Ukulélé Club de Québec gets Quebecers singing and strumming
Ukulélé Club de Québec gets Quebecers singing and strumming
Ruby Pratka, LJI reporter
editor@qctonline.com
Legend has it that three cabinetmakers from Madeira, Portugal travelled to Hawaii – or the Sandwich Islands, as it was known at the time – in 1879 to work in the sugarcane industry. They carried four-stringed miniature Portuguese guitars known as cavaquinhos. The lightweight portable guitars caught on among the diverse group of cane cutters, and by 1915, the ukulele, as the Hawaiian version of the instrument was named, had become so intertwined with Hawaiian culture as to be featured at the Hawaiian pavilion of the 1915 World’s Fair in San Francisco. An international phenomenon was born.
Fast forward a little more than a century, and there are hundreds of ukulele clubs around the world, mostly in English-speaking countries. In 2015, after travelling through much of Europe and making friends thanks to his ukulele playing, André Pelletier co- founded the Ukulélé Club de Québec, which now has weekly practice sessions bringing together several dozen members of a variety of ages and backgrounds. “There’s a lot of people who come and go, some of them come back and some don’t, there’s no obligation,” said Pelletier, a retired architect who fell in love with the instrument years ago after hearing it on a Paul McCartney solo album. “We’ve kind of created a community around it. We have some people who’ve never done music before and some people who have. It is a bit more difficult for people who’ve never done any kind of music before … but if you come as a beginner and you practise, you can make a lot of progress.”
Pelletier described himself and his friend and ukulele club regular Ann Martell as ukulele evangelists. “The one thing about ukulele players,” he said with a grin, “is that they want to convince everyone else to become a ukulele player.”
What makes the ukulele so attractive? Pelletier said he believes it’s easy to learn and versatile. “With three chords, you can play a lot. You can play anything on it – tu peux jouer toute, toute, toute dessus – from Irish folk tunes to metal.”
The high, twangy chords are undeniably cheerful, and one of the first songs new players learn is Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” “To try it is to get it,” said Pelletier’s fellow player Louise Fleury. “It’s so much fun to play together in a group. If you’re in a bad mood, go play music. You can’t be in a bad mood after that.”
Marjolaine Hébert, from Lévis, started playing more than a year ago as she processed an immense personal loss – the death of her daughter in a motorcycle accident. “Every time I played, I felt her with me, but I didn’t want to talk about myself, I just wanted to play with everybody,” she said. “The reason I stayed was that it was so joyful, so inclusive. You can make mistakes and it doesn’t matter; it’s a very open arms, ‘Come on, we’ll have fun together’ type of place. To play with a bunch of joyful people is an energy boost.”
She’s also surprised by the progress she’s made as a musician. “I used to do dance workshops with people with disabilities, and it kind of reminds me of that,” she added, speaking with the QCT between two sets at the Celtic Festival. “André [Pelletier] sees what your strengths are and says, ‘You do this; you try that.’ Look at me, I knew nothing at all about the Celtic repertoire and I learned 30 songs in two months.”
The group performs around the city, at seniors’ residences, day centres for adults with disabilities, nonprofit events and festivals, including, most recently, the Celtic Festival. Weekly practices are scheduled at venues around the city. The club charges a nominal membership fee of $20 per year, and when practices are held in cafés or bars, members are asked to buy a drink or a snack as a thank-you to the hosting business. The primary spoken language is French, but many members speak English and relatively little speaking occurs during practice sessions – the focus is on the songs, which are in multiple languages. Private and small-group lessons are available for an additional fee. For more information, contact André Pelletier directly via the Ukulélé Club de Québec Facebook page.
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