Ukulele Fun

So, what have you done in the past year that you had no idea you’d be doing?

We have been playing our guitars and ukuleles more than we’d imagined. Especially since, until November of 2019, we didn’t have any ukuleles except for the lame, cheap soprano uke I’d gotten in college (or whatever) and never changed the strings on.

But in November 2019, Sue got me a sweet little tenor ukulele. It’s even got built-in pickups and outlet for an amplifier (ha ha ha ha) as well as a built-in electronic tuner. The latter is rather handy.

Sitting around in our house, and in our backyard, has been rather conducive to playing some occasional chords on the fretted instruments. It’s been very relaxing and pleasant, and very old-school.

Sue, especially, has made great strides in her guitar and ukulele skills. She’s been working from YouTube instructional videos as well as downloading exercises. She’s been plugging along at a steady pace with her practice—the logical, compound-interest plan—and she’s gotten really pretty good!

For Christmas, I got her a nice little baritone ukulele. It’s tuned just like the highest-pitched four strings of a regular guitar.

As for me, I have more theoretical background, more of an overview of how it’s supposed to work, how to go about staying in tempo, and which chords usually go together . . . but that doesn’t mean anything about my ability to actually perform. In that department, I rely on the finger and strumming patterns I’d learned in high school.

The fun part is just relaxing and tuning in to each other’s chord patterns and musical ideas. Just going with the flow. Kinda like how we’re all coping with the pandemic, if we’re lucky.