Your story: how ukulele found you?

Four years before my parents 40th anniversary they warned us to start saving. They wanted everyone to go to Maui together. So I setup some of my paycheck to be funneled into a separate savings account. My wife and I had gone a couple of time before but this time we had kids to take with us. So three and a half years go by and we are into planning what we want to do. We were clueless what to do with kids there other than snorkeling and ice cream. So we started searching every tourist website we could find to find stuff for them to do. The common item on all of them was; take an ukulele lesson. That sounded fun, but what if we really liked it? So I started looking locally for ukulele lessons.

In our search we turned up a local ukulele group that met weekly. As a bonus they were starting year 2 of a kids program. Great, so went for a visit. The people were awesome, they had a couple of spare ukulele's to try out, and even better was the pot luck. We had so much fun that night. In talking with everyone our plans for Maui came out, and we were told to visit Mele Ukulele. (We found out later that they weren't serious about that.)

So we get to Maui, and we have grand plans; helicopter ride, snorkeling trips, sail boat trips, etc. (We had been saving for four years, so we could do just about anything we wanted.) So the first day we simply went to the beach and snorkeled. Day two and we ask the kids what do you want to do? Their answer was go back to the beach. So we went to a craft sale (I knew there was homemade jelly there), came back and went to the beach. This continued for the next couple of days; something small in the morning, beach all afternoon, and sometimes dinner out. I have to admit that is a great way to spend a vacation. I had scheduled kite boarding lessons, so I was called in every day to see if the conditions were favorable. Finally I was told to head over. Just before we got to that beach I got the call saying don't bother the winds aren't good. So we decided to find Mele Ukulele.

That is where we met Cheryl and Uncle Peter. Cheryl would pull an ukulele off the wall, explain what made it different and hand it over to us. Uncle Peter was showing us how to hold it, strum, and a couple of chords. When we got to hear what that one sounded like Cheryl would pull down another one, and the process continued. About 4 uke's in we have down a simple chord progression and Uncle Peter starts singing The Beatles. All I could think was this was really cool. This continued for another instrument or two, and when Cheryl tried to hand me the next one, I politely refused and went back to playing. The same thing happened with my wife. At that point Cheryl just stood next the cash register smiling. It was then that we looked at the price tags. It really was a case of our instruments finding us. We had saved for so long, and we weren't going to force the kids away from the beach, so we went for it.

We did join the ukulele group and the kids earned their instruments by practicing for a year, then performing at a Hawaiian festival.

A fun side story to this was our trip home. The Sky Cap at the airport saw the hard cases, and said that without seeing them he knew we bought good instruments. He then told me "don't listen to the teachers/books/websites out there. Instead find a song you already know, and learn the chords for that song." He explained you already know the words and the flow, all you need to learn is where to put our fingers. This was the second week of December, so the first song I learned was "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas."

My dad and most of his 8 siblings were all musically talented. His sisters were in a doo wop band and dad played guitar and sang. All for fun. We loved to listen to him play and sing and would anxiously await our turn to have our name interjected into the song he was singing. And when his friend would come over with his banjo, woohoo, we had a blast! Good times! When each of Dad's siblings children grew up they could all sing and play instruments like nobody's business. But then there was Dad's 4 children who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket or play an instrument. LOL l joined the band in 7th grade and played clarinet. I was 1st or 2nd chair the entire year but I quit at the end of the year. I really wanted to play the flute but we couldn't afford one (the clarinet was a hand me down). Moving forward to our family reunions we always had a "Gong Show" and since my siblings and I couldn't do anything musical we would make up skits to Weird Al Yankovich songs and lip sync. We won the second reunion show but I was so envious of the talent of my cousins. I married, my husband can play guitar and bass and when our youngest was 13 or 14 he picked up the guitar and never set it down. I still remember him going through the house in the mornings with the guitar strapped on wearing only his underwear. He can play any song just listening to it. And to top it off, him and my daughter can sing like no one's business. Now they are talking about a family fun band because my daughter-in-law sings and son-in-law is a drummer who played in his own band for 10 years. That leaves me and the dogs for the audience.

