I tried, but it's just not for me...

ItsAMeCasey

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Hey guys, so I've been borrowing my cousin's acoustic guitar for the past couple months or so, and I've been trying to learn. However, I just don't feel that 'connection' that I feel with the ukulele. Don't get me wrong, I love listening to guitar. I just don't think it's the instrument for me. I started on ukulele and I think i'm gonna stick to only ukulele. Anyone else on UU that tried to pick up the guitar but just didn't feel the 'connection'?
 
I came from guitar to the uke due to my illness, as I found it to difficult to hold. Since playing the uke I can honestly say that I too never had the same connection that I have with my Ukes, it's so much more tactile, and just seems soo right. I still have my guitars but they are now just ornaments.
 
Hey guys, so I've been borrowing my cousin's acoustic guitar for the past couple months or so, and I've been trying to learn. However, I just don't feel that 'connection' that I feel with the ukulele. Don't get me wrong, I love listening to guitar. I just don't think it's the instrument for me. I started on ukulele and I think i'm gonna stick to only ukulele. Anyone else on UU that tried to pick up the guitar but just didn't feel the 'connection'?

Funny, I had the exact same experience. I started on the 'ukulele and thought that I'd give the guitar a go. So, about two months ago I bought my buddy's Yamaha G40 classical guitar for $40. I toyed with it for a few weeks then just gave it up and sold it back to him. It just wasn't for me. Maybe in the future I'll try again, but just like you said, there simply wasn't that "connection" that I feel with my uke.
 
I feel the same way. I have my dad's old archtop Kay from the 50's and it just feels wierd. It's so big and bulky and the strings are so close together. It's also not as easy to fly up and down the fretboard and do half the techniques you can do on the uke.
 
I played guitar for 20 years. Picked up a ukulele and liked it. Then very quickly thought, "Finally!"
 
I've got 2 really nice acoustic guitars, a Yamaha and a Dean and they're both collecting dust. I may end up selling them to feed my UAS.
 
Well I was never one for rock n' roll or chord\tabs on guitar. it always just seemed to be too much work.

I have become a classical guitarist fover the last 4 years, and love it, it's a very personal and satisfying journey for me.

However I always felt handicapped by not playing any popular music, but now with the UKE it's my chance to explore that part of music, chords, songs etc... and to sing.


So my plan is to continue to study classical guitar seriously, and use a lot of the technique with the uke, but play more contemporary music although I also plan to do some serious pieces including the famous Bach Cello prelude which I already do on guitar and is available in John King's book of classical Uke.

The way I see it it is the best of both worlds and a great way to "cross train" between the two instruments.
 
I came at it from the opposite direction...guitar player for 20 years before I discovered the uke, now I rarely pick up the 6 string. I find the uke is the most beautiful instrument in the world, and by far the one that is most sympathetic to the singing voice. Would have sold off my two guitars long before now, were they not gifts from my parents and have a lot of sentimental value to me...
 
GOt one in the corner, played it for a month and then decided it ought to just collect dust...no connection at all to playing it for me
 
I started with ukulele and moved to guitar, but, I have played both since the 1960s which officially makes me a fossil. :)

Here is my observation: Some tunes are better played on a guitar and some are better of ukulele. I have written a lot of songs specifically for guitar and some specifically for ukulele, but, it is all a matter of where the creativity flows. I don't limit myself. So, I play a lot of different instruments...

guitar, ukulele, bass, mandolin, tiple, bow psaltery, renaissance flute, pennywhistle, keyboard, bongos, bodhran, harmonica, tenor guitar. It's all about the right tool for the job.
 
I kinda started on guitar if you can call music lessons at school occasionally involving a guitar and my best friend and carer wanted to learn guitar and from there I wanted to as well, but like you, found the connection was better for me with my little Ukulele and I haven't looked back since!
 
Well I used to bash a guitar about twenty years ago, but never think of it now - I'm not a big bloke and it's too much like being sat behind the furniture. Still think of my banjos now an again but I rarely play anymore, not really comfortable with the weight. I get more pleasure from my uke than I ever got from either guitar or banjo. I still like a good blast on a harmonica though.
 
I've played guitar and bass for years. Since picking up the uke about a year ago I've hardly touched my guitars and only play the bass because I do so in a band.
 
I tried to play the guitar when I was about 14, didn't stick with it very long. Fast forward about 14 years and I decided I wanted to learn the uke. So now I have a few to strum and pick. I think I have picked up a guitar since but still don't feel the connection.
 
I have tried guitar a few times in the past, but never really got on with it and stuck to wind instruments. Once I started going to folk clubs and singing, I felt some songs need accompaniment although I quite happily sing unaccompanied. I tried concertina - expensive but I love it - but singing while playing it is surprisingly difficult though I have managed to work up a few songs. Then I saw an notice for a beginners uke workshop in the programme for the Sage in Gateshead so I booked up and found I made reasonable progress, bought a clunker, put it aside for a while, picked it up again, changed the strings and I was away.

I still love my recorders, flute, harmonicas and concertina but the uke has definitely filled a gap for me and it works really well for accompanying singing.
 
glad to see many of you are in the same boat as me! Actually the tuba was my primary instrument up until I graduated from high school, and I felt a great connection to it. However, after highschool I didn't have an ensemble to play in and the only instrument I had around my house was an ukulele. The rest they say is history!
 
I sold my guitar. I felt no connection there, don't miss it. The uke does it for me, I don't care to learn any other instrument now. I love listening to just about all stringed instruments, but I'll stick with playing the uke.
 
Hey! I am a triangle virtuoso..

The uke is a lot easier to play than a guitar so it is natural to gravitate towards it, most people just don't have the time to mess around with more than one instrument. The beauty of the recent ukulele revolution is that it has made music a lot more accessible to a lot more people because the uke is relatively easy yo get a start on, and they can be made for a low purchase price.
A challenge once you have mastered a lot of chords and can strum and sing along with ease, is to move on musically. You can do this playing a uke by learning more about music, moving up the fretboard and so on. And the greats like Herb Ohta have demonstrated, you can spend your whole life mastering the uke. So you can easily justify leaving your guitar behind.
One thing to avoid though, is to avoid facing the reality that other instruments are harder to play and that they can do more or different things musically than a ukulele. In a band or an orchestra the tune is created by all the instruments, even a triangle, each with its own part, and if you only know ukulele players, maybe you would get a lot of benefit from joining some other musicians instead of being xenophobic about your uke playing. The hard part of joining the other musicians is doing the work required to develop the same skill level/respect that they have when playing your ukulele, but it is probably worth it.
..well, at least when I played one at a gig at Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival a few years ago, I had a couple of young girls waiting backstage to meet the "triangle player" :)
 
I come from guitar and I continue to connect with my guitars - nothing lost there. So I play both. I've bought another couple of guitars since I started to play the ukulele.
Pippin said:
Here is my observation: Some tunes are better played on a guitar and some are better of ukulele.
Exactly.
And when just fooling around with the instruments there are things you can do on a guitar which can't really be done with 4 strings and re-entrant tuning. So I keep switching.

In fact switching between them makes it more inspiring to play both, in my experience.

-Tor
 
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