Kibes37
Well-known member
I was drawn to the Uke for its tone, size, comfort and portability over a guitar. I played guitar on and off for about 7 yrs and NEVER made what I consider very good progress. No joke, I am ten times better on Uke in 3 months. A lot because of the awkwardness of the acoustic guitar size for me personally. I’m 6’2 with large hands. I have unusual inflexibility. I’m 37 and finally working on that. Still terrible. So to hold a guitar on my lap level was very uncomfortable with bar chords. There’s also the fact I was not looking to hold a guitar neck up classically with the bottom sitting in my lap. Reaching around under the neck in the standard position and applying a good amount of pressure was no fun. So, I proceeded to try as my practice sesh times dwindled. Till around year 5 my guitar playing got really sparse.
I still had this passion for a stringed instrument laying dormant till I walked in on my wife playing a Uke one day. I laughed at first. Side note: It seems like a lot of people rarely have experienced a tuned Uke which adds to the “Toy” perspective. Up until that day, my experience had been grabbing someone’s “wall art” Uke, strumming, laughing and quickly putting it back and thinking “damn guitars are better”. Back to my point. So I chuckled and went about my day unwinding from work. However, as I sat in the kitchen the little Uke called to my subconscious as she strummed and picked about. As mentioned in a previous NUD, I picked up a cheap Uke the next day and the rest is history. Life changed. Passion reignited. After that I read and inhaled YouTube videos on all things Ukes. I had decided on the concert size, because I needed a little more room, but I wanted small as possible. I had no interest in tenors because that in my mind was getting too close to the guitar and too far from the Uke sound that pulled me in. I also thought “smaller the better for comfort and portability. I can do everything I’ll ever want playing style wise on a concert. Best of all worlds. I can play in so many different places and positions and it’s even cooler to do it on a smaller instrument.”
Well, I just ordered a cheap ass tenor off amazon to explore the size. Kinda bummed it’s drawing me in when I was so content in my concert size. For a lot of reasons I WANT that size to work the best. I am realizing now with my new obsession growing I want to be able to utilize the lower frets as much as possible. I can’t for the life of me find a video of a pro, ripping the styles I prefer on a concert. Tenors for me, unfortunately look like they are gonna be mandatory for true range. I’m also aware of Super concert models. That’s a whole other can of worms. Not sure I like the balance going on there.
I’m sure people will laugh to themselves, thinking UAS strikes again. It’s really not an excuse to get more Ukes as I’m in no denial about acquiring any Uke I desire within monetary reach. I just look at the guitar and think how ridiculous their size is now. Some tenors look cool to me... about 10%. We’ll see, probably a lot more annoying tenor posts coming
P.s. Why not be happy with both sizes, right? I’m worried I will stop playing concerts much and go with a size I don’t prefer that’s much more capable of playing the deeper intrumental and percussive styles I now want to play. Then I will have no justification for my concerts price tags. I’m not the type to keep Ukes that are not in heavy rotation.
Thanks for taking the time to read my pleasurable dilemma.
I still had this passion for a stringed instrument laying dormant till I walked in on my wife playing a Uke one day. I laughed at first. Side note: It seems like a lot of people rarely have experienced a tuned Uke which adds to the “Toy” perspective. Up until that day, my experience had been grabbing someone’s “wall art” Uke, strumming, laughing and quickly putting it back and thinking “damn guitars are better”. Back to my point. So I chuckled and went about my day unwinding from work. However, as I sat in the kitchen the little Uke called to my subconscious as she strummed and picked about. As mentioned in a previous NUD, I picked up a cheap Uke the next day and the rest is history. Life changed. Passion reignited. After that I read and inhaled YouTube videos on all things Ukes. I had decided on the concert size, because I needed a little more room, but I wanted small as possible. I had no interest in tenors because that in my mind was getting too close to the guitar and too far from the Uke sound that pulled me in. I also thought “smaller the better for comfort and portability. I can do everything I’ll ever want playing style wise on a concert. Best of all worlds. I can play in so many different places and positions and it’s even cooler to do it on a smaller instrument.”
Well, I just ordered a cheap ass tenor off amazon to explore the size. Kinda bummed it’s drawing me in when I was so content in my concert size. For a lot of reasons I WANT that size to work the best. I am realizing now with my new obsession growing I want to be able to utilize the lower frets as much as possible. I can’t for the life of me find a video of a pro, ripping the styles I prefer on a concert. Tenors for me, unfortunately look like they are gonna be mandatory for true range. I’m also aware of Super concert models. That’s a whole other can of worms. Not sure I like the balance going on there.
I’m sure people will laugh to themselves, thinking UAS strikes again. It’s really not an excuse to get more Ukes as I’m in no denial about acquiring any Uke I desire within monetary reach. I just look at the guitar and think how ridiculous their size is now. Some tenors look cool to me... about 10%. We’ll see, probably a lot more annoying tenor posts coming
P.s. Why not be happy with both sizes, right? I’m worried I will stop playing concerts much and go with a size I don’t prefer that’s much more capable of playing the deeper intrumental and percussive styles I now want to play. Then I will have no justification for my concerts price tags. I’m not the type to keep Ukes that are not in heavy rotation.
Thanks for taking the time to read my pleasurable dilemma.
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