So, one day a couple months ago I was listening to the radio on the way home and they were talking about someone playing the ukulele and how popular it had become. I looked it up on the Internet just for grins, not thinking about me even playing. I was suddenly very intrigued and decided I was going to make it happen. So, here I am. I've learned 4 chords...can't play them perfectly but I can already see improvement. I love the sound of these instruments and can't believe how much happiness such a tiny object can bring. I am addicted. Now, if I am going to start singing and playing I will have to invest in one of those expensive little gadgets that correct tone. LOL

I guess this is sort of convoluted. I had played trumpet in school but quit when I was 15. We took a vacation to Oahu in 1992 and stumbled across a ukulele festival a block from our hotel. I thought it might be fun to try, but didn't at that time. In 2006, after 50 years off the horn, I started playing again. 6 months later I was playing in a quintet and doing gigs with other groups and some gigs with just my wife and I she plays piano and flute. Some groups and gigs went out of existence and I decided to try and learn piano. I just didn't do well and didn't want to spend time with the exercise books. I had always liked guitar so tried it. Just really didn't fit for me either. A piano/bass/guitar player friend said said she had been having fun with the uke. I decided to try one and we even had a uke club for awhile. Got another uke and gave the first one to my wife. She had a guitar but never played it. Then I was struck by UAS and bought too many ukes. I'll be selling a couple soon. Got too involved with the trumpet and didn't play the ukes for a couple of years. Things have calmed down and now I'm very interested in learning the chord melody style of playing. Just now getting started courtesy of Ukulele Mike ( May God rest his soul). Also just bought an OU6W. That has helped me with some problems I had with some chords such as D. I have a long way to go, but learning a new instrument is fun---if you pick the "right" one. .

My wife and I went to the Big Island in 2002, and I was impressed by all the ukulele activity. I bought a soprano, a case, and an instruction book in an ABC store. When I got home, I made an effort and then tucked it out of site.

A few years later, probably 2014, a friend told me about a local group meeting at the library. Not only have I been joining them every week, but I now go to two other weekly sessions, and I've been to many uke events. Unfortunately, I can't seem to stop buying them. I have four more coming this week and two on order. : (

Uh Oh. You now have an acute case of UAS.:drool:

I'm an elementary school music teacher, gigging musician playing guitar over 40 years. About 5 or 6 years, I just starting messing about on a ukulele in Guitar Center. I found it was easy to find melodies and that the guitar shapes transferred over to uke. So I asked my wife for a cheap Johnson soprano $30 for Christmas. I received it a few days before Christmas... As soon as I got it, I was sitting on the couch picking out Christmas songs and was hooked. Fast forward to 2 years ago, I introduced the uke to my 3rd graders and they dug it. It is now part of their curriculum. In addition, I went to a local music academy looking for part time work and suggested they start a ukulele program. I now have a handful of adult students who just played their first set at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park. I have moved up from that Johnson uke to a Cordoba Protoge concert and Ohana thin body tenor.
I'm loving it more than ever and forever still learning...

That's a great story! Thank you for sharing your music with your class, too. My daughter is a 2nd grade teacher and her husband teaches high school. My wife is a retired 1st- kindergarten teacher and her parents and brother were also career teachers. I'm the odd one, but I have taught on the adjunct faculty at our community college--not music though. I did play in the symphonic band there. There is no music program at our daughters elementary school and the music program at the middle and high school is very limited and not supported very well by the district. I wish I was proficient on the uke so that I might start a program at the school and maybe try again for a uke club here.

jricc said:

I'm an elementary school music teacher, gigging musician playing guitar over 40 years. About 5 or 6 years, I just starting messing about on a ukulele in Guitar Center. I found it was easy to find melodies and that the guitar shapes transferred over to uke. So I asked my wife for a cheap Johnson soprano $30 for Christmas. I received it a few days before Christmas... As soon as I got it, I was sitting on the couch picking out Christmas songs and was hooked. Fast forward to 2 years ago, I introduced the uke to my 3rd graders and they dug it. It is now part of their curriculum. In addition, I went to a local music academy looking for part time work and suggested they start a ukulele program. I now have a handful of adult students who just played their first set at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park. I have moved up from that Johnson uke to a Cordoba Protoge concert and Ohana thin body tenor.
I'm loving it more than ever and forever still learning...

