independently on a piece in progress and/or explore the possibilities for a piece in the “creative sandbox”
• We’ll close with an opportunity for participants to share what they worked on and/or learned during workshop time

Self-directed study exercises will be emailed on off-weeks between classes for participants to work through at their own pace, including additional song studies, prompts, and questions for reflection.

You can participate in this Intro to Songwriting Sessions in one of three cohorts:

This  class is offered in THREE different cohorts:

• Thursdays, 7:30-8:45pm in Southeast Portland

• Saturdays, 11:15am – 12:30pm PT live and recorded Online via Zoom (find your time zone here)
• Entirely Self-Paced: Can’t make it to class regularly? Take the class by email, and receive a weekly email with materials, instructions, and resource links, and may submit song material for feedback.

Registration for all cohorts of Intro to Songwriting Sessions is open here. I hope you can join us!

See you in class, nerds! 😉

This spring, my ‘ukulele students and I have been learning, practicing, playing, and singing songs together that, musically speaking, don’t have a whole lot in common. They are from all different decades, different genres of music, different rhythms, different keys. But they all have moved us in some way to feel closer to each other. And that was precisely the point of this term’s “Theme Study” class: Songs That Build Community.

In challenging times, we turn to one another for comfort, strength, and support—and music reminds us that we are so much more than the sum of our parts!

We are so pleased and excited to collaborate with Resonate Choral Arts for two special performances of these uplifting songs. I hope you can join us for a powerful, joy-filled concert celebrating community, connection, and resilience through music! We will be raising money for some important local organizations, as well.

🎤 Main Concert
🗓️ Monday, May 19 – 7:30 PM
📍 Alberta Abbey (126 NE Alberta St.)
🎟️ [Buy Tickets Here]

✨ All proceeds go to The Marie Equi Center, supporting trans, queer, intersex & gender-diverse communities. Help us reach our $3,000 goal!

🎶 Bonus Show
🗓️ Sunday, May 18 – 2 PM
📍 AMP (16 NW Broadway)
💵 $20 suggested donation + bake sale
🎉 Benefits Artist Mentorship Program, supporting youth facing homelessness.

Come sing with us, feel the music, and be part of something bigger. 💛