“It just takes an empty butter tub, some fishing line and a few pieces of wood to make an authentic-sounding ukulele, as Year 4 pupils found out on Thursday 7th November. In a workshop led by three Hawaiian-shirted helpers from the Utterly Butterly Ukulele project – ‘Prof’, ‘Toff’ and ‘Nutter’, the children made their own instruments from entirely recycled materials, tuned them and customised them, before spending some time learning how to play some useful chords. By the afternoon, they were ready to perform live in front of an audience in the main school hall.
Familiar songs such as ‘In the Jungle’ were played alongside specially-composed numbers including ‘The Utterly Butterly Ukulele Song’ and ‘Blow Your Bubble,’ which had the ukulele-players singing and strumming away happily while the audience clapped them along. Another performance of the hand-made ukuleles can be expected at the End of Term concert.”