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How I got into ukulele

I had been playing guitar but I was only able to get to a basic level. So I looked for something I could get into and be able to play songs in short order. After some looking around I got the cheapest uke I could find (I'm on a budget) and started to play. I soon got the hang of it and now I'm getting into some more complicated stuff like moveable chord shapes,finger picking, and even the dreded E chord.

Well, that is how I got into playing the ukulele. And I really enjoy it! :music:

Probably like a lot of people on this forum I am guitar player. In fact I have been a professional musician (amongst other occupations) for quite a long time.
I started playing lap steel guitar a few years ago and was interested in the original Hawaiian style of playing which involved having a Ukulele as part of the rhythm section.
I live in the UK and managed to buy a really nice Ohana TK35G tenor ukulele of ebay. This was fitted with standard reentrant tuned strings.
I then just used it as a method of having an authentic style of rhythm for my recordings.
A friend of mine decided they wanted to learn to play the Ukulele and was asking my advice, so I decided to let them borrow the little ukulele to learn on............it was 2 years before I got it back!!!!
When I eventually got it back I left the little ukulele in the living room and would often just pick it up to strum a few chords, I had noticed however it was a very nice sounding little instrument. Being a guitar player I was always wanting the comfort of the linear tuning. I decided to throw all expense to the wind and purchased a "Fremont squeakles low G" string.... Revelation...................!
I found I could now arrange tunes and play so much more stuff than I could with reentrant tuning. Boy that Fremont string sounded good too! That would be about 7 or 8 months ago and I have played it quite a seriously ever since. I have a YouTube channel and have uploaded over 16 Ukulele solo videos with more ready to be uploaded.
I still have just the one Ukulele and am really enjoying getting to grips with it.
Although new to the Ukulele I have a lot of transferable skills so I would not class myself as a beginner.
But I always think the fun is in the learning!
Mike

Garfunkel and Oats on Youtube back in like '08. Kate Micucci rules.

........the fun is in the learning!

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Yep, I certainly agree with that statement these days, no matter what the instrument.

It wasn't always so, though - I used to get frustrated before, but now I just take my time.

My mom has a lifelong desire to learn to play an instrument. She was having a hard time with chords on the guitar, so I asked if she’d considered a uke. At some point in my research for her I fell in love with it. My hubby bought us both a Luna Tattoo. This was 2 months ago, and we’re both still loving the uke and play daily. I’m waiting to see if I stay committed for a year and then I’ll get a nicer one.

In May this year I’ll be traveling right by Uke Republic. I’m not sure if I can pass that opportunity up, and everyone knows I’ll walk out with one.

Great thread! I started out very young (about 5) taking piano lessons, and by the time I was 12 I played pretty well but had also developed a severe dislike for the instrument (7 years of lessons had worn me down). I took a little break and got back into music around 14-15 by teaching myself guitar and relearning the piano on my own. I'm glad I had the lessons when I was young to develop a base from which to draw my skills, but when I came back to it I found more pleasure in writing my own songs and learning other songs by ear and not by reading music, which I didn't have the patience for.

Fast forward many years - I got married, and my wife happened to be from Kona on Hawai'i island, so the first time we went back to visit I picked up my first ukulele, a Lanikai tenor for about $100 - of course not Hawaiian made but it was exciting to have bought it there. I was immediately taken by how nice even this inexpensive instrument could sound, and also the range of music you could play on it. When I had bought it it was kind of on a lark and I didn't expect to take to it like I have.

