There's a joke I often use in the middle of my busking act. After singing and cavorting with audience members I announce, "If you've just arrived and are wondering who I am and why I'm here: My name is Michael Bublé!" and then I add, "This is what I do on my days...

Ralph Shaw announces a summer 2017 cruise to Alaska featuring a daily ukulele class.

Rock music is a strange and unusual genre. Its sound derives from simple combinations of basic musical ideas that have remained popular for sixty years. So it's no surprise that modern creators of rock music have a hard time coming up with something that hasn't...

It's interesting that the fear of messing up a live stage performance is a lot like the fear of heights, in that it is the fear itself which causes the unwanted thing to happen. The good news is that, unlike falling off a cliff, a major performance error is not going...

I dreaded having to move. The fact is that I’ve never really done it. Not properly. My parents never moved (or “flitted” as we call it in my part of Yorkshire) and when I came to Canada with a suitcase, a banjo and a backpack I thought I was only coming for an...

My father in law, Bob, passed away last week at the age of ninety-six. It’s a ripe old age and you might say he had a good innings. Nevertheless I find it almost impossible to get used to living in a world in which Bob no longer exists. His long life has somehow made...

The subject of Capos had many of you clamping down on your keyboards to tell me what you think of them. Most feedback was in support of the lowly capo but several of you dislike them. I think all the reasons are valid ones depending on the circumstance. Here is your...

My dictionary defines capo (typically pronounced Kay-po in USA and Kah-poh or Kap-oh in UK and Europe) as A device for a guitar, lute, banjo, etc., that when clamped or screwed down across the strings at a given fret will raise each string a corresponding number of...

We practice to be the best we can be, and, although performance perfection is something we strive for, deep down we don't really expect to pull it off. Most of us know that by the end of the show we'll be able to look back with self-critical eyes and point to various...

There is a way of giving someone positive feedback that can be both beautiful and devastating. I remember clearly one such moment on Montreal's Saint Hubert Street. I was twenty-one years old and had been playing the five-string banjo for a year and a half. I thought...

As someone who writes books as well as entertains with music I am fascinated by how artists choose the medium in which they work. Why does one artist decide to communicate their experience in the world by carving a fifteen foot block of marble whereas another artist...