Mel Bay Easy Baritone Ukulele Tablature Method, Book One
Mary Lou Stout Dempler, a professional musician, began her musical career at age seven at the Ursuline School of Music and Drama in Louisville, Kentucky, where she studied guitar. She continued to study jazz guitar after high school at Bellarmine University. She has taught guitar for over 20 years. In 1997 she was the recipient of one of only 50 a Duesquene University scholarships for guitar instructors from across the nation. In 1998, her husband Shane had a ukulele custom designed and hand made for her birthday. Mary Lou fell in love with its gentle, harp-like sound, and in the fall of 1998, she received an invitation to attend a ukulele workshop at Harvard University and became a member of the Ukulele Hall of Fame. She created the ukulele tablature method presented in her Easy Ukulele Method books I and II. Her method books are designed to allow anyone, regardless of their musical background, to immediately enjoy playing music on the ukulele. She is a member of the faculty at Bellarmine University where she teacher several different ukulele classes. Because of her love of the ukulele and the desire to share the joy of this instrument with everyone, she founded a ukulele orchestra, the Louisville Ukulele Association Unlimited (LUAU). Mary Lou also formed the musical duo The Unique Ukuleles in an effort to promote ukulele music and showcase the instrument's versatility by performing rock, swing, jazz, folk, country, Christian, and contemporary music. The Unique Ukuleles have recorded two albums, Unique Ukulele Christmas and Songs from the Heart. She truly believes, "If our eyes are the windows to our souls, then the ukulele is the door to our hearts!"