I have picked up a few more since then, but I don't believe I am done by any stretch . I don't have much spare time these days, but joining this forum has been inspiring me to use more of it to take my ukulele technique up a few notches. I'm trying to remember to start pulling it out whenever I have a few minutes here and there that I otherwise would just be staring at my phone. Heretofore I've mainly used ukulele as a nice double to my guitar when recording - I'd like to learn well enough to record solo ukulele and have it sound halfway decent.

Jerryc41 said:

My wife and I went to the Big Island in 2002, and I was impressed by all the ukulele activity. I bought a soprano, a case, and an instruction book in an ABC store. When I got home, I made an effort and then tucked it out of site.

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I didn't buy mine at an ABC store but I think I was right next door to one, and probably around the same time period

I learned guitar in middle school. Moved to Nashville to sing and play country music after college. Went back to school to sing opera. Put the guitar away completely. Spent 10 years earning 3 more degrees in opera, then my voice gave out before I went professional. So I made a career switch to elementary music. I love it! Two years into teaching I discovered that the ukulele is a MUCH better first instrument for kids than the recorder. So I got funding for 25 ukuleles and I've been teaching and learning the past 4 years... I love it. So portable and fun. I bought a Flea first, then a Kala thinline tenor, and now I have a Blackbird eKoa Farrallon so I don't have to worry about the 10% humidity in the winters here...

I read with interest these fascinating stories. I'll share my own, but it seems mundane compared to some of yours!

I played harmonicas for about 40 years, but never got very good...just straight up and down folk tunes, no blues, no jazz, no real world music. Just the keys stamped on the instrument, but fun in the car. I got hooked by concertinas at age 60, because I could play just like a "handful of harmonicas" and therefore got instant positive responses, which made me look for reliable musical sessions to play with others. That, in my area, meant mostly Irish, so I set out to learn that genre. Tough due to speed of most tunes, and keys and modes left me tuneless much of the time. Still, excellent and welcoming local sessions kept me going. Then...my beloved grandchildren had given me a simple soprano uke kit for a gift, and after a couple of years of delay, I put it together. Rather sloppy job on my part, unfinished and rough, but a sweet sound. I could not make head nor tail of chords, though, and just plucked it to let the kids know I had put it together and appreciated it and them. Then....I read somewhere that the Aquila string set for 5ths soprano tuning would make a "poor man's mandolin" so I might finally try to learn some tunes, and that was my "Aha" moment. All of a sudden, the logical and consistent design of that tuning made recognizable melodies a possibility for me, and I became a bit obsessed. I got a plain 50 dollar Kala mahogany soprano, tuned the same. It looked nicer, but didn't sound as sweet. I then got the Firefly banjo uke, and tuned it up the same. Now we're talking, for my Irish stuff. But, the tenor banjo range (octave below fiddle and mando) called to me, so I got a 39 dollar Rogue baritone, and tuned it an octave lower, with a combination of baritone uke strings and hard-tension classical guitar strings. I learned a lot about the lower scale and the attendant extra finger stretch, and it made me want to get my late Dad's old tenor banjo set up for Irish. I did that, and the baritone uke was a nice, quiet practice instrument for the banjo. But...I needed a better sound and feel in that range, and read (here?) that the tenor uke scale length of 16 or 17 inches could work with the octave mando range in fifths, so I did some research and focused on the Cordoba 24T. It is really pretty, with great woodworking quality, spalted maple back and solid cedar top. It really rings, if that's the word, and is much easier to play than the dirt-cheap baritone. I have it strung with two or three wound low classical guitar strings, and the original Aquila nylon as the high E. I say two or three guitar strings because they all came out of my string bag unlabeled, and the "A" string may in fact be a wound Aquila from an earlier soprano fifths set. At any rate, I am still stretching and settling this set, but am thrilled at the sound and feel of it. I am taking it to a good session this week, where I always ask the skilled GDAE pickers to try out my latest, so I can hear them played by good musicians.

I plan to make some clips, to share, and really enjoy my new affiliations with this site!

