You think you’re tough?
You think you’re some tough guy, learning ukulele, with your slick “Ukulele Player ” magazine, and your clip-on electric tuners, and your dozens of annual festivals around the world?
Let me tell you how I had to learn ukulele
First of all, I didn’t have a ukulele.
When I was a kid, nobody played ukulele, except freaks and senior citizens. So I had to learn banjo instead, like the other normal kids.
You wanna know how I learned banjo?
Not with your fancy “high speed connections” and your so-called “YouTube.”
I had a black-and-white TV, with 3 channels, and none of them was “the banjo channel.”
I had a book.
And attached to the back of book was flexible plastic record.
The book told me where to put my fingers. The record told how it was supposed to sound.
Well, it was supposed to anyway.
It was a record that came stapled to a book, for crying out loud, and it was not rigid, it was flimsy. It was flimsy enough, that, like a very thick liquid, it eventually settled, and took on the form of the turntable beneath it.
So that when I played the record, to learn how to play the banjo, it was all…wobbly.
And THAT’s how I learned to play the banjo.
Wobbly.
It was unique, yes. It was my own sound. But I did it, dammit, and I did it alone.
For the sissy-pants uke players of today, with your imported koa, your hardshell cases, and — don’t say you don’t have one — your little baby ukulele wall-hangers, learning to play has never been easier.
And that’s probably for the best.
Because if I had had YouTube and a clip-on tuner back then, I might actually have learned it correctly.
And then where would my signature wobble be?
Focused on the fun,
PS: Anne Expert told me this post is actually about:
- Adaptation.
- Scrappiness.
- Making do.
- Learning without ideal conditions.
- Imperfect beginnings.
I’ll just say — After a while, you stop correcting the wobble and start building around it.
That’s a whole section of my talk “You Wonderful Oddball, You.” And I promise not to taunt you like a crotchety old-timer.