Thanks, and regards,

David

With no musical playing background at all, at age 49 some work colleagues talked me into joining them in signing up for group beginner ukulele classes. They ultimately jammed out, but I recklessly kept at it with my daughter for a few months. She had a violin background and took to the uke like a fish to water. I on the other hand mangled chords and transitions badly and my strumming brought the teacher to exasperated tears. With all that, my uke skills shone in comparison to my completely non-existent ability to sing.

I was very critical of myself (which in retrospect was completely counterproductive) and impatient and put the ukulele aside for five years out of frustration until a couple of months ago when I was talked into picking it up and attending a monthly group session (around 75 people) by a couple of good friends from whom I learned the right relaxed attitude.

For the time being, I am the one currently strumming quietly, faking chords occasionally and sometimes just whispering the lyrics in the group play and totally loving it, and since I am enjoying it now instead of beating myself up, I am practicing with enthusiasm and wild abandon every day (to the complete horror of my wife) and improving markedly all the time. Super glad I stumbled across this forum.

I played and collected guitars for years and then was struck with Polymyalgia Rheumatica and could barely move my fingers. Sold my collection and didn't play anything for years. On an RV camping trip in '12, we met folks doing fireside ukulele and I was in love. My hands had gradually improved with medications, and I ran to the store and bought a uke the next day to be able to play with the camping group. I was hooked. The uke was small enough, light enough, and with only 4 strings, I could manage it very well. Now, I've been playing about 5 years and I lead/teach a sizeable group of 25 players at the resort we live in during winter.

My efforts now are into finding more creative arrangements for group players. Multi-part arrangements, maybe some added instruments like a box drum or conga, etc.

Family bought me a banjo when I retired five years ago. Never played music since high school trombone training which I never did understand. Couldn't find a banjo teacher but picked up a leaflet for ukulele beginners class. Off to the big box music store with a few ukes. Strummed them but couldn't tell the difference. Wow a Fender. Every man should own a Fender someday. The Fender worked, I learned. Now I have a herd of ukes with a miM Martin leading. Know enough about music now to start trying to learn the banjo on my own.

A couple of years ago I picked up a solid cedar top Kala because I absolutely loved the sound. I'd never played before and quickly discovered it was way too big for my hands. All the stretching gave me trigger fingers as well.

Fast forward: had surgery on my hands and decided recently to try a concert. I'm a little more frustrated learning the music theory, circle of five, etc, than practicing chords, but it will come I guess. As I'm learning better on the concert I'm finding I can stretch better on the tenor. Picked up a cheap soprano someone was selling on letgo last week, and am practicing some on that to see if the stretch will go better from the soprano to the concert. It's so much easier to hit the chords on the soprano.

I find I can pick out part of "Dueling Banjos." Only through the first few bars, but getting smoother. I love bluegrass and banjos, so want to get on one of those to fingerpick. Wish me luck!

As a kid, I played organ and piano. I learned basic guitar in college. When I was on vacation in Hawaii, there was a free ukulele class at the resort i was staying at. It was fun and easy since I had some guitar knowledge. I recognized that the chords were all the same as guitar, but 5 frets up. I bought a cheap Lanikai concert at a shop in Lahaina. I brought it home and played a bit. I learned a few songs. Then I set it down and didn't play for a couple of years. I kept it in my RV. One day I was camping at my favorite nudist resort that I frequent and I heard people playing ukulele nearby. I wandered over and watched. They weren't playing anything difficult, so I asked if I could join in. I grabbed my uke and had no trouble keeping up. That was 3 years ago and we still play frequently. Meanwhile, I've gotten significantly better. I'm also the lead male singer (since I can sing on key). I had never sung in front of people before this group. We've performed a few times at the resort. The lead female singer and I get together often to work out the songs and to practice harmonies. It's been a fun ride so far! For me, playing with others makes all the difference. I'll play alone now, but it's more practice for the songs I play with the group. I"m not sure if I would have picked up the uke again if it weren't